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Motivation is a secret to success that is overlooked yet so important. When it is focused on and improved, people get the most out of the hidden potential they have inside. So how do you unleash this lava-like fire? Below, I’ve listed 3 quick tips for you to try.
1. Stimulate Your Subconscious With Vivid Imagery
Vivid imagery will evoke your senses. If you just say that you want to get rich, it stays in your logical brain as words.
But if you visually imagine what you want with scenery, it changes that motivation to something more impactful and evoking. This is because humans are genetically wired to remember and respond to what we see. Books are a relatively new development in the lifetime of human civilization.
Let me give you a real example to put this into practice. Let’s say my goal is to become a world traveler. I can say, “I want to travel the world” and maybe even write it down. Or I can picture the sand beneath my toes, the turquoise blue sky, the wind in my hair, the hot sun, and the tropical waves. I can picture in detail the wooden chair I sit on and the coconut palm trees beside me.
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” – Jonathan Swift
Which one do you think will work better in motivating you? I recommend building on this further and putting images (or vision boards, as some people call them) everywhere in your life to remind you. I save pictures of my goals as phone screensavers.
2. Drill Down By Asking Yourself Why Numerous Times
You need to find your true reason for doing things. On the surface, it may seem like you already know. But in reality, there is a deeper reason. By finding this, you might uncover a stronger motive that will propel you through.
For instance, most people stop at “I want to be rich.” When I drilled down, I found that I wanted to be rich in order to visit beautiful locations and improve my dating life. Not only did this clarify my true goals, it helped cut needless wastes of time. Many wealthy people realize that they could have gotten to their true goal much faster if they didn’t spend so long accumulating needless extra money.
In my case, I found through studying travel hacker blogs that it won’t take more than $100,000 a year to travel to the most exotic, beautiful destinations. In fact, if you’re willing to compromise, you can travel to some beautiful locations in third world countries for as cheap as $25,000 a year if you cook your own foods, pick the right country, and travel slow.
I have encountered millionaires who were depressed because they chose a random number that they chased after and wasted decades of their lives to only realize that they didn’t need to make that much money to achieve their true goal of traveling.
Ask yourself why numerous times. For example, why do you want to do what you do? Because I want to get rich. Why do you want to get rich? Because it will make me happy. Why do you want to be happy? Because it will feel good. By doing this, you can cut out all needless goals.
“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.” – Albert Schweitzer
3. Be as detailed as you can in describing your goal(s)
Vague goals lead to vague measurements and no direction. You cannot start moving towards your goal if you don’t have it fully described because you cannot map steps to move towards it. With a specific goal, you can start identifying methods of moving towards that goal rather than sitting stagnant.
For example, “I want a better dating life” is too vague. How about “I want a smart, young, fit, ambitious girl as a girlfriend.” This detail motivates you and sparks fire inside of you. If you recognize a girl like that, you’re more likely to have more fire inside of you.
A detailed goal also evokes the visual imagery part of your brain rather than keeping your imagination at bay. You want that detail to spark you into seeing how amazing achieving it would be. This helps you stay on course and unearths untapped motivation.
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Each day, whether we realize it or not, we endeavor to compete for something; the affection or love of a partner, a promotion in the workplace or, with ourselves to become a bigger, bolder version of ourselves.
Herein, I provide 6 steps on how you can compete every day to set yourself up for success. As you read these steps, visualize and imagine your personal definition of success. Think about how your definition of success jives with these steps.
Determine whether you are already incorporating them into your daily routine- or if you can begin introducing them into your day. Most importantly, find what works for you, stick to it and develop consistency.
1. Plan your day the night before
I’m glad that no one keeps a tally of the number of unsuccessful days I’ve lived. Frankly, I’m willing to bet we could all agree to that. What I can tell you is, the unsuccessful days have mostly been the ones that I did not plan.
As I have grown over the years in my management consulting and professional career, I have dramatically reduced those unsuccessful days by following one simple step: I have planned my day the previous night. I recommend that you list out goals that you aim to accomplish each week. Then, at the more granular level, highlight the tasks that you want to accomplish each day.
You can choose to put them into time slots, depending on whether you use a daily planner or simply a task or milestone list for the day. Once you have something in writing, you’ve made an actionable commitment to get it done.
Always allow yourself the ability to adapt and change if it’s in your best interest to do so. As the great Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth.” Chances are, you won’t need to dodge monster right hooks over the course of your day, but you will encounter adversity and changes that force you to adapt and modify your plan.
2. Read your plan out loud in the morning
Reading your plan helps you process the information and store it in your conscious and subconscious mind. No matter how good you think your short or long-term memory is, if you don’t write or read your plan, you will forget some information. Recognizing new opportunities is a skill that comes to those who have a clear, prepared mind.
