Motivation Techniques How to Get Motivated and Inspired
Here are some motivation techniques that you can use to assist you in reaching your goals. As you know, success can be an elusive target. For that reason alone, you'll need to nail down what you want and how you'll get it.
When we observe successful people, we often take a number of things for granted. We sometimes forget, in looking at those people, that taking action is what produces success. While there's certainly no secret there, what sometimes remains hidden from view is that people who have achieved success have usually not done so without having some obstacles to overcome.
If you want to lose weight, learn a new language, or build an online business, there will be challenges. Along the way, there are motivation techniques that you can use to keep moving forward where you otherwise might not have. So often, failure is actually the result of allowing the obstacles to win, rather than the other way around. Staying motivated is a key to remaining in the game until the obstacles have cleared, and you've won.
These motivation techniques will help you do just that...
Goal Setting and Planning
Success may happen by accident, but this is rarely the case. Even so, do you really want to leave your success or failure up to someone or something else? While nothing is guaranteed, the most successful people in the world (and the ones who stay that way) didn't get that way by chance. Lottery winners are often broke several years after the winning ticket is purchased. Many rock stars in history have met the same fate. Success requires a certain amount of discipline. It requires that you set goals, and then break them down into bite-sized chunks.
As Tony Robbins tells us, people often have goals that don't inspire them. Think about it. Have you ever "kind of" wanted something? I'm sure you have. You think maybe you want it, but it's either not worth a lot of effort, or maybe you're not really short what it will be like when you get it. What do you do when you see an obstacle in the way of achieving that goal? Often, you give up.
Now, instead, imagine a goal that was totally captivating. You would do almost anything (as long as it didn't hurt anyone else) to achieve it. Have you ever wanted something that badly? Did you try to get it? Did you let obstacles get in your way? No... and that's the difference.
When our goals don't inspire us, success is more difficult to achieve. We need to use more motivation techniques on ourselves in order to push past obstacles. When your goals inspire you, you have more natural motivation.
Proper goal setting and motivation are closely linked. If your goals are too high level they'll seem too far out of reach. On the other hand, if they're too easy to achieve, you may not feel challenged and will get bored. Neither one of these situations is ideal.
Break your goals down into bite-sized chunks. Make sure those smaller goals are SMART as well.
Write your goals down.
Read your goals to yourself morning and night.
Motivation Techniques Using Visualization
Why does one person achieve greatness, and another not? Is it talent? Intelligence?
While greatness does require a certain amount of talent, and probably a certain amount of intelligence, those are not necessarily the determining factors. There a plenty of people throughout history who've achieved great things, simply by being persistent, and not letting obstacles rule them.
Take Thomas Edison as an example. Was he smart? I'm sure he was, but I'm equally sure that there have been smarter people who've never invented anything quite as important as the light bulb. His greatest trait was probably persistence. He failed thousands of times to make a light bulb, and refused to give up.
Burt Reynolds was supposedly told that he couldn't act. Some may agree with that, but that didn't stop him from becoming one of the biggest box office attractions in the history of movie making.
An important point here is that if you have vision, you can achieve your goals, regardless of what others have or have not done, and regardless of what others say can or cannot be done.
You need to visualize your success. You need to maintain focus, and you need to take concrete actions toward your outcome, even when it looks like things are not going to work out. Talane Miedaner suggests writing down all your negative thoughts on a piece of paper and then burning it. This is a powerful visualization tool to rid yourself of negativity.
Here are three quick visual motivational techniques you can use...
Morning and night when you review your goals, close your eyes and visualize your ideal outcome. It should be bright, in color, vivid, in focus, big, and close. If you can put sound or music to it, do that. Let the visualization linger for a while.
Now, visualize your obstacles crumbling as you achieve your ideal outcome. Imagine each obstacle in your way and make it out of focus, fuzzy, in black and white, smaller, gradually getting smaller. Then, visualize putting it behind you. You are traveling far away from it and moving forward, while it moves back and away and becomes not even a pinpoint.
Now, how do you feel? You should feel powerful and less weighted down by any burden. If you don't, do it again. Then, right after you do the above, use pictures or other visual stimulation to make your goals more real to you. Place pictures of what you want to achieve at your desk at home or at work, on the refrigerator, and on the bathroom mirror. Look at them right after you do the internal visualization. This might sound funny, but these are not jokes, they are real motivational techniques... and they work!
Take Action!
Among the most powerful motivation techniques of all are those that get you moving. An old friend of mine use to say that "if you go in motion, something else will go in motion."
In order to keep yourself moving forward, despite the obstacles, use these motivational concepts...
Knowledge is power. You've heard this before, but it's true. I'll go one step further and say that knowledge will break down barriers because it will give you the confidence to forge ahead. Set aside 15 minutes per day to learn something new about what you're trying to accomplish. It doesn't sound like much, but that's over 90 hours per year (more than two college courses) of learning. Most people don't do this, which means you'll be light years ahead of everyone else in your chosen endeavor.
Get rid of the clutter.
"Would you like something new and wonderful to come into your life? A new job, a new friend, an opportunity? A relationship? One of the easiest, most effective ways to attract something new into your life is to create the space. If you feel stuck, start clearing the decks. Go through your files at the office and toss out all those old memos, reports, and articles you've been saving in case you need them someday." -Talane Miedaner, from Tip #11, Coach Yourself to Success: 101 Tips from a Personal Coach for Reaching Your Goals at Work and in Life
Her book is actually filled with motivation techniques and tips. Talane goes on to tell us that this applies equally to your office or your home as well. She says that many of her clients are almost too tired to get out of the rut, and they don't realize that the clutter is sapping their energy.
Use the momentum of others. Group dynamics can be quite powerful. This is sometimes seen in a bad way in "crowd mentality," but can be used to your advantage. Join a group of people with like interests and motivate each other. If your company has an employee motivation program, continue to use the motivation techniques taught there in your personal life as well.
Take Action! No matter what, one of the most powerful motivation techniques is simply to take action. Don't know what to do? Just do something. Take action in some way, no matter how small. Almost all self-improvement experts and life coaches say the same thing. If you want change, take action. If you want a big change, start by making small ones. Each small change will give you the confidence to move on to the next.
