Did you know that by utilising a simple and proven formula you can become successful beyond your wildest dreams?
Success is not bestowed on a particular group of lucky or talented people. Anyone can become as successful as they want to be — including you.
What it takes to be successful doesn’t depend on your life circumstances, your level of education, your financial situation, where you live, or even how you grew up.
Successful people have faced many negative circumstances in their life; many have come from a troubled and dysfunctional family, from alcoholic or abusive parents, others lived in a rough neighbourhood, had no or lacked education, and yet, because they all followed a time and again proven formula they were able to rise above their circumstances, change their thinking and attitude and were able to reach their dreams.
If you want to achieve success, if you want to have unlimited wealth, if you want personal freedom, it is imperative that you follow this simple, yet powerful and proven formula for success.
If you want to achieve your goals and become successful, you have better learn all that you can; open your mind to learn what it takes to be successful.
What is the proven success formula?
Simple: “Apply the Principles of Success.”
And always keep in mind: “True power lies under the real simplicity”.
This powerful formula guarantees your success simply because the principles that you are about to learn are the same and they always work.
Why?
All successful people have used this formula over and over again.
And the beauty of this is that success leaves clues, and these clues are timeless success principles. They will only work for you if you adopt one, just one simple single condition: “Principles always work if you work the principles”.
You must apply these principles, you must apply this formula; put it into action.
Action makes all the difference.
Successful people believe in principles, in formulas, in blueprints, and so they persevere until they see the outcomes they are seeking.
Keep practicing the formula until it works for you. It needs practice until you get positive results.
Success principles, and success formulas, always work if you work them.
What it takes to be successful is simple. Follow the same principles, the same rules, and the same formula that has been used by numerous successful people all around the world.
Start living the life of your dreams by adopting the same proven formula as the most successful people in the world.
PART 1: What It Takes To Be Successful: What Is Success?
Let’s start with knowing what success is before we dive into what it takes to be successful.
Simply put, success is the achievement of a pre-set goal; it is the realisation and attainment of a desire or an intent. There are simple successes, such as arriving on time for work or a doctor’s appointment, or it could be something more important, such as completing a sales presentation and being on time for an interview.
“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.” -Jim Rohn
The thing is, success cannot be measured or even achieved unless there’s a specific goal or intent that you have set for yourself.
Success is a perception that varies from one person to the other; what you deem as a success may not be one for your partner or spouse, yet it is something we all strive for.
How does success make you feel?
Surely it makes you feel proud, it fills you with excitement and exhilaration, and it encompasses you with a sense of achievement, a feeling of enjoyment and delight — a sense of personal freedom.
Isn’t that enough reason for you to want to become successful?
69 percent of U.S. entrepreneurs start their businesses at home.
What Does Success Look Like To You
A quick and fun exercise to do. Imagine what success and personal freedom looks like for you.
Is success having a high-paying career, is it making a profit for the first time in your business, is it having the money to put your children through college, is it going on that dream vacation, is it being not ever worrying about money again?
Close your eyes briefly and casually identify what you consider to be your top 10 (or less) successes. Have fun with it.
What It Takes To Be Successful: There is No Right or Wrong Way to Be Successful
While there is no right or wrong way to be successful (ethically), there are steps that you can take to achieve what you deem as success centred on how you define success and what is the outcome you aim to accomplish.
You see, to achieve your definition of success you will need to put in some effort; in other words, you will need to take action.
How much action you will need to take depends on your success mindset.
Some successful people seem to take very little action, whilst others work very hard and they achieve little to no success. Why that is depends on many things: the goals they set (do they really want that goal), do they work hard or smart, and do they have beliefs that work against that goal or intent, and more.
When I asked you to imagine what success looks like for you, I want you to take a minute or two and ask yourself if the successes that you desire are yours (or your spouse’s or your parents’).
Are they successes that will improve your life and the lives of those surrounding you?
If you answered Yes, that’s great. If you answered no, you will need to revisit your goals before you get on the journey to fulfil them.
What It Takes To Be Successful: You Need Goals
When you sit in your car and turn on the engine, do you have a place in mind where you intend to go? If you do, that place is your goal. When you get there you achieved success.
When you pick up your credit card to make a payment for an item, that’s your goal. When you completed the purchasing process and received the confirmation email, you were successful at purchasing the item.
You measure success by achieving the predetermined goal.