When you visualize what you want to do, you have an image in your imagination. Your imagination gives birth to the ideas, goals and plans that you have. Suddenly, you have a vivid picture of seeing yourself successfully carry out your goals for the day.
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney
3. Strengthen your conviction by believing in yourself
We can speak positively over our lives in two ways: Actually speaking the words and sending the same words from our mind into our subconscious mind via, “the voice inside our head.” Both are powerful ways to build faith. Here, I want to focus a little more on the second way.
Napoleon Hill once wrote: “Auto-suggestion is the agency of control through which an individual may voluntarily feed his subconscious mind on thoughts of a creative nature, or, by neglect, permit thoughts of a destructive nature to find their way into this rich garden of the mind.”
The key here is to speak positively and to do this throughout the day. Don’t confuse this with ego-stroking or self-aggrandizing behavior. The most successful people practice auto-suggestion to feed their subconscious mind, in an effort to fuel their success.
4. Take breaks throughout the day to clear your mind
Scientific studies show that taking regular breaks help you to sharpen your focus and increase your ability to perform. Throughout my career, I’ve always built in time each day to get up, walk around and clear my mind.
We weren’t meant to spend our whole day fixated on a computer screen or working nonstop on our feet without a break. Take some time to chill and relax. Get outside and walk around a bit, fresh air will do you good. The change will give you some perspective and could take the edge off any stress or anxiety you’re dealing with.
5. Leave nothing to chance – always give 100%
There are two things you can always control- your attitude and your effort.
Achievement, both your sense of self-worth and that of others is well within your grasp if you have a positive, determined attitude and you’re willing to work harder than anyone else.
You may not always love everything you do. Heaven knows, our days will not be entirely comprised of pursuing our passions and loves all the time. Regardless, bring your best effort and attitude to everything that you do. The feeling, the emotional reward that comes with doing so is a brilliant sense of satisfaction to savor.
6. Rest with confidence, re-charge for the next day
Resting your mind and body are essential for living a successful, competitive life. If we never stop to rest, we’ll eventually burn ourselves out and suffer the consequences. A proper amount of sleep and rest is vital to our health and productivity.
“During sleep, your body is working to support healthy brain function and maintain your physical health.” – National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute
We all need to re-charge our mind and body every day. Never underestimate your need to shut down, decompress and get some sleep. You’ll be better for it!
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Too many people are living in circumstances that they are not happy with. They do not know that they can actually have the life they want. Some have not even taken any time to think about what it is that they actually want. Having an idea of the life you want means you can create your reality and live a life that makes you happy.
Follow these 10 steps below to walk towards living the life that you want:
1. Ask yourself what you want in all aspects of life
If you do not know what you are looking for in each area of your life you will wake up one day and wonder why you didn’t get what you wanted out of life. Before you can really be happy and get what you want from this life, you must ask yourself what you really want.
Many people believe that it is impossible to have their dream life, but it is possible. You just have to decide what you want first. Take the time to sit down and write this out. What do you want your life to look like? Visualise it. Visualise your ideal world and get it down on paper.
2. Get clear on your goals
Once you know what you want in all areas of your life then you need to get specific and clear about your goals. Take those ideal visions and get specific about when you want to achieve, when you want to achieve it by and how you will know you have achieved it.
“Set your goals high and don’t stop till you get there.” – Bo Jackson
3. Make a plan & take action
This is where many people get stuck and never actualise their visions and their goals. Once you have figured out what you want you need to create a path to get there and actually do the work. This can be tricky for people because this is where it can get hard but taking massive action separates those who will make changes and live the life that they dream of and those who will just always be dreaming and wishing forever.
4. Don’t settle
When creating the life that you want it is easy to get a life that you do not want and it can be difficult to work on yourself and your goals to ensure you get the life that you want. When it gets hard many people end up settling for what they have and push themselves for what they want. Don’t be someone who has settled for second best. Remember that this is your life and you can have whatever you want from this life as long as you work and don’t settle.
5. Stay focused
Creating the life you want requires you to stick to your goals. It is easy to get side tracked with so many distractions in this world. Social media, nights out drinking, spending money on meaningless items to keep up with the jones’.
We spend so much time tending to the needs of others through emails, social media, adverts constantly asking you to buy products and family or friends organising big boozy nights out. If you can take back your agenda and focus on the things that you want to do rather than answer to the needs of others, you will be on track to reach your goal.
6. Remember you deserve it
Sometimes people get scared and worry that they are not good enough or that it is only other people that achieve their dreams and goals. You need to remember that you were put on this earth and you have the skills and abilities that are unique to you. Nobody can do anything the way you do it, because you are unique. Be yourself and remember you are worth it.
