Motivating Yourself

The measure of your success usually comes down to who wins the battle that rages between the two of you. The ‘you’ who wants to stop, give up, or take it easy, and the ‘you’ who chooses to beat back that which would stand in the way of your success - complacency.

In all of my interactions with people, I've never found anyone, regardless of their level of success, who doesn't sometimes find themselves simply not wanting to do the things that they need and want to do. It is part of human nature that there will be times that, in spite of all that we need to do, and even desire to, we will find ourselves not wanting to do anything. And what separates those who will become successful from those who will maintain the status-quo, is the ability at those very crucial moments of time when we are making decisions about what we will do, to choose to find the inner motivation that will enable us to conquer our complacency and move on in action.

I find that I confront this issue in my life on a regular basis, so the following success strategies are not merely pie in the sky techniques, but proven ways to get yourself to go even when you don't feel like doing anything.

Honestly evaluate whether or not you need a break. This is the first thing that I usually do when I find that I don't feel like doing something. The fact is that often we will have been working very hard and the lethargy we are feeling is really our body and emotions telling us that we simply need a break. This is where it takes real intellectual honesty because when we don't need a break our mind is still telling us we need a break! But sometimes we do need a break.

I'll give you a good example. I don't particularly like to exercise, but I do it almost every day. Sometimes, I find myself before going to the gym thinking about how I just didn't feel like going. Most of the time I am just being lazy. However, sometimes I realise that my body needs a break. So from time to time I will take break from working out for 1 or 2 days. The benefits of this are two-fold: One, my body gets a break to regenerate itself. Two, after a day or two, I begin to miss my workout, and eagerly look forward to returning to the gym.

Or, perhaps you are a salesman who has been phoning clients for a week straight, day and night. You wake up one morning and you just don’t feel like doing it any more. Well, take a break for the morning. Go to a coffee shop and read the paper. Go to the driving range and hit some golf balls. Take a break and then get back to it!

I'm at a point in my workout schedule now where a typical workout day for me consists of 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, and about 15 minutes of weight lifting. So when I find myself not wanting to get up and go to the gym, I will sometimes make a commitment to go and just do a smaller workout. Instead of deciding not to go, I'll commit to doing 10 to 15 minutes of aerobic exercise and 10 minutes of weight lifting. This is good for two reasons. One, I actually get some exercise that day. And two, it keeps me from getting into a cycle of giving up when I don't feel like moving toward action.

I have found that what keeps me in the best shape and burns the most calories for me, is to do 20 to 30 minutes on the stairmaster every day. To be honest, I find the stairmaster rather boring. I can usually push myself to do it, but sometimes I need to vary my routine. So instead of 20 to 30 minutes on a stairmaster, I will break down my aerobic exercise routine into a number of different areas.

Another way that I motivate myself to do something when I don't feel like doing it, is to tell myself that if I get through the work that I need to, I will give myself a little reward. For instance, I may tell myself if I to get up and go to the gym I can take five to 10 minutes off my treadmill exercise, which will shorten my workout routine, and I'll allow myself to sit in the jacuzzi for a few minutes. And it's great!

We seem to connect every action with either pleasure or pain. When we are finding ourselves lacking motivation, what we are probably finding about ourselves is that we are associating the action that we are thinking about with pain, rather than pleasure. For instance, when I'm considering that not going to the health club on any given day, I am usually associating going and working out with having no time, the pain of exercising and weight lifting, or the sheer boringness of exercising. What I can do to re-associate is to remind myself that by going in and doing my exercise I will feel better about myself, I will lose weight, and I will live longer. This brings me pleasure. When we begin to run those kinds of thoughts through our mind, we find our internal motivating force unleashed and that we can our attitude about the action that we are considering.