Motivating Yourself To Superlative Performance (1)

Why must you motivate yourself? Because if you don’t nobody will do it for you. The purpose of this discussion is to discover how to have a high desire for those things we have agreed to do.

Motivation Defined

A dictionary defines the verb motivate as “to provide with a motive.” Motive is an emotion or desire operating on the will and causing it to act.

Motivation Comes From Inside You

The implication of the above definition is that motivation springs from inside you. It is not something that another person gives you. It cannot be pumped from outside through pep talks, exhortations, chest thumping, drills, and offering of propitiatory gifts. It will not endure if it is injected from outside. Even if it is someone’s idea, you have to buy into it. You have to believe in it. You have to adopt it as yours. It has to align with your value system.

Why must you motivate yourself? Because if you don’t nobody will do it for you. Each of us is created with a free will. You and I have that power of control over our actions and emotions. You may know what is good for you or what you have to do and you decide not to do it anyway. You are exercising your will. Yet, if you are highly motivated, if your desire for that thing is high, you will get up and do it.

The Goal

Why act? What for? Just to produce results? We agreed earlier that motive is an emotion or desire operating on the will and causing it to act.

Desire for what? Desire for something. Desire to produce an outcome. The only reason we act is that we want to produce not just any result, but those results that have the greatest chance of leading us to our predetermined outcomes.

Set a goal. Make sure your goal is acceptable to you.

The Process of Manifestation

1. Decide what you really want. Choose your BIG. Articulate it clearly.
2. Focus on it. Forget about any other goals. This is difficult for many of us, but if you don’t, you’ll be scattering your attention in too many directions.
3. Eliminate all wants that are in direct opposition to your Big Dream. “Be ruthless on this one,” John-Roger and Peter McWilliams counsels in Do It!
4. Ask yourself: Why absolutely will I achieve the above goals? Why am I sure I can reach the above outcomes? Why is it important that I achieve the stated goals? What old dreams and projects must die for the new vision to emerge?
5. Will these goals really be acceptable to you when you achieve them? Can you maintain them? Will they hurt anyone or others? Do they have any negative side effects socially, psychologically, culturally?
6. What assets and important resources do you have at your disposal to make this vision manifest? These may include beliefs, motivations, personal characteristics, circle of competence, education, skills and expertise, working experiences, friends and other people assets, energy/health, acquaintances and associates, resource materials, time etc.
7. Identify times in the past when you used some of these resources or your felt totally successful.
8. Identify liabilities and potential obstacles; that is, all the negative factors that might hold you back. How do you manage these liabilities and obstacles?
9. Now, go back and review your goals, making adjustments for the liabilities. Include the time frame.
10. What kind of person will you have to become in order to achieve your goals in 2001, say? What new habits will you have to imbibe?
11. What prevented you last year from achieving some of your goals? What prevents you now from having the things you desire?
12. What are important beliefs and attitudes that produced superior results for you in the past? What has ever motivated you?
13. What responsibilities are likely to face you when you achieve your goals for 2001? Are you ready to bear them?
14. Come up with some models. They may be individual or corporate. What qualities and behaviour enabled these people or institutions to become successful? What sort of counsel do you think they’ll offer you to achieve your goals this year?
15. Identify facilitators and prodders. These are individuals who motivate and encourage you, etc. What can you learn from them? Identify inhibitors. These are individuals who tell you it can’t work; they discourage you. What can you learn from them? Distance yourself from inhibitors.
16. Create your ideal day this year. Your ideal day is a mental concept of how you want to spend a perfect day. When will you wake up? When will you sleep? What’ll you do in the day? To achieve your goals this year you may wish to cut down on your hours of sleep. Draw up a plan of how you intend to spend each day of the week.
17. This is for your Gratitude Diary: How will you feel when you achieve these goals? How’ll you want your family, neighbours and acquaintances to see you?
18. What will it cost you if you fail to achieve your goals for 2001? How painful will it be? What are the consequences to your family, your career, and your life purpose?
19. Get into your personal history, to a time in which you were very successful. Relive and revive them. Think of the outcomes you desire this year. Make a picture of how you’d feel when you achieve your goals for 2001? What’ll you see? What’ll you hear? What’ll your loved ones, friends, and associates feel? What’ll they say or do?
20. Hand over your plan to God. Ask for guidance.
21. Use your imagination to create desire outcomes. Visualize. “Use the power of imagination to visualize, ” Ford T. Johnson, Jr. advises. “Visualize what you want, but several steps beyond obtaining it, so that you have to assume the thing itself. If you only visualize the thing you want, then doubt may creep in. You may wonder, ‘Am I really sure I am going to get it?”’
22. Develop your expectation. A sage once said, “What you get in life is not determined by what you desire but what you expect, for even if you desire the right things and still fear that you’ll fail, you’ll fail.” Ford Johnson tells us to have the consciousness of expectancy. “You must expect that it will happen. You must have wonderment. I wonder what miracle will happen this very day! And because I expect it, guess what happen? It comes.”
23. Integrate the visioning and doing process.
24. Review and manage obstacles and alternatives. Change your behaviour and strategy but remain focused on your dreams. Be flexible. Go step by step. More importantly, listen!
25. Practice getting out of the way. Beware of the tendency of every manifestation to go through a period of doubt and pain. “There is a certain amount of pain, or what appears to be pain or fear associated with every manifestation,” says Johnson. If you are not vigilant at this point, you might begin to create a negative mental picturing. Johnson counsels that whenever you meet resistance, you could stand back, and look at the resistance, and say, “Now is not the time to be faint of heart. I must recall my original vision. I accept this manifestation in a perfect way. I know it is happening in perfect way, because I trust God.”