11 Do's And Don'ts To Get Motivated…And Stay There

[success]Be miserable,or motivate yourself.  Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice. ~ Wayne Dyer[/success]

Motivation can be hard.  Not as hard as pulling a ten ton truck with your teeth or ultra-marathoning, something akin to a system of self annihilation, nevertheless getting and staying motivated isn’t always easy.

Don’t despair, no need for meds, here’s a few little do’s and don’ts that might help.

Do have a daily aim

Have a daily thought to think from.  If we’re not consciously and deliberately planting thoughts in our mind it’ll just get busy seeding itself because think it will, it must… that’s its job.  We should always be exercising our imagination by choosing the thoughts and ideas we have.

I invite you to be conscious of what you’re thinking.  Are you thinking of gratitude or moaning and complaining. We must programme our mind for success, starting at the beginning of each day. What’s the most positive, constructive thought you can have for today?  Think it.

Do open your heart

Trust your feelings.  Feel your feelings and allow yourself to experience the truth of your heart.  No judgement necessary.  There are times to let go of logical thinking and simply step into an open heart space.  The walls we’ve built around ourselves, which we think are keeping us safe, can become a prison, where we keep our higher, greater self locked away.

I’ve never been too keen on the idea of being imprisoned, the thought of those dank little spaces gives me the heebie jeebies.  Added to that, locking ourselves away keeps the abundance of the universe from getting in.  Don’t know about you, but I sort of like the abundance of the universe.

Quiet your mind every now and then and you’ll hear your heart more clearly and who knows it may have places to take you that will enrich and expand your life in ways you haven’t ever considered.

Don’t hang on

Contrary to lots of popular songs hanging on can be harmful. Let go of the conscious mind or ego’s desire to control things.

Let go of the need to control people or experiences in life, or your career, or love life or health.  Just as we can’t sit and stand at the same time, nor can we want and have something at the same time.  Wanting control is a bright flashing signal that we feel we don’t have it.

And we all know the joys of repetition. Any signal that’s delivered over and over to our subconscious becomes a belief and then a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So just let it drop, dissolve and melt away. You’re wasting a vast percentage of your creative energy trying to control everything.

Do Dream

Don’t throw your dreams away by thinking they’re impossible.  Take time each day to go over your biggest dreams.  Have you written them down?  No?  Stop and do it right now.  A separate page for each one, this is your recipe for life. Pay attention and look at them every day.  Giving up on your dreams is like ripping out part of your heart and soul, part of your identity.

If your dreams change direction great.  But don’t give up on them, or how can you ever have them come true?

Do have a daily dose of laughter

Laughter is the best medicine…we’ve all heard that.  But I hadn’t heard that it was a natural painkiller. It would seem that the workout you get from a good laugh releases endorphins that can raise your natural pain threshold and strengthen your immune system.  Who knew?  You did?  Oh.

Orison Swett Marden tells the story of a woman who was the  “victim of almost crushing sorrow, despondency, indigestion, insomnia, and kindred ills.”  She decided she was going to have three good belly laughs daily and apparently took herself into her room each day and trained herself to laugh at will and before too long  her health improved and  she became a happy clappy soul.

I made that last part up.  According to Orison she developed a sunny disposition, but that sounded a bit boring, so I changed his story.

Don’t allow stress to set you back

One thing is certain, stress is something we all experience, well maybe the Dalai Llama doesn’t, but for the rest of us mere mortals, chances are we get stressed out.  And what do we do?  Fall back onto our old habits.  Stress or being overwhelmed dismantles any reserves of willpower we might have, so our brain just runs us on automatic.

This doesn’t have to be totally bad news.  We don’t just fall back onto bad habits, we also have some good habits that we can fall back on.  A smart move is to start forming even more good habits of thought when we’re feeling happy as larks.

A little bit of persistence and repetition during our up times creates habits that can serve us well during those down days.

Don’t misuse imagination

Did you know that memory and imagination involve almost identical mental processes?  Me neither.  But what I did know is that focusing on the past gets in the way of imagining the thrill of our desires and dreams being fulfilled.  Sadly many of us live with a sense of guilt over past mistakes.  We blame ourselves, instead of just taking responsibility, for the choices we made. How quickly we forget that with each minute comes a new opportunity to make a different choice and leave the old ones behind.  Preferably far behind.

Time to stop beating ourselves up and move out of this cycle that does nothing but weaken our life force and us.

Do choose your day

Take 5 or so minutes at the beginning of the day to imagine what your day was like.  Imagine what you did, what it felt like.  This way instead of ‘faffing’ through your day (guilty me) you’ve sent a message to your subconscious that this is how your day went and you accomplished and experienced All you wanted. Consider it a form of spiritual planning.

Do…Up your swagger

And no, I’m not talking about the clothes you wear, I’m talking about the original definition of the word, your mindset, your confidence, your charisma.  Take it up a notch.  Viewing yourself in this way, might bring unexpected, even heroic results.  No rapping necessary…just a bit of extra swag.

Don’t be a bump on a log

If it’s likely that you’ll be sitting at a desk or with laptop on knee, set a timer for 50 minutes and then get up and move.  Do anything, go and hang upside down, do the laundry, make the bed, dance a jig, shake that booty.  I can’t in good conscience recommend the truck pulling with teeth. But getting the blood flowing isn’t only good for your body it’s good for your heart and soul and this means your creativity.

Do feed your mind

A daily dose of inspiration, encouragement, and motivation is the essential life blood to our creative imagination.  By modeling yourself on those who’ve achieved greatness you can take on the characteristics and strength that led to their success.  This helps to stimulate your creativity and draws from your intuition and your subconscious ideas and insights that are able to flow because inspiration is taking you to a place of unlimited wonder. Let yourself be lifted to heights you might not accomplish so easily on your own.

Your turn.  Got any techniques or apps or anything that gets you and keeps you motivated.  Leave us the goods in the comments below.  We can all encourage each other with new ideas, and you may just have the one tip that someone really needed to hear today.

Thanks for being so insightful and amazing and reading and sharing.

Keep on encouraging one another.

Love Elle