The predetermined goal could be in all areas of life.
These statistics may be of interest to you:
Reason for starting a business:
Ready to be his/her own boss: 26 percent;
Wanted to pursue his/her passion: 23 percent;
The opportunity presented itself: 19 percent;
Dissatisfied with corporate America: 12 percent;
Laid off or outsourced: 6 percent;
Not ready to retire: 6 percent;
Other: 5 percent;
A life event such as divorce, death, etc.: 3 percent.
Source: Small Business TRENDS
When you set goals it is often better to start with more achievable or realistic ones before moving on to the more challenging ones. This way you increase your beliefs in the method (that it works), and you have more confidence in yourself that you can actually achieve the goals you set.
What it takes to be successful need not be too hard once you have a formula, one that has been proven to work.
Bear in mind that, although the formula has been proven to work time and again, you still need to take ‘smart’ action; in some cases massive ‘smart’ action.
Work smart. That’s what it takes to be successful!
Why work smart?
One way of working smart is to actually believe in the goal you want to achieve. If you are working towards a goal that you don’t genuinely believe in, your subconscious mind will block you and will sabotage you from achieving it.
You will work harder. You will work longer. You will feel frustrated and angry. You will take it out on those around you.
Result?
Goal not achieved!
Why?
You didn’t truly want it.
The flip side to this is that you may truly want it, but despite your best efforts, your subconscious mind blocked you from achieving it. For example, if your goal is to be successful and wealthy, you may truly want it, but your subconscious mind prevents you from being successful and wealthy.
What It Takes To Be Successful: Your Highest Priority
Thinking about your dreams, aspirations and desires, what are (or is) your highest priority in life right now?
Until you answer this important question, you will find you are living on ‘automatic’; allowing life and circumstances to control or be at the wheel of your life. In other words, your life goals will be completely off purposes; with no direction.
When you are off purpose, with no specific objective or course, you will fail to bring into your life, you will fail to attract, the resources to take you there. You will not attract the right circumstances, the people, the books, the seminars, the ‘being at the right place at the right time’.
None of these will happen unless you are clear about your highest priority.
Here are 6 steps to help you discover your highest priority goal:
1. What are the most pressing issues for you right now?
Are you happy in your current job? Happy with the income? Do you want to find another high-paying job? Do you want to start your own business? Do you want to get married? Do you want to relocate to a safer neighbourhood? What hobby do you thoroughly enjoy that you want to teach to others as a workshop to bring in more money?
Or is your pressing issue something intangible, such as you want to increase your self-esteem?
Of all those, and others that are personal to you, pick your top 10 (or less).
2. Are these your goals or someone else’s?
Consider the 10 (or less) priority goals that you listed, and spend some time confirming whether these goals are your own choice or someone is ‘making’ you do them. For example, my parents always wanted me to be a proofreader (to read other people’s content to find errors and mark the corrections).
I studied a couple of courses on proofreading, yet I hated it.
Did I set prof-reading as a goal?
Yes.
Did I become a proofreader?
No.
This goal was not my choice. I didn’t go for it. I wasn’t motivated to continue with it.
I often questioned if I was being selfish by not going for it and striving for what I wanted instead. After much deliberation, I conclusively decided, NO! I was not being selfish.
What happiness can I spread to others if I haven’t given it to myself first?
Now, decide on that one goal that you are making your priority. Take your time. By the way, it’s not set in stone; you can change it if you want.
3. Do you truly desire this goal?
Do you leap out of bed every day to take action toward your goal, or do you find yourself half-heartedly taking action?
You are by far more apt to achieve your priority goal if it consumes you with excitement; if it devours you with joy.
Listen attentively to your heart. It knows what you desire the most.
Be totally and unequivocally passionate about your goal. This passion, coupled with relentless and unyielding motivation, will be your driving force to completion; to the attainment of your priority goal.
4. Are you settling for less than what you truly desire?
Have you decided to accept less than what you really, well and truly, desire out of life? Have you decided to settle for less than what you want out of this life?
Stop there!
You can make your life goal a priority and chunk it down to bite-size milestones. More about that later. The point here is to NOT accept and go for anything less than what you ultimately desire in life.
There’s no need to compromise and sacrifice your ultimate dream to the grave.
Anything less than living what you truly want, want you are passionate about, will actually never make you happy in the long term. Leave regret behind and keep your priority, or lifetime goal, in the forefront.