7. Work hard
Goals don’t work unless you do. Having the life that you want will not happen overnight and it certainly won’t happen if you do not put the work into it. So many people set goals, make a plan and then expect things to change and improve but the reality is it takes time, work and effort to make the changes towards living the life of your dreams. So start today.
8. Stay positive
It can be difficult to stay in a positive mindset when things get hard or setbacks occur, but cultivating a happy outlook can be the difference in staying on track towards your goal and never reaching it.
“Positive better is nothing than negative nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard
9. Take time alone
We all love our family and friends, however, when you are pursuing a goal it is important that you take time to be by yourself. This will give you the opportunity to reflect on your life, what is going well, what part of the plan needs to be adapted or just to relax by meditating or reading.
I find taking time alone to be the most important part in reaching any goal, and have even found a name for it, ‘touching base’. The reason it is so important is because it gives me the chance to reconnect with myself, reconnect with what I want and ask myself if I am on the right path. It is difficult to do that when surrounded by people all the time.
10. Learn and adapt
The road to achieving your goals will not be a smooth road, but if it was easy then everyone would be doing it. During the process of working towards your goals you will experience failure and setbacks but this is where the growth and development happens. Your growth and development is necessary for you to achieve your goals so you must keep moving moving forward.
Finally, a person living the life that they want is no accident. They went out and actually created it using these 10 steps. Get started NOW and create the life you want.
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As anyone who comes from a small, southern town knows, it is extremely easy to pick up common sayings from those around you. Someone who’s pretty full of it is “all hat, no cattle.” Your perpetually late friend is “slower than molasses in January.” Someone who has just sold a business is “living in high cotton.”
Most of these sayings come from a grandmother or crazy uncle, but they are said so much that they become ingrained in our language, mentality, and culture. Imagine if this were the case with sayings from some of the smartest people out there – the world’s top CEOs.
The following sayings might not be as full of as much character compared to some of the more colorful southern expressions, but they are great lines to shape your business practices around.
Here are 30 quotes you will hear from the top CEOs:
1. “Ideas are commodity. Execution of them is not.” – Michael Dell, Dell
2. “Trust your instincts.” – Estée Lauder, Estée Lauder
3. “The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.” – Walt Disney, Disney
4. “We’re not going to invest a dollar that doesn’t make sense to invest.” – Marc Lore, Jet
5. “What do you need to start a business? Three simple things: know your product better than anyone, know your customer, and have a burning desire to succeed.” – Dave Thomas, Wendy’s
6. “Your people determine your product.” – Taso Du Val, Toptal
7. “Make your team feel respected, empowered and genuinely excited about the company’s mission.” – Tim Westergen, Pandora
8. “Don’t worry about failure; you only have to be right once.” – Drew Houston, Dropbox
9. “The common question that gets asked in business is, ‘why?’ That’s a good question, but an equally valid question is, ‘why not?’” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon
10. “Be simple and reliable” – Jan Koum, WhatsApp
“Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page, Google
12. “Make something that meshes into your daily life.” – Eric Migicovsky, Pebble
13. “There’s an entrepreneur right now, scared to death, making excuses, saying, ‘It’s not the right time just yet.’ There’s no such thing as a good time.” – Kevin Plank, Under Armour
14. “I always did something I was a little not ready to do. I think that’s how you grow. When there’s that moment of ‘Wow, I’m not really sure I can do this,’ and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough.” – Marissa Mayer, Yahoo
15. “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” – Richard Branson, Virgin Group
16. “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.” – Ray Kroc, McDonald’s
17. “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh, Zappos
18. “Capital isn’t scarce. Vision is.” – Sam Walton, Wal-Mart
19. “Life is too short to do mediocre work and it is definitely too short to build shitty things.” – Stewart Butterfield, Slack
20. “In this ever-changing society, the most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart. They are real and sustainable. Their foundations are stronger because they are built with the strength of the human spirit, not an ad campaign. The companies that are lasting are those that are authentic.” – Howard Schultz, Starbucks
“As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.” – Donald Trump, The Trump Organization
22. “Singular focus matters.” – Jeffrey Housenbold, Shutterfly
23. “Smarter is always the answer.” – Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM
24. “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs, Apple
25. “I’m not an inventor. I just want to make things better.” – Daniel Ek, Spotify
26. “I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” – John D. Rockefeller, Standard Oil
“When you innovate, you’ve got to be prepared for everyone telling you you’re nuts.” – Larry Ellison, Oracle
28. “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” – Elon Musk, SpaceX
29. “As an entrepreneur, I try to push the limits. Pedal to the metal.” – Travis