[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
18 Comments
I put pictures that reflect my dreams and goals in a powerpoint presentation, nerdy I know, and I flip thru them to remember why I’m doing it. I used to print them out but I’m trying to save paper. Plus, I can upload the ppt to my phone and view it anytime.
~Lea
Being a non nerd Lea, I’m always impressed with nerds and geeks…in fact I want to be one. In the meantime, I’ll take little smidgeons of nerd perspectives and say thank you. I wouldn’t even know how to do a ppt so I’m doubly impressed with your pictures. Great motivational technique for which I’m grateful you stopped by to share. 🙂
Boy, did I need this after a stressful week! I laughed when I read about hanging upside down. I’ve warned my staff that if they walk into my office when the door is closed, they might catch me upside down in a handstand (I love yoga!). Going upside down changes the blood flow and changes your perspective in the midst of a crazy day. I highly recommend it!
I practice many of these ideas every day but was very happy to be reminded of others. Now I’m off to watch a funny movie!
A laugh a day seems to keep the doctor away Paige. I think it used to be an apple, hey ho don’t know if I can keep up with the changes! So glad to hear this post made you laugh and it’s no surprise to me that you practice most of these ideas…you just have to look at your smiling photo online. Although it seems to have disappeared from this comment, somehow. 🙂
Elle,
I love the idea of starting off the day on a positive note. And, it only takes a few minutes, doesn’t it! There are so many good steps to happiness here. The ones that are resonating for me are dropping into my heart and not holding on. I find dropping into my heart is a small energetic shift that makes all the difference in the world from being overwrought with thought to just being quietly present. Thanks for these ideas, Elle.
Love the way you put that Sandra, dropping into your heart is a small energetic shift. It’s so true how the tiny things can make a huge difference in our life experience. Inspirational, as always. 🙂
All eleven are “spot on” but I am most drawn to “Chose Your Day”.
To sail a boat and get anywhere you must plot a course. Setting our intention for our day is charting the course of our day and maximizing the joy of each one. You are so clear and so pungent, Elle!
Thanks Dore, am I really pungent Dore? Hope you mean sharp as opposed to smelly. 🙂
Hi Elle……Wow! Every single one of these are great reminders and I don’t know about you but I need to hear them over and over again. Thanks for reminding us of these great do’s and don’ts. One thing I would add to your list as you requested would be the simple practice of “ignoring the black dots.” It’s really very simple in that it is a reminder to look away from the negatives and focus on the good. For all the related ideas you can go my website and search “black dots”. Thanks as always for your inspiration. ~Kathy
I think I write about the stuff I need to pay attention to Kathy…thanks for adding to the list. 🙂
Hi Elle
I completely agree with you that an aim is important in life.Whether the aim is daily or monthly or weekly doesnt matter much.One of the amjor aims to achieve is to stay motivated to work at all times.
The easiest thing to do for anyone is to not work.When you don’t act you are unlikely to make mistakes ,or fail.The fear of failure and unrequited results is the greatest dissuader cultivated by a weak willed mind.It takes you no where.Imagine what would have happened had Einstein,Wright brothers ,or Edison ,or Ford ,or any of the great innovators been so nonplussed by fear of failure?
Lucky for us.They didn’t.
Thanks
Mona
I think they mostly didn’t perceive things not working out as a failure Mona…I know for sure Edison said they were merely results. Life as we experience it is just a result of our most dominant thoughts and feelings and thankfully we have free will to choose what we’re going to believe, to think, to accept and most importantly how we’re going to feel about it all. It’s an inside job and only entertaining those thoughts and feelings that lead us to where we want to go is probably the hardest thing of all for most of us. 🙂
Elle,
I need three of these…I’m in my head too much when I’m working. I need to open my heart. I get caught up in control too often. Surprise. Surprise;) I get to intense and serious. I’m putting a reminder in my phone. Here’s to a day of opening, releasing and strutting my stuff.
I’d love to see that Tess, you strutting your stuff. You do it online all the time with your bold ways…but to actually see you in action…now that’d be cool. 🙂 And I know what you mean about the control thingy. That’s the thing I have to release most of all throughout my day, wanting things to be the way I think they should be!
Ah, the elusive ways to get motivated. These are good reminders, as we are human and, like you said, repetition can be important. Quieting the mind could be a challenge in this society but it can be done at times if you make time for it. The controlling issue you mention seems prevalent in this society. These are helpful tips. Have noticed this is something that does not work on its own. Keep spreading your message as many people could benefit from it.
Thanks for stopping by Albert…it’s all an ongoing process…life that is. And I love the way we all keep expanding and growing ourselves. I notice lately how many wonderful people I meet who are putting out so much good into the world and I’m blessed because I met them. And like you, I’m glad they’re putting they’re messages out there. 🙂
Elle, dear, you really nailed this one! This is precious and golden. Especially not misusing imagination. That was where I was stuck for the longest time, the cd had gotten jammed and was playing the same thing. Though I had chosen the path well, my brain used my present situation against me and somehow triggered that past event, blaming me for it and scolding me for not going for something else for which I am not sure if it would have been better. Is still feel I dodged some sort of bullet by not doing that particular thing then, so I thank the universe instead.
That is another things you may add to the list. Not sure if anyone else mentioned it- Do be deeply appreciative. This gets the energy flowing around everything.
Welcome A how lovely to see you here and with such insight too. I will confess I can still get caught up in present – less than positive – moments. I just move out of them more quickly than before, which of course all comes down to practice. And no one has mentioned appreciation this go round. But you are spot on with this one. Joy makes a great difference in my experiences in the day, and of course joy and gratitude or appreciation go hand in hand, or is it hand in glove. Never mind, you get the picture. 🙂