What it takes to be successful in life is to be happy in life; happy to follow your true desires. Happy to achieve the long-awaited personal freedom.
5. How will you feel when you achieve your dream goal?
Personal passion stimulates, promotes, and energises a goal. If you feel anything less than ecstasy, your goal is not your ultimate goal in life.
If you dive into the excitement, thrill, and exhilaration of the feeling as you live your goal, if every moment of your waking moments you drink in the happiness of having achieved your goal, then that is your priority goal.
That’s the one to go after and see it through to completion.
“Where your creative attention flows, so flows your life.” Hawaiian Kahuna
6. How will you benefit from achieving your goal?
An important part of the what it takes to be successful proven formula is getting absolutely specific on the benefits you and those around you will receive from achieving your priority goal.
Aside from yourself, who and how many others will reap the reward of your success?
It might be an idea to write down, or at the very least, sit back, close your eyes and imagine the benefits that will arise from you achieving the goal. For example, if your goal is to have more money to start a business from your home, aside from you, who else will benefit from the money and/or your business?
While it is true that 51.6 percent of businesses started out running from someone’s home, many of those entrepreneurs were well educated.
Would you see life any differently? Would you approach your relationships differently; more lovingly?
Now that you have discovered your highest priority goal, your next step is to take consistent action. If you want to achieve your priority goal fast, you will need to take consistent massive action every day. That’s what it takes to be successful!
Action. Action. Action.
Having said that, though, there will be days where you just can’t find the motivation to keep going, especially after several let-downs, a couple of failures, and a few unexpected obstacles and challenges.
Your motivation may have dwindled a bit, it may have shrunken and lessened.
Never you mind. Help is on the way.
PART 2: What It Takes To Be Successful: How to Remain Motivated
To achieve your priority goal (and all your goals for that matter) and increase your success rate, no matter how much you want to make all your desires and dreams come true, you will still need some practical steps to keep yourself motivated in the long term.
You see, many start their goal journey filled with enthusiasm, optimism, and positivity, yet at some point, they quit before its achievement. There may be one or two reasons, and there may be several reasons. The point is: They quit.
Here are the secrets behind goal-setting that turn dreams into realities — The 21sSteps to keep you motivated right through to achievement:
1. First things first. Now that you have (hopefully) selected that one priority goal that you want to attain, you need to determine the reasons WHY you want to obtain that goal.
5 percent of entrepreneurs work less than 30 hours per week.
Do you want to be of those 5 percent?
So go ahead and choose that goal. Write it down as a heading on the top of a piece of paper. Then jot down all the reasons WHY you want to achieve it. Spend the next 10 minutes or so brainstorming until you have a list of at least 50 reasons.
Jot down whatever pops into your head. Write as quickly as you can and keep going until you have a list of 50 great reasons.
Once you have 50 reasons, go over the list and narrow it down to the 20 most important reasons. Take a 5-minute break then go back and narrow that 20 into 10 reasons and then pick the top 5 reasons why you want that goal.
Once completed, on a daily basis, spend a few minutes reviewing the top 5 reasons why you want to achieve that goal. Read over the list and make sure you notice how motivated you feel.
These top 5 reasons will move you emotionally because they are so important to you.
When you focus and concentrate on the WHY you want to achieve your goal, you will find within you the true source of motivation that will compel you to take action.
When you feel strongly about these reasons, your motivation will be automatic.
2. Now that you have decided on the goal and its importance to you, your next step is to make use of a hugely underestimated motivational principle; and that is to write your goal repeatedly by hand.
Write your goals as an intention. For example: “I intend to maintain my body weight at the range of xxx pounds with ease and elegance.” Or “I intend my plentiful financial abundance to afford greater and greater levels of security and freedom for me and my family.”
The mere facts of setting and writing your goals (or intentions) sets you way above other people; you join the ranks of the successful.
You are 95% more likely to achieve your goal if it is written down.
By writing it down you implant and nurture the seed. By writing it down you connect at a deeper level with your subconscious mind. The more you write it the more it gets programmed there.
It is widely known that if the goal is not written it is powerless, and more than likely will never be materialised.
And by writing it by hand, the goal will connect more strongly with your subconscious mind, and the likelihood of it materialising much faster is very possible.
When you write down your goal by hand (at least 10 times every day), within a short while it will become embedded in your super-powerful subconscious mind and will also be at the forefront of your conscious mind.
