How do you stay motivated?

SurferdudeHB

I'm currently studying for the SIP school cert and I'm having a lot of difficulties staying consistent with my studies. I'm already 10 years into my voice engineer career and I guess not that excited to study anymore.

I took me over 3 years to get my CCNA and not sure how I can keep myself motivated to pass this SIP school cert.

Phileeeeeeep651

Honest question, do you really want to get the cert?

A year ago I got pretty burnt out from the Cert/Study grind. I was working on my CCNP, at a job that didn't have much upward mobility, and the other networking gigs in my area were somewhat nonexistent. I decided to just take a break from it all. I explored a different career field (software dev) and while I don't really recommend this, it really helped me focus on what it was that I wanted. Now I'm back in the networking field, back to CCNP, and hungry for more.

Moral of the story is, I think it's okay to take a break every once in a while and refocus.

Jon_Cisco

You definitely need breaks but it also helps to have a goal or timeline.

If you say you are going to get your CCNP the best thing to do is book one of the test. If there is no date there is no urgency. If these are personal goals I suggest you take a realistic look at how much time you want to commit. Planning two hours a day for something you don't want is going to be impossible. Planning 30 minutes might work just fine.

The best shot at staying motivated is picking things you actually want. That will get you started. Every once in a while you will have to suck it up and grind out some hard work even if your not motivated. Then you need to research methods for staying focus.

Not motivated - won't read
Not focused - won't remember

ecuison

Everyone has different perspectives on motivation for themselves. My motivation is my family that depend on me to secure their necessities. Before the end of the year, I am hoping to pass 2 additional certs along with the (ISC)2 CCSP I passed last July. I told my wife, I would stop my certs endevour for a while. But almost pushing 40, I found that I am highly motivated to go back and do my Masters in Cyber Security, and or start the AWS Solutions Architect track both of which my amazing wife is totally 1005 backing me on.

Whatever your motivation, stay focused and you'll get there. Don't burn yourself out either. A lot of my originial motivation is to spend as much time as I can with my family. So I take long lunch breaks, and every opportunity to go to my son's school events or awards ceramony's, long family vacations, etc...

Good luck, and hopefully, this is just a sign for you to take a breather, and come back when your refreshed and recharged, and hungry for what you want!

ansionnachcliste

Jon_Cisco wrote: »

Not motivated - won't read
Not focused - won't remember

I love this part and can totally relate.

Nice one!

Pseudonymous

I don't have any friends that are into IT that I consistently talk to and none of my family are into IT so I totally understand the struggle of staying motivated.

It's not hard for me to get started studying for a new certification or learning something new, but when I feel like I'm not understanding it no matter how hard I try, I tend to slow down a lot or even stop for a while because I get so frustrated that I haven't figured it out. I've learned that skipping that section and coming back to it later helps instead of trying to force myself to study it until I feel like I get it, but even then just staying motivated when you're doing it alone is hard.

I just have to keep reminding myself to keep going. Even if I'm not moving as fast I want, the fact that I'm trying and not giving up will pay off later. This forum really helped me too. Reading stories about others who are going through the same thing and all of us motivating each other to keep going and sharing resources and knowledge... this has helped me stay grounded and focused.

I suppose the #1 thing that keep me motivated is my desire to be successful. I'm a high school drop out and I made a lot of bad choices when I was younger. If I fail, I have no one to fall back on so I keep pushing and stay focused on my goals. Still have a long way to go before I'm exactly where I want to be career wise, but I've already seen how much my hard work has paid off so that helps me to stay motivated as well.

coextending

I use external factors like my finace. Or escaping my current living situation.