People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
Andrew Carnegie
If you want to excel in life, self motivation is essential. You must know how to motivate yourself. You must be able to keep your spirit high no matter how discouraging a situation is. That’s the only way to get the power you need to overcome difficulties. Those who are discouraged in difficult times are certain to lose even before the battle is over.
The question is: how do you motivate yourself? Here are several tips I’ve found to be effective to build self motivation:
1. Have a cause
I can’t think of a more powerful source of motivation than a cause you care about. Such cause can inspire you to give your best even in the face of difficulties. It can make you do the seemingly impossible things.
While other causes could inspire you temporarily, a cause that matters to you can inspire you indefinitely. It’s a spring of motivation that will never dry. Whenever you think that you run out of motivation, you can always come to your cause to get a fresh dose of motivation.
2. Have a dream. A big dream.
Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.
Karen Ravn
Your cause is a powerful source of motivation but it’s still abstract in nature. You need to make it concrete in the form of a dream. Imagine how the world will be in the future. Imagine how people will live and work.
Having a dream is important because it’s difficult to be motivated if you don’t have anything to shoot for. Just think about people who play basketball. Will they be motivated to play if there is no basket to aim at? I don’t think so. They need a goal. You need a goal. That’s what your dream is for.
But just having a dream is insufficient. Your dream must be big enough to inspire you. It must be realistic but challenging. It must stretch your ability beyond your comfort zone.
3. Be hungry
Wanting something is not enough. You must hunger for it. Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.
Les Brown
To be truly motivated, you need to have hunger and not just desire. Having mere desire won’t take you through difficult times since you don’t want things badly enough. In many cases, hunger makes the difference between the best performers and the mediocre ones.
How can you have hunger? Your cause and your dream play a big role here. If you have a cause you care about and a big dream related to it, you should have the hunger inside of you. If you think that you are losing hunger, all you need to do is to connect again to your cause and dream. Let them inspire you and bring the hunger back.
4. Run your own race
I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Comparing yourself with others is an effective way to demotivate yourself. Even if you start with enthusiasm, you will soon lose your energy when you compare yourself with others.
Don’t let that happen to you. You have your own race so how other people perform is irrelevant. Comparing yourself with others is like comparing the performance of a swimmer with a runner using the same time standard. They are different so how can you compare one with the other?
The only competitor you have is yourself. The only one you need to beat is you. Have you become the best you can be?
5. Take one more step
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston Churchill
When you meet obstacles along the way, there could be the tendency to quit. You may think that it’s too difficult to move on. You may think that your dream is impossible to achieve. But this is where you can see the difference between winners and losers. Though both of them face the same difficulties, there is one thing that makes the winners different: the courage to continue.
In difficult situations, just focus on taking one more step forward. Don’t think about how to complete the race. Don’t think about how many more obstacles are waiting for you. Just focus on taking the next step.
6. Let go of the past
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Believe it or not, one of the best demotivators is your past. Your past can drag you down before you realize it. Your past can give you a heavy burden on your shoulders.
The good news is it’s a burden you don’t have to carry. Take it off your shoulder and leave it. You might make mistakes in the past. You might disappoint others with what you did. But it’s over. It’s already in the past and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Today is a new day and you have the chance to start again. No matter how bad your past might be, you still have a bright future ahead waiting for you. Just don’t let the burden of the past stop you.
***
Apply these tips and motivate yourself. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Let your self motivation take you to excellence.
This article is part of October 2008 theme: Winning Attitude
Photo by bingbing
hi!am Bhavna,am in hsc(higher school certificate),i have worked quite well in my last exams,but now it is eve of exams i dont find any motivation to study!!help me out i have tried all types of motivation;;screensaver,motivational songs,counselling but none of them worked out!
hi bhavna ..see wat u need to do is make out first wats ur goal iss nd how much hard work u need for that …and thn think that u r on the position ..like if u wanna be a doctor thn start assuming ur slf as a doctor ..thn u’ll really reliase ur goal ..nd i m sure it will work ..
gud luck ….
I made my blog about motivation. I really like it so much in creating blog. I try hard but I don’t get any idea how to make it interesting. Everyday checking on my blog not even a small tiny progress. Now I try so hard to gain my motivation back, but it seems so hard. Please help me guys!! Thanks
i really liked d above article written by andrew..it hlpd me alot to motivate myslf.m thanful to hv dis article.
I want to feel me again. i feel i am here for more than i am doing. i want to make a difference in other peoples lifes and help others . i want to be at the weight i am suppose to and feel good about me so i wont concentrate so hard on me.I want to make a difference in others and never quit caring about other people
I enjoyed the article Posted by Donald Latumahina. its quite motivational. thank you.
Confidence is important, but more important to maintain confidence!
I like the ideas presented here for Motivation, especially the one about ‘letting go of the past’. Personally, this is the biggie of moving forward toward my big dream.
Thanks so much. I think what did it for me was identifying the dream. All the other points are important as well. I just have to focus and narrow in.
Thanks again.
Initially,i thought that i’m just an idiotic fool but gradually i realized that i have a dream which is quite enormous and i wanted to make it realistic.I really wanted to pass my examination in flying colours in spite that i’m sitting for SPM in 2012 and wanted to motivate myself.
this is an awesome article .. great motivator !!
Hmmm… I was formerly having problem with convincing myself if actually am good or better than †?? next person and this is greatly making me feel they are better! But with this ‘Don’t learn ??? dance better than †?? next person but better than Urself’ makes me stronger and believe ??? take on †?? whole world in all I do now. .*•.¸( *•.¸?¸.•*´)¸.•*.
«´¨`°•.? †?ª??’s ?.•°´¨`»
¸.•* (¸.•*´?`*•.,)`*•. So Much
Thanks.It was a very helpful and encouraging article.
This article was a bunch of help thanks
Very good points, but from my experience as a life coach, helping people realize their life dreams, one can not overlook the powerful impact of ones’ “FAITH” and the impact that faith can have in one’s life, and self motivation pursuits.
If you look at the the really successful people in the world, apart from a strong driving will to succeed, people also have to have the faith that they will rise above and overcome. As a Christian believer in the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior and Lord of my life; Philippians 4:13 can do everything through him who gives me strength.
Develop the faith that only God can provide in your self motivation pursuits of accomplishing your God given talents and abilities in life.
Remember: Your Ability is only limited by your inability to take action…
motivation is key. at 76 years old i started writing a blog. at first it was hard to get started. now i’m blogging everyday. my motivation is that i don’t want to brain die. im afraid if i stop using it i’ll lose it. now i look forward to finding topics to write about. stop by my page and tell me what you think. buddyscott.wordpress.com
hi. im sepide . 30 years old. single. studying psychology at MA degree. i have passed a hard period of depression and now, after all those hard days, i have no hope to continue my studies, work, life, … . i wake up everyday and do the chores but i expect nothing special to happen, sure i mean sth positive. my counseler adviced me to read the articles about self motivation, so im here now.what u have said is nice but not practical for me. u know even if u tell me tomorrow im going to start my new life in heaven with whatever i wish, i have no feeling about it.nothing makes me happy. can u help me please?