This way, both your minds work in synchronisation to attain the goal.
Write your goal at least 10 times every day — by hand.
3. Go one step further and make your goal (intention) more powerful by giving it a deadline. There is some controversy around including a deadline; whether it adds stress or adds motivation.
You will need to decide whether you want to include a deadline date or a timeframe by which you expect to achieve that goal.
If placing that deadline adds unnecessary pressure and stress, especially as it draws near and you are miles away from its achievement, then don’t add the date. If, on the other hand, adding a date gets you and keeps you motivated by taking action, then, by all means, add the date.
The choice is yours.
Should you decide to add a deadline date, you can write it this way:
“It is now December 01st, 2022, and I am so happy and grateful that I am earning
$5,000 or more every month.”
“I intend to enjoy a toned and sculptured bikini body by November 15th, 2022.”
Make sure your goal or intention is written in the positive as achieved. Set a date and be happy and grateful as if it has already happened.
Never allow a day to go by without writing your goal.
4. Your level of motivation will automatically increase tenfold at the mere sight of a picture or image of your goal. For example, if you want a red Mercedes SLK AMG 55, a photo of that car constantly in sight is a very powerful motivator.
Visualisation is extremely powerful in making goals and dreams a reality.
“At age 16, Einstein used visualization when he discovered that the speed of light was always constant. Einstein believed that visual understanding was the most important form of education and more important than knowledge. Later in life, Einstein would write: I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.”
Source: Harrison Barnes
Add to that what Einstein said directly about imagination.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”
Just think about what you can achieve by imagining or visualising your dream goal.
If you cannot get an image or picture of your goal write it down on a 3” x 5” card and put it in places where it is constantly staring at you.
A few ideas: place it on your night table and read it a few times before you sleep, put it as a Post-it note by your computer, on your desk, on your fridge, by the mirror where you shave or put your make-up, on the dashboard of your car (your subconscious mind will ‘see’ it even if you consciously don’t).
If you’d rather not have anyone know about your goal place it in out-of-sight places, but still review it as much as possible, especially make it the last thing you see and read before you close your eyes to sleep.
82 percent of successful business owners did not doubt they had the right qualifications and proper experience to run a company.
The idea is to never lose sight of your goal.
5. To stay motivated and to continue to do what it takes to be successful, you should utilise the immense power of your imagination.
It has long been realised and accepted that one of the timeless laws of success is that all things are created twice: first in your thoughts as a movie screen in your mind’s eye and then physically, in reality.
For you to achieve your goal, daily sit back and enter your world of make-believe. Sit back and imagine your goal as achieved. Visualise your better future, and your dreams as if you are now living them.
It is imperative that you involve all 5 senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. And get totally immersed in your imagination or visualisation. Feel what it would feel like once you achieved your goal. Feel the exhilaration, the joy, the happiness.
The best news?
You need not visualise for hours a day. All you need is 2–5 minutes a day. The best times are upon awakening, around noon time, and at bedtime.
Also, as you constantly hold the images in your mind’s eye, ‘see’ yourself taking the necessary actions that will get you there. Imagine you are so motivated you keep going no matter what.
You overcome all challenges and obstacles and always end up as a winner — goal and dream achieved.
Make full use of your daydreaming times.
6. To stay highly motivated to pursue a long-term goal, one that you want to achieve within a year or more, rather than being overwhelmed with the size and magnitude of the goal, it would be to your advantage to break that goal down into smaller quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily tasks.
It is easy to get buried with the thoughts that the goal is unattainable and not worth pursuing. So what happens? Your motivation dwindles and dies.
Rather than allowing yourself to get engulfed with the sheer scale of the goal, for you to stay motivated in the long run break that goal into as many tasks or little goals as necessary for you to achieve it.
That’s what it takes to be successful. Strategic planning, careful preparation, and tactical and deliberate forecasting. This is done by breaking down each goal into other smaller tasks and projects. Split each task into as many small goals as you feel are needed to get the job done. This will easily make the major goal appear so much more manageable and seem easier to attain.
As the smaller tasks or projects get done, you will get high on motivation as you tick off one success after another.
By tackling the smaller goals you will stay motivated to keep after the big goal.
7. Create a circle of optimistic and inspiring friends; those that are motivated to always achieve more.
Meet up with this group of like-minded achievers often, perhaps once a week, to listen and learn from them as they share their knowledge and experiences, motivation, and success strategies.
