How to keep yourself motivated?

Everyone wants to succeed. Your degree of success in this challenging endeavor we call life has everything to do with how motivated you are. Whether pursuing your goals as an individual or working with others in a team, motivation plays a vital role in your ascent up the ladder of success.

To motivate is to cause something or someone to move. It is providing a motive, a consideration or emotion that excites action. What can push you to action towards the successful completion of the activity at hand? Many people start off well but lose their fire somewhere along the way and fail.

How do you keep yourself motivated and push yourself hard to reach your ultimate limit? Proper motivation spells the difference between triumphant success and bitter failure. To stay highly motivated, focused and driven, you must:

1. Focus on your goal.

Take a cue from basketball superstars – they keep their eyes on the goal! Knowing your target increases your chance of hitting it. Keep your goal in sight at all times so you’ll know where to aim and how to conquer it.

2. Know your motives for wanting to achieve your goal.

>Knowing the true motives as to why you want to achieve your goal increases your level of excitement. This will raise your level of motivation and get you all enflamed and bolstered up to achieve it.

3. Keep your eyes on the rewards the goal will bring.

Focus on the rewards that achieving your goal will bring – the emotional satisfaction, the material or financial rewards, the recognition and admiration people will honor you with. By knowing the good things that will come as a result of your victory, you won’t let the difficulties matter as much.

4. Challenge yourself.

Look at every difficult task as a chance to prove your mettle. Think of it as a challenge – a test to prove your intellectual capacity, your self-worth, your inner strength. Only by experiencing life’s hardships will you gain great personal power and saintly perseverance.

5. Use personal naggers.

Each minute you spend thinking of something else other than your goal sets you a minute away from achieving it. Have reminder signs about it all around you. Tack up motivational statements and inspiring quotations to keep you on target. A little prayer for divine help and guidance always works wonders!

6. Get a role model.

Look around you for people who are successful in a field similar or related to the one you want to excel in. Adopt a role model whose life and achievements you can pattern yours on. Emulate that person and become highly successful, too!

7. Stay away from mediocrity.

Most people are content with barely making it. They come up with many excuses as to why they fail or why they are happy with mediocre results. Always aim for excellence. Remember that mediocrity has mediocre rewards while excellence has excellent rewards!

8. Have supportive people around you.

It is useless to be so charged up for success when everybody around you is pulling you down and discouraging you from achieving your dreams, goals and desires. Choose to be with positive, supportive, and uplifting people. Say goodbye to negative, envious people. Surround yourself with "go-go" achievers so that their energy will rub off on you!

9. Use envy positively.

Envy is a natural human emotion. Everybody envies someone who has prospered. If you feel envious towards a friend who is successful, use that emotion to positively motivate you to do well. Say, "Sure, I envy your achievement, but I will use this emotion to try and surpass you!"

10. Stop and smell the roses.

You would be a more effective person if you knew how to pause from the frenzy of day-to-day living and temporarily escape the stress that could ruin you physically and psychologically. You should know when it is time to take it easy, relax, and stop and smell the roses. All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy.

11. Reward yourself.

Each time you achieve a goal, congratulate yourself with a reward or a prize. It can be just a simple treat like a haircut, a movie or an ice cream cone; or a big blowout like buying yourself that dream car or going on that long-awaited dream cruise. Rewarding yourself reinforces your success! Furthermore, companies should offer attractive incentives for employees to perform well!

12. Envision the life you love.

Imagine the ideal life you want to live. Hold a mental picture of it in your mind. Make the vision very clear in your mind by defining and adding details to it every day. The clearer your vision, the faster you can achieve it and the more motivated you will be to realize it!
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New Sessions
For those interested to join, we have new sessions on June 22 and 29, Saturday, 4-8:30 p.m. The seminar includes a light meal and each participant will be awarded a certificate of attendance. Seating is limited. E-mail DeroSeminar@yahoo.com or call Deena at 0920-4053233 for an update of schedules and details.
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I’d love to hear from you! E-mail deeperdoor@yahoo.com. Should you want to forward this article, be sure to mention the author Dero Pedero and acknowledge The Philippine STAR. The reprinting, recording or publishing of this article in any form including the Web requires copyright permission from the author.

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