Mastering the Art of Self-Motivation

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”—-Walter Einstein

How do you know you’re self-motivated? This is a good question, and the answer should include what actions you took during the last 24 hours and if you did them without someone else telling you what to do!

Taking self-driven action is one way to work out if you’ve got self-motivation. Another measure is your momentum and your ability to set and achieve goals. As you get older, you learn how you live each day determines your level of happiness, sense of satisfaction and achievement.

Reflection

What did you learn from the day? Who did you help? How much closer are you to that project that you are working on? If you look at life based upon what you accomplished in an average day, you would be very impressed with yourself. We live in a society that looks at our zip code, car, and home to determine how valuable we are. These material things may be necessary to you, but what about all the other things you are doing each day to improve yourself.

L. P. Jacks, Senior Lecturer, an English educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister who rose to prominence in the period from World War I to World War II, once said:

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.

When you do what you love, you begin to find your true north, which, according to Bill George, the author of the book True North, is your internal compass.

There is a lot of content online on motivation within the general broader category of self-help. Do some online keyword searches on how to know your level of motivation and actions to take to improve it. While you’ve heard this phrase many times before, it’s worth mentioning it here: If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. This doesn’t mean you have to strive to fill up every second of the day to reach peak self-motivation.

Reflecting on what you did the previous day and adding something new to achieve for the following day is really where satisfaction, contentment and reward happen.

Who Am I?

Develop an awareness of your strengths and weaknesses, and then set up a plan to enhance your strengths and, if you have time, work on eliminating your shortcomings. For example, if you’re an introvert, make a plan to speak to someone you don’t know well. Ask them how their day is going, and share something about yourself.

Did you know conversing with strangers is more accessible than with people you know? Strangers don’t know you, so they’re not judging you with preconceived ideas of who they think you are and what you represent. Moving away from where you grew up to a city or country that’s new to you can give you the very fresh start you want in your life.

There is no better time than now to make the necessary changes in your life to create a roadmap for success and transform your life. Your life quest began when you first arrived in this world. You were dependent upon your parents at that time, but now you have to depend on yourself. Take the necessary steps to reinvent yourself by focusing on your core competencies which are the things that you do well.

Reinventing yourself means that you surround yourself with creative and innovative people. Ben Franklin once said that you should become a revolutionary for experimentation and change. To do this, you have to look at failure as a way of learning. Failing just means that you have a chance for a new beginning.

Top 5

Here are five things that you can do today to begin mastering the art of self-motivation:

• Set high goals. Oprah Winfrey said in 1987 that she would be a millionaire by age thirty-two; fourteen years later, she was worth 1.4 billion dollars.
• Thrive on challenge
• Invest the necessary effort
• When faced with obstacles, persevere. Become tenacious and resilient by bouncing back from obstacles with a more substantial presence and determination.

Final Thoughts

Life is what you make it. What do you want to achieve in your career? We’re all fearful of change on some level. However, small successes improve our self-motivation, and with it, we’re living the life we want to live.

Are you a manager with staff?  For further reading, see 4 Ways To Create A Happier Workplace.