Take this opportunity for you to share your goals and dreams. Be open enough to air your frustrations, and courageous enough to contribute to the group the techniques that have worked for you.
Being surrounded by such a motivating group of people will help to inspire and motivate you into taking action. Their way of thinking can be positively infectious.
This is a very powerful method where the group can support each other, and where you can celebrate together your successes, even the smallest ones as you all advance to the next goal and a better quality of life.
I realise that many people do not have the luxury of such a group. That’s fine. Grab yourself a CD or DVD of a motivational speaker, a ‘goal-achieving guru’, or a person who moves you into action.
Select one, two, or how many you would like. Some people become highly charged when they listen to John F. Kennedy, others by Martin Luther King, Jr. or Anthony Robbins, Jack Canfield, Marci Schimoff, and Lisa Nichols.
Discover what it takes to be successful by learning from other successful people in your field.
This way alone will bring you to your goals much faster.
8. Having discussed the tremendous advantage of being surrounded by an inspiring and motivating group of people, you need to disassociate yourself from the reverse.
As much as possible, be wary and stay clear of negative and unsupportive people.
Do not disclose your goals, aspirations, or dreams to them.
These unsupportive people are obstructive and destructive. They will do you more harm than good.
Knowingly or not, they will drain your enthusiasm and motivation until they make you believe that the goals you are after are too big and are not worth chasing. They’ll try to convince you to stay where you are.
Well, let me tell you this, never allow anyone to stop you from going after your goals and dreams.
If you know beforehand the people who are considered negative and uncooperative, follow the all-important step of not telling them your goals and dreams.
Stay away from the dream-stealers.
Share your goals with your inspiring group and with those who not only care about you but also are willing to support you in your quest.
Safeguard your goals and dreams from unsupportive people.
9. Strange as this may seem, learn to love ‘failure’. This is one motivation step you probably did not expect. But you need to realise that failure is the highway to success.
Failure is your teacher of what has not worked. This step is about you going beyond the frustration where you learn from that failure what didn’t work and why.
From that failure, you will automatically grow wiser and will get one step closer to success. I personally do not like the word failure. I prefer to call failure ‘Success Gone Astray’.
Every successful person, every high achiever has faced numerous failures. However, instead of quitting, they remained motivated and persistent. They believed in themselves and their goals and dreams. So they learned all that they can from the supposed failure and moved on.
You do the same. Stay motivated by reviewing and visualising where you want to go and what you want to become more intensely after a failure or setback.
If that strategy didn’t work, find out why it has gone wrong, learn from it and take another form of action.
Without failure, there would be no success.
10. If you can do so, I recommend that you invest in a personal development coach.
This coach can help you stay motivated by keeping you focused on your goals, and providing support for you when you need it.
A professional well-read and respected coach can guide you, offer valuable suggestions, and can also be a great listener for you to air your short-term frustrations.
A coach is a valuable person who can keep you motivated.
11. In addition to the coach’s sessions, or if one is not near you, you may make full use of the Law of Duplication.
Put simply, that law says if you take the same actions that someone did and in the same way that that person did, then you are pretty well certain to get the same results.
How do you do that?
Think of someone who has achieved what you want and use that person’s experiences as guidance. Allow him or her to be your mentor.
Think about it, why would you waste your time learning how to do the things that will get you where you want to go? Why go through the frustrations and hassles, and become de-motivated to continue down the journey to fulfilment?
Why reinvent the wheel?
Wouldn’t it be easier to ‘copy’ someone else’s successes?
Find books, articles, interviews whatever you can get your hands on. Learn everything you possibly can about your mentor. Use his or her experiences and knowledge to shorten your learning curve, to reduce your frustrations and failures — successes that have gone astray.
Read their biographies and learn from their mistakes and also learn what has worked for them. Analyse their habits and ways of thinking.
Become a serious student of great and successful people.
12. When you learned something new, you must have realised the extensive benefit of repetition.
To keep yourself motivated you can use the power of repetition with your goal. Except for this time you are not directly visualising your goal or writing it down.
Instead, you are going to say it out loud; in the shower, in your car, when jogging. Repeat saying your goal out loud as often as you can; the more you repeat it the better. An even more motivating method is to sing your goal. Many people happily sing their favourite songs in the shower. Why not put your singing talents to good use?
