Introduction
Learning how to motivate yourself at-will is one of the most important skills you can learn.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a student, entrepreneur, recent divorcee, or anything else.
Being able to keep pushing forward, and doing what you need to do, is a skill that EVERYONE should master.
This isn’t just about willpower- although that’s part of it. It isn’t just about your “Why”, although it plays a role.
Motivation isn’t always about taking massive action- but it can certainly help. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about motivation:
“Motivation is a psychological feature that arouses an organism to act towards a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains certain goal-directed behaviors. It can be considered a driving force; a psychological one that
compels or reinforces an action toward a desired goal. For example, hunger is a motivation that elicits a desire to eat. Motivation is the purpose or psychological cause of an action
Motivation has been shown to have roots in physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and social areas. Motivation may be rooted in a basic impulse to optimize well- being, minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure. It can also originate from specific physical needs such as eating, sleeping or resting, and sex.
Motivation is an inner drive to behave or act in a certain manner. "It's the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day. These inner conditions such as wishes, desires, goals, activate to move in a particular direction in behavior.”
That’s a pretty good explanation, but let’s keep it a lot shorter. Motivation is finding the energy and enthusiasm to accomplish your goals.
That’s it. Again- there are many other things that play a role in this.
Your willpower
Your environment
Your history
Your current situation
Who you hang out with
Whether you like what you’re doing Etc.
But at the end of the day, being motivated means taking action towards what you’re supposed to do. Is it easy? No
way! If it was, procrastination wouldn’t be such a prevalent force in today’s society.
But what I’ve learned over the years is that typically, the hard things are what make the biggest difference.
The hard talk with a friend. The hard workout. The long nights working on your business.
And once you master the ability to motivate yourself, you’ll be able to do all of these things- and more- without a sweat!
So how do we do this? How do we learn how to motivate ourselves to do what needs to be done?
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