If you want to excel in life, self motivation is essential. That's the only way to get the power you need to overcome difficulties.
The question is: how do you motivate yourself? Here are several tips to help you build self motivation:
1. Have a cause
Have a cause you care about. Such cause can inspire you to give your best even in the face of difficulties. It can make you do the seemingly impossible things.
It's a spring of motivation that will never dry. Whenever you think that you run out of motivation, you can always come to your cause to get a fresh dose of motivation.
2. Have a big dream.
Your cause is a powerful source of motivation but it's still abstract in nature. You need to make it concrete in the form of a dream. Having a dream is important because it's difficult to be motivated if you don't have anything to shoot for. Just think about people who play basketball. Will they be motivated to play if there is no basket to aim at? I don't think so. They need a goal. You need a goal. That's what your dream is for.
But just having a dream is insufficient. Your dream must be big enough to inspire you. It must be realistic but challenging. It must stretch your ability beyond your comfort zone.
3. Be hungry
To be truly motivated, you need to have hunger and not just desire. Having mere desire won't take you through difficult times since you don't want things badly enough. How can you have hunger? Your cause and your dream play a big role here. If you have a cause you care about and a big dream related to it, you should have the hunger inside of you.
4. Run your own race
Comparing yourself with others is an effective way to demotivate yourself. Even if you start with enthusiasm, you will soon lose your energy when you compare yourself with others.
Don't let that happen to you. You have your own race so how other people perform is irrelevant. The only one you need to beat is you. Have you become the best you can be?
5. Take one more step
When you meet obstacles along the way,you may think that it's too difficult to move on. You may think that your dream is impossible to achieve.There is one thing that makes the winners different: the courage to continue. In difficult situations, just 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 the next step.
6. Let go of the past
One of the best demotivators 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 disappoint others with what you did. But it's over. It's already in the past and there's nothing you can do about it. 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.
This article is taken from www.lifeoptimizer.com
