How to Motivate Yourself - Success Strategies to Keep You on Track - All of the Time
January 20, 2009
Learning to stay motivated and on track can make the difference between your success and failure when you are pursuing a goal or dream. When you are highly motivated you find yourself doing whatever it takes to get the job done, despite any discomfort you may encounter. When your motivation is not so high you are apt to make excuses to yourself and others explaining why you can't succeed.
Your job is to discover ways to keep yourself motivated. You may find yourself motivated to take action toward your dreams by a dynamic public speaker or a well-written book, but that motivation is frequently short-lived. Without repeated exposure to the book or the speaker, your reasons for being motivated begin to fade into the background noise of your everyday life. You simply return to your comfort zone.
This is what many people do. They get a big burst of motivation and take some action, but they don't renew that motivation and it starts to slide and diminish. As the motivating factors become less and less important to you, you are less and less willing to put up with any discomfort or challenges. It becomes easier for you to give up.
When your motivation levels go up and down like this you will find it difficult to make consistent progress toward your dreams.
The only true, dependable form of motivation is motivation that comes from within - self motivation. You have to motivate yourself. You have to decide that your goal or dream is more important than whatever challenge or discomfort you are facing. You learn to act in spite of the challenges.
Here are a few tips to help you maintain that level of motivation.
- Have a powerful why - Motivating yourself to take action is easy when you have a strong enough reason for reaching a goal. A burning desire to achieve something will cause you to take much different action than a wish or a hope will.
- Keep you dream in sight - If you focus too intently on the steps between you and your dream you will find yourself getting sidetracked by perceived problems and challenges. Try to keep your eyes on the result that you want to create. This will make it easier for you to stay focused on the important things.
- Focus on your dream throughout your day - tape reminders or pictures of your goal on your bathroom mirror or on your refrigerator. Carry a card with your goals written on it with you at all times. Get creative!
Keeping yourself motivated becomes easier the more you practice it and the more strongly you are attached to succeeding. You can learn to create change in any area of your life once you understand and apply these success strategies.
Achieving Success
January 14, 2009
Success: an event that accomplishes its intended purpose. That's a definition, but to me a very boring one. I brush my teeth every morning, which accomplishes its intended purpose. But do I feel that I have achieved success because of that? No, not really.
I perceive success as something much more than that; success should engender some emotion when achieved. Achieving success should make you want to jump off your seat, rush to tell somebody what you've done, make you feel elated, sometimes relieved if you've been pursuing that success for a long time. But, like many of the subjects in this web site, it is a very individual perception. What is success to one may be mundane to another. What is a minor achievement for one may be a major success to somebody else.
When you think about success, you think about relative achievements in your own world. Each element of your world, in which you wish to achieve success, is important to you, and there is no need to make comparisons with others in their worlds. You cannot affect the success of others; you can affect your own success. The Achieving Success section of this website will, I hope, help you to do just that.
Success is very much achievable to everybody. Believe that and you have taken the first step. If you do not believe in yourself, then tackling that self esteem is your first task. However, initial belief in your ability to achieve whatever it is you want to succeed in, is an essential if you are not to be hampered by self doubt throughout your journey to success.
There are many things that will affect your ability to succeed, and it is those under your immediate control that it is best to focus on. Once you do that, then the characteristics you develop can be applied to becoming successful in a range of activities and pursuits.
What is important to you is that you, as you start to reach milestones in your ambitions, you appreciate your own achievements. It is a boost, of course, if others appreciate what you have done too, but appreciating yourself will strengthen your self belief, and reinforce your determination to succeed.
Some of the key characteristics you will find in those who are successful are perseverance, prepared to research, plan and work hard, practice a lot even when things do not seem to be going well, and an ability to recover and learn from setbacks. At the outset of whatever it is you are try to succeed in, a strong vision of your future, planning, and setting yourself achievable targets can all play an important role.
If you feel you do not naturally have all those characteristics, then do not despair. Each of them can be accomplished by your own application. You can use meditation and visualization techniques to initiate your vision, and they can certainly be learnt both for that purpose and for each step you take to reach your goals. Setting goals and objectives can be a personal or business technique that can be learnt. You can develop inner strength to succeed if you apply yourself to doing just that; that will enable you to recover from setbacks more easily.
All these attributes, skills and characteristics can be learnt developed. But it is up to you to get things started. Those who do not start travel nowhere. For others, life can be a continuous journey of fulfillment.
Self-improvement statistics guide in decision-making.
January 11, 2009
That’s just one problem. You might have unreasonable demands placed upon you. You have to work really long hours to get anywhere. The paths to promotion may be blocked. You can’t get to where you want to be because of the view that people have of you, your experience, or your performance in the job.
Maybe a little self-improvement will help you out with that problem. You should know how to appreciate your job if you want to succeed in life.
If you are always late to your job, maybe it will become the reason for your termination. Why don’t you try to wake up early or if you’re always experiencing traffic, try to find other route. Self-improvement of your habits will help you succeed.
There might be criticism leveled against you that isn’t just. There could be too much politics or backstabbing, you have to grease the right palms to get ahead. The job may just not be what you expected. You were promised one thing, but it turned into something else.
One thing that you should do about backstabbing is always retain your temper at the right level. Don’t try to argue with your officemates of it will be another reason for firing you.
You have to get to the root of what is causing your unhappiness about where you are and what you’re currently doing. The easiest way is The Five Whys. Ask, “Why?” five times.
“Oh, I’m not happy.” Well, why? “Because I got passed for a promotion.” Why was that? “Because they didn’t value the project I was working on.” Why not? “Because management changed and they changed the objectives.” Well, why was that? You really sort of drill down to the root cause and find out what the problem really is.
Once you decide that you need a change - that's where the real fun begins. How to go about finding a new job or change careers completely.
There’s another way of looking at, the Top Ten Signs That You Need a New Job. It’s a bit like a Letterman Top Ten. They’re a bit tongue-in-cheek, but there’s a bit of truth in all of them.
10: You’re outgo exceeds your income. You just need more money.
9: The most rewarding thing you did this week was sharpen all 12 of your pencils to the same length.
8: You’re reluctant to be a Career Day speaker at your kid’s fourth grade class.
7: Everyone in your workgroup got a raise except you.
5: You were late for work three times this week, but you don’t care.
4: There’s a meeting at 3:00 to talk about the upcoming reorganization, but you’re not invited.
3: Your boss keeps forgetting your name.
2: You constantly daydream about being a forest ranger.
1: Your company was recently acquired and you spent two weeks worry that you’d be laid off. After that, you worried that you wouldn’t be.
Remember, finding a new job nowadays is really hard. So, before you decided to look for another job, always resolve your problems with your current job. Self-improvement will really help you in that.