Success and Freedom

Do These 7 Things to Get (and Stay) Motivated

The best motivation is self-motivation. Here’s how to get in an inspired state of mind.

by Brian Tracy

 

How do you stay motivated and inspired? How can you keep your passion, your excitement, fired up? By reviewing these self-motivators on a regular basis:

1. Get serious.

Make a decision to go all the way to the top. Up to now, you've thought about it. Up to now, it's passed your mind. But now make up your mind to go all the way to the top, and your life will take off. It's the most extraordinary thing.

Your life is like a shadow going up the dark side of a hill—until the moment you decide that "I'm going to be the best at what I do.” And suddenly you rise into the sunshine, and your life is forever after different—wonderful. Get serious. Don't fool around anymore.

2. Know your limiting step.

What's your limiting step? What's the one skill area that's holding you back? What's the quality? What's the action? Ask other people. Find out what you need to become good at. Find out what's keeping you stuck. What is the critical limiting step that's determining your success today?

3. Get around the right people.

Who are the right people? Winners. Get around positive people. Get around people with goals and plans, people who are going somewhere with their lives and have high aspirations. Get around eagles. As Zig Ziglar says, "You can't scratch with the turkeys if you want to fly with the eagles." And get away from negative people. Get away from toxic people that complain and whine and moan all the time. Who needs them? Life is too short.

4. Take care of yourself.

Take excellent care of your health. That means good diet, good exercise. Everybody knows they should eat better foods, work out regularly and get lots of rest. If you're going to work hard five days a week, go to bed early five days a week.

5. See yourself as the best.

Visualize yourself as the very best in whatever you do—continually. Remember, all improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures.

6. Talk nicely to yourself.

Control your inner dialogue and practice positive self-talk. How? Say, "I'm the best." Say it. Say, “I like myself,” “I can do it,” “I love my work.” If you say those things to yourself and you don't believe them, isn’t that lying to yourself? No, that's not lying to yourself—it’s telling the truth in advance. Because it doesn't matter where you're coming from—all that matters is where you're going.

Talk to yourself the way you want to be, not the way you just happen to be at this moment. Remember, you may have gotten where you are today largely by accident. But where you're going in the future is purely by design.

7. Get going.

Move fast. A sense of urgency is the one thing you can develop that will separate you from everyone else. Develop a bias for action. When you get a good idea, do it now.

And the faster you move, the better you get. And the better you get, the more you like yourself.And the more you like yourself, the higher your self-esteem is. And the higher your self-esteem is, the greater your self-discipline is. And the more you persist, then you ultimately become unstoppable.