Motivation: how to motivate yourself

“Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.”
~ Norman Augustine

I truly believe Augustine’s words are true and if you look at history you know it’s true. There are many people in the world with extraordinary talents who realize only a fraction of their true potential. We all know people who live this reality.

We also know the story of an epic, modern mythology surrounding the early failures of very successful people like Michael Jordan and Bill Gates. We can look back to Albert Einstein or even further back to Abraham Lincoln. What has made each of these people so successful? Correct – Motivation!

We know this in our gut, but what can we do and motivate ourselves? One of the most difficult aspect to achieve success is to stay motivated in the long term.

Motivation is not an accident or something that someone else can give you – you are the only one who has the power to motivate you! Motivation is not an external force, it must come from within you as a natural product of your desire to achieve something and your strong belief that you have the ability to succeed in reaching your goals.

Positive pleasure-oriented goals are more powerful motivators than negative fear-based targets. Although each can be successful separately, is the always the right combination of both which is the most powerful motivational force known to man.

Here are some tips and techniques to motivate yourself:

• Use a past defeat as a motivator. Remind yourself you have nowhere to go except up for you were down already.
• Give yourself the power of responsibility. Remind yourself the only thing stopping you is yourself.
• Make a list of your achievements in respect to your long term goals and remind yourself that is not the intention that counts but the the actions.
• Do it now. Remind yourself of someone you know who died suddenly and the fact that there is no guarantee that tomorrow will come.
• Let success motivate you. Find a picture of what represents success for you and then pull it out when you need motivation.

Reflect and experiment until you find the right combination of motivators for your personality and your own personal goals. I’ll leave you with a quote to motivate the end:

“What drives me? The thing that drives me most is the desire to find my limits–and extend them.”
~ Richard Marcinko

Now go push your own limits … and succeed!

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Related articles

• 5 Motivation Hacks For Bloggers (tjantunen.com)
• 5 Sure Fire Ways to Motivate Yourself (successful-blog.com)
• Motivation: You Can Do It! (fortheloveofpr.com)

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