How To Motivate Yourself

What if you have your beliefs aligned, you have no mental internal conflicts, you even have a plan by which to accomplish your goals that you know will work, but you still find yourself lethargic or unmotivated? What if you can't get yourself pumped up enough to take action? Can you change that? The answer is yes. Most people do not believe they can, however, and when they have feelings that they are not motivated, they simply say "I'm just not motivated." Do you know that there are steps that you can take to change that? To literally change the signals sent throughout your nervous system so that you can be incredibly motivated to act? This article will teach you how.

Now, first we have to think about why we do not get motivated and what happens inside of our minds. In my experience through study and the application of what I learned, people often times are so connected with the now, and have limiting beliefs about the goodness of the future, that even though they may have a plan to accomplish something, somewhere inside of them is a voice that says "it won't happen anyway, who are you kidding." In addition, depending upon if you're focusing on what you have to DO to get the job done, OR the rewards of achieving it, you'll feel completely different. In most cases, we associate taking action towards something, a chore. We feel like it's "discipline" or have associated it with something we have to do. Once you make the shift towards having goals be something you want to do, life changes in an extraordinary way.

So, your focus should be on the rewards of the process. It can be difficult to see the rewards right away, which is why I suggest some creative visualization techniques. Sit down, for 20 minutes at a time, twice a day and put yourself at the completion of this thing you want to change, whatever you need to get motivated about. See the images in your head, make them rich, clear and colorful. Ensure they are close to you in your minds eye and that you are actually in your body in the experience. This is what's called being "fully associated." This has a proven effect on your brain. It changes the way that you feel about the situation. The more you engage your senses in this manner, the more you activate different parts of your brain, the more you make neuro associational links between good feelings, motivation and desire, and this thing you want to take action on. At a small particle level in your nervous system, changes are actually happening the more you do this.

Keep doing this, as many times as it takes for it to change the way that you feel about it. While you are visualizing, I would even suggest in-canting to yourself, out loud, why you really want to get this thing done. Say things like "I will get this done, because I know it will benefit me and I will feel great when I achieve it!" Say it loud, engaging your voice, using your body and putting true emotion into it. This also has an incredible psychological effect on your mind. In no time, you'll be compelled to take action. We were never given a book that says "this is how you motivate yourself," but thankfully, people who are incredibly motivated wrote down some methods, and people like Richard Bandler and John Grinder, Founders of Neuro Linguistic Programming, modeled strategies from people who were extremely effective in what they did. Now that you have read this, will you apply it? There is a huge difference between knowing something intellectually, and then applying it. Only when you apply it, you see the benefit, does it become personal. Now it's yours! Get yourself motivated, take the action, make it happen! In a subsequent Hub, I will explain some other ways you can motivate yourself by communicating to yourself in an upbeat way. Your internal chatter means more than you think! Thanks for reading, this is Ryan Critchett with Power of a Positive Mind