The Act Of Motivation.

Motivation is the desire we have to do things. It is the difference between waking up before dawn to get started on a particular project and lazing around the house all day watching TV. It's the crucial element in setting and attaining goals. Research shows you can influence your own levels of motivation, but far too often, we fail to do so. Staying motivated can be a real struggle. When trying to maintain motivation, our drive is constantly assaulted by negative thoughts and anxieties about the future.

Everyone faces doubt and depression at one time or another. What separates the highly successful from those who fail is the ability to stay motivated and keep moving forward. There are three major reasons people fail to maintain motivation.

• Lack of confidence—Simply put, if you don’t believe you can succeed, what’s the point in trying, right? When this happens, it’s usually because you’re focusing entirely on what you want and neglecting what you already have. Because of this, your mind creates explanations for why you aren’t getting it. This creates negative thoughts about how you feel about yourself. Your mind is dominated by past failures, bad breaks, and personal weaknesses. You can become jealous of your competitors, which causes you to start making excuses for why you can’t succeed. When you try to function under these conditions, you can make bad impressions, assume the worst about others, and lose self confidence.

Instead, you should try to focus on gratitude. Take time to focus on all the positive things in your life. Prepare and refer often to a mental list of your strengths, past successes, and current advantages. People often tend to take their strengths for granted and dwell on their failures. If you focus on feeling grateful, you’ll see how competent and successful you already are. This will restore your confidence and get you motivated to build on your current success. It might be difficult to understand how repeating things you already know can improve your mindset, but it can. The mind can often distort reality to confirm what it wants to believe. The more negatively you think, the more examples your mind will discover to confirm that belief. When you believe you deserve success, your mind will generate ways to achieve it. You will need to have belief you'll achieve your goals. Faith will unlock the doors. Numerous individuals come across choices but never take action considering that they never believe they might succeed.

It might be difficult to understand how repeating things you already know can improve your mindset, but it can. The mind can often distort reality to confirm what it wants to believe. The more negatively you think, the more examples your mind will discover to confirm that belief. When you believe you deserve success, your mind will generate

• Lack of focus—If you don’t know what you want, is there anything you really want? Many times, people focus on what they don’t want, rather than on a concrete goal. They normally think in terms of fear. You may be afraid of being poor, afraid no one will respect you, or afraid of being alone. The problem you face when thinking like this is that fear alone isn’t actionable. Instead of doing something about your fear, the fear feeds on itself and usually drains your motivation.

If you become caught up in fear-based thinking, you should try focusing that energy on a well-defined goal. If you do this, you automatically define a set of actions. If you’re afraid of being poor, create a plan to increase your income. It might be going back to school, obtaining a higher paying job, or developing a profitable website. The key is moving from an indefinable desire to tangible, measurable steps. If you focus your mind on positive goals instead of fear, you put your brain to work creating a plan for success. You are no longer worrying about the future. Instead, you’re beginning to do something about it.

• Lack of direction—If you don’t know what to do, how can you possibly be motivated to do it? When you’re focusing on having an ultimate goal, direction means having a day-to-day plan to achieve it. Not having direction can destroy motivation, because without an obvious next action we succumb to procrastination. The key to finding direction is identifying the activities that lead to success. Make a list of all your activities and arrange them based on the results you achieve from each activity. Then make a make an action plan that focuses on the activities pay off. When you keep track of your most important tasks you will direct your power towards success.

When you feel yourself losing motivation, you can regain direction by creating a plan that contains two positive actions. The first one should be a small task you’ve been meaning to do, while the second should be a long-term goal. When you immediately do the smaller task, you create positive momentum. Then it’s easier to take the first step to achieving the long-term goal. Be hungry for it—Wanting something isn’t enough. To be truly motivated, you need to have hunger and not just desire. Having mere desire won’t take you through hard times since you don’t want things badly enough. In many cases, hunger makes the difference between the best performers and the mediocre ones.

Do it your way—Don’t try to do it better than someone else. Comparing yourself with others is an effective way to destroy your motivation. Even if you start with enthusiasm, you will soon lose your energy when you compare yourself with others. The only competitor you have is yourself. The only one you need to beat is you.

Take one more step—Every journey begins with the first step. When you meet obstacles along the way, there could be the tendency to quit. You may think that it’s too difficult to move on. You may think that your dream is impossible to achieve. What makes a winner instead of a loser is the courage to continue. In difficult situations, focus on taking one more step forward. Don’t think about how to complete the race. Don’t think about how many more obstacles are waiting for you. Just focus on taking one more step.

It’s practically impossible to avoid periods of low energy, bad luck, and even the occasional failure. Motivation can be difficult during these times. There is no simple solution for a lack of motivation. Even after beating it, the problem reappears at the first sign of failure. Let go of the past—One of the most destructive things to motivate is your past. Your past can drag you down before you realize it. Your past can give you a heavy burden on your shoulders. Take it off your shoulder and leave it. You might have made mistakes in the past. You might have disappointed others with what you did. The good news here is—It’s over. It’s already in the past and there’s nothing you can do about it. Remember today is a new day and you have the chance to start again. No matter how bad your past might be, you still have a bright future ahead waiting for you.