By repeating your goal aloud as a statement you move yourself and the subconscious mind into action. You feel the enthusiasm of that goal sparkle to life and gain momentum as you repeat the statement as a chorus more and more often.
As you say or sing your statement or goal, feel the emotions rise, just in the same way that a particular holiday song has an emotion attached to it.
Refresh and vitalise your goal in a song.
13. On your journey to fulfilment you will run into situations where you would need some help or advice. Normally you would seek the assistance of the person nearest to you or a friend or colleague.
If that person is not experienced or knowledgeable in your field he or she may be more damaging than helpful, even though the best of intentions were meant. Seek to only have advice from a qualified person who can genuinely be of assistance. In doing so you know that the next action you take will be the right one, and in doing so you will stay motivated.
Why take action on bad advice? Decide wisely whom to get advice from.
14. In much the same way that a training partner in a gym can keep you motivated and on track, the same applies to your goals and dreams.
Confide in a good friend about your goal. Talking about your goal is a way to stay motivated, and can ignite the fuel within you when things are not going the way you would like.
Have a chat about what that goal means to you and how it will change your life for the better. This friend of yours may even have some ideas that he or she may share with you that you didn’t even think of.
By discussing the goal of what it takes to be successful, you may be pleasantly surprised to discover that this friend can give you encouraging thoughts, ideas, and concepts he read about or experienced, or he may just provide you with a ‘shoulder to cry on’ before going back to trying another strategy or going back to the drawing board.
Talking with someone can make the goal more realistic in your mind.
15. We have all had those dreaded mornings where we just don’t feel like doing anything. Everything seems to be such a chore. We don’t want to get out of bed or tackle the day’s items on our checklist.
One way to challenge your laziness and get back on the motivation track is to ignore your feelings of laziness and get up and do it anyway. At first, it will be awkward for you to be motivated to take action.
But as you get into the tasks and you see your goal and your top 5 reasons staring at you, your enthusiasm and motivation will increase. And as your motivation rises so does your satisfaction that you have achieved the day’s tasks and the joy that you are a step closer to achieving your goal.
Even if you don’t feel like doing it, just do it anyway.
16. Think of the saying, success produces more success. This is relevant to the small and large successes.
Each success brings with it a deep sense of fulfilment. And this fulfilment gives you the added surge of motivation to bring in more success.
Make it a point to achieve as many successes as you possibly can. In the what it takes to be successful formula, size doesn’t matter! Not at all. A small success is still a success. That’s how the mind sees it.
Motivation is like a snowball — it gains momentum after each success.
17. Here’s the fun bit. Reward Yourself!
We tend to be good at rewarding others for their achievements, yet we forget to reward ourselves.
Is there a law that says you should not reward yourself? On the contrary.
When you complete a challenging task or get a project done in your overall plan to reach your goal, reward yourself.
Go buy the item that you’ve had your eyes on for the longest time, visit that place that you’ve discovered, call on a friend that you haven’t seen for a while, go out for a meal with your partner or spouse, celebrate with your inspiring group of friends.
Rewards give you a valuable true sense of accomplishment along the way to achieving your goal or dream. Enjoy the reward, have fun and celebrate every success. Use these opportunities to remind yourself that your goal is achievable and it is within your reality.
Look at your success: enjoy it, embrace it, and celebrate it.
18. Many of us treat other people nicely, courteously, and politely, yet we are very harsh with ourselves.
You need to understand and accept that this can be very damaging and is an extremely powerful de-motivator.
Is it so hard to be nice to yourself? Surely it isn’t.
There’s no need to beat yourself up over something that has gone wrong. It is not necessary to put yourself down, curse and insult yourself.
These are very counter-productive; your motivation quickly goes down the drain. There is no valid reason for you to talk in such a manner to yourself and about yourself.
It is by far more effective for you to acknowledge that something has gone wrong, and for you to discuss it with yourself in a kindly manner just as you would another person. This way you will not be too de-motivated to carry on your quest for fulfilment.
Talk to yourself in the same courteous way as you do others.
19. Do you love music? Do you have a few favourite songs?
We all have our favourite artists and songs that we love to hear over and over again. These songs have the power to affect our moods. Certain songs will make us cry, others will have us jumping with joy.
Well, why wouldn’t you make full use of the songs you enjoy and love? Use them to light up your fire, to motivate you into action.
