How to motivate yourself for success

by Aiden W

Everyone wants to be successful in life. Many people rely solely on will power. While it's an important factor, often times it's not enough by itself. When faced with challenges you may get discouraged and experience lack of motivation to continue. This becomes a stumbling block in your path to success. Fortunately, there are techniques available that you can use to keep your motivation alive.

Visualizing your goals is a very powerful technique. It makes your goal or whatever you desire become clear and more realistic. It may be something material like a new car, a vacation in the tropics, or perhaps something less tangible such as experiencing more joy and inner peace. All you need to do is visualize/picture yourself already having/experiencing those things. What does it look like? How does it feel? Emotion is an important factor here. You need to feel the intensity of your emotion associated with already having what you want.

You may have heard of something called a vision board which is a powerful tool to enhance your motivation. It's when you take or cut out pictures of what you want (e.g. a car, a house, a tropical vacation) and post them on a board which you then place where you can see it often. You can do this at home, at work or both. You can be creative and also do it digitally using your computer or phone. Create a file containing images of the items associated with your goals. Then view the file often or use the images as wallpaper or a screensaver. Again, feel the intense emotion as you view them.

Another helpful technique to keep yourself motivated is to make a contract with yourself. Researches on motivation have shown that people who write down their to-do-lists are more successful in achieving their desired goals than those who just keep mental lists. This is because concrete things are more powerful than abstract ideas. Putting something in writing is in itself more powerful psychologically. It is more binding so to speak. That's why anything formal or legal is always put in writing.

Yet another powerful technique to motivate yourself for success is to reward yourself. Of course, achieving your goal itself is the biggest reward. But you should also reward yourself along the way. Let's face it, people like to be rewarded for doing a good job or completing an important task.

So, break down whatever activity you need to perform into small doable steps. That way it won't seem so overwhelming. Besides, seeing the "in the meantime" results and being rewarded for successfully completing each small step will keep you motivated and boost your confidence that you can reach the final goal. Rewarding yourself doesn't have to be with anything big or expensive. It can be as simple as doing something you really enjoy such as watching a movie or eating out in a nice restaurant, or buying that game you have been waiting for.

You can also read inspirational and motivational literature. There's an abundance of books and free articles online on how to be successful and become a better person in the process. Reading other people's success stories can encourage you and help you learn from their experiences.

Last but not least, stay away from negative people. People who always criticize you, don't appreciate you or have something negative to say about everything. Not only they don't inspire you, but they can also lower your self-esteem and bring you down. In other words, they will de-motivate you. Instead, surround yourself with positive people. Those who will support, encourage, and uplift you.

Here's to your success!

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