3 Very Easy Steps to Stay Highly Motivated

Motivation has been a passion of mine since I purchased my first Zig Ziglar cassette tape back in 1997. I have learned some practices along the way that help me get motivated and stay motivated. Motivation is not permanent, just like bathing is not permanent.  We need to seek out ways to continue the motivation.

Here are three practices that have helped me over the past 20 years:

Positive Self-Talk I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but it works. I talk to myself in the mirror. I talk to myself as I work out. I talk to myself as I listen to positive self-talk audio programs (by Dr. Shad Helmstetter). Self-Talk has made a world of difference in the attitude I have throughout the day.

I hope you realize that we all talk to ourselves. Even you. You may be reading this right now saying, “I don’t talk to myself, this guy is crazy.” We all talk to ourselves. The unfortunate thing about most of our self-talk is that it is negative. We tell ourselves, “I can’t do this” or “this is not going to work”; “Why am I even trying?” or when something does not happen exactly as planned we tend to say, “I knew it wouldn’t work.”

Psychologist, Shad Helmstetter says, “By the time a child is 18 years old they have heard ‘no’ or ‘you can’t do that’ over 148,000 times.” When you hear “no” or “you can’t do that” so many times, you begin to believe it. And thus we begin the bad habit of telling ourselves the same thing. Change your self-talk from negative to positive. Wake up every morning saying, “Every day in every way I am getting better and better – Yes!” You can find some self-talk scripts using a simple Google search. If you cannot find one you like, email me and I will send you some of mine.

Positive Mental Attitude The positive self-talk will help you develop a positive mental attitude. The more positive you are about life, the more positive life will be. The more you complain, the more you will have to complain about. The more positive you are, the more you will have to be positive about.

You typically find what you are looking for. As I said earlier, we seem to be naturally negative. What do we call the first slice of a loaf of bread? The heel or the end. I have never seen a loaf of bread that did not have two beginnings! When we run our car off the road what do we call? The wrecker. What we need is the tow truck, we have already had the wreck. What do we call that thing that wakes most of us up in the mornings? The alarm clock. Well, people sound the alarm when the bank is being robbed or the building is on fire. Alarms scare people. Why not call what wakes us up in the morning an opportunity clock? If you can hear it, that means you have the opportunity to get up and go. If you can’t hear it that may mean you done got up and gone! (I got those from the most positive person I ever met: Zig Ziglar.)

Zig Ziglar says “Positive thinking will not let you do anything, but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.” Positive thinking is not magical, but it is powerful!

Fail Forward The third practice to stay motivated is to fail forward. Learn something from your failure. You can either grow bitter from your failure or you can grow better from your failure. While Thomas Edison was working on one of his many inventions, it took him thousands of times and he still had not gotten it right. Some asked him, “Mr. Edison, what does it feel like to be such a great inventor and have failed 10,000 times on this one invention?” Thomas Edison responded, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that it won’t work.” If you want to stay motivated I would encourage you to have the same attitude as Thomas Edison.

Here is the secret to your success; if you fall down seven times, get up eight. That is it. Get up one more time than you fail and you are a success.

That, my friends, is motivating! What keeps you motivated?

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