It will be naïve of me to say that all your days will be productive, where everything goes your way. Reality says that there will be tough days where you won’t be able to keep focused, where you can’t seem to do anything right — that’s assuming you were actually doing anything.
Take charge of your thoughts and feelings and blast your mind with happy and motivating songs. Play a song or two or even the entire CD that gets you up and juiced to happily go back to where you left off.
If you’re at work take your iPod, MP3, or Smartphone and hide in the toilet for a few minutes to recapture your motivated feelings.
That would work wonders, wouldn’t it?
Turn up the volume and let your hair down. Jump up and down. Perhaps you can remember why the song or songs mean so much to you; do you have an emotional occasion attached to each song?
When you’re high in emotions imagine you are taking action and see your goal as achieved.
Put your headphones on and within moments you will feel motivated.
20. I have heard it said that for you to be motivated to get a tough or boring task done, it is suggested that you start with the most challenging task first, to get it out of the way, and then progress to the other less stressful or tedious projects.
I say the opposite.
Begin by working on the simplest and most fun task. This will have you start in a good motivated mood, and when done you will still be motivated enough to move on to the next task, and then on to the next after that.
If you work on the tough ones first, the likelihood of you moving on to the next project is small. The boring one would have drained you of any energy and motivation.
So start by prioritising your tasks and begin working on your easiest and most enjoyable one. This way, you will move on to the next project full of enthusiasm. And who knows, you might get them all done by the end of the day.
After a few tasks, your motivation increases — just like the snowball effect.
21. Lastly, in the introduction we spoke about the immense power of your thoughts and how what you say affects your actions and your day.
You go through your day with thousands of thoughts hammering away in your mind (approximately 50,000–60,000 thoughts). Some of these thoughts remain hidden in the background, others venture to the forefront.
These thoughts alone will not necessarily automatically motivate you into action unless they are driven with unrelenting passion.
When you are not in the mood to get a certain project done, you can inject some excitement and passion to drive you to start and complete the project by talking to yourself a bit differently.
And you do so by bringing some enthusiasm into your voice and in the words that you choose.
This way you can be motivated within seconds.
Let me ask you, How would you inspire and motivate someone else into action? You do so by talking to that person with enthusiasm and passion. The individual will in turn be thrilled, inspired, and motivated to do what it is that you require of him or her. And they do so happily.
Well, the same goes for you. When you need to infuse some motivation to get something done, talk convincingly to yourself in the same way you would talk to the other person.
Speak loudly (if possible) to yourself with vigour, passion, and excitement. The more emotion and feeling you put into this the more effective it will be. And to add fuel to the fire, talk to a reflection of yourself.
Give yourself a motivational ‘lecture’ while looking into your eyes through the reflection in a window or mirror. Be sincere and passionate. Talk to your reflection as if you were another person. Then gradually progress to talk to yourself through the reflecting surface.
That’s a powerful strategy of what it takes to be successful.
Look straight into your eyes as you talk passionately to yourself.
BONUS STEPS:
Negative emotions, such as anger, can render any motivation ineffective. You lose focus and concentration. You become emotional and will not be able to think clearly.
When you get angry or frustrated take a short break. Take a walk, calm down, and play your happy songs. Clear your thoughts and regain your focus.
Remind yourself that for you to achieve your goals and dreams you will need to remain calm and focused.
A great exercise you can do anytime and anywhere is to take in 4 short breaths through your nose and 4 exhales out of your mouth.
Do this breathing technique for about 10 or 15 times, or until you regain a calm stature. This will help you clear your angry thoughts and frustrations, allowing you to recapture your motivation.
Clear thinking keeps you motivated to pursue your goals and dreams.
“Make a pledge right here and now that no matter what you will do your best to stay motivated and persistent to achieve your goals and dreams. And from here on in you will take one action every day, large or small, to make that goal a reality.”
And now, permit me to finish off with this awesome statement:
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar
So there you have it. I ask you to always remember that no goal can be achieved by concentrating on it mentally without taking any action to attain it. All successful people and high achievers take massive action every day in one form or another.
That’s what makes them successful!
You just read and studied 21 highly effective steps that will help you stay motivated to accomplish all that you desire.
At this point, there is not much more to be said except that these 21 steps are strategies that can help you stay motivated only if you consistently apply them.
So what are you waiting for?
Go ahead and get started right now to live a better life. Or live your dream life. It’s time to attain your long-awaited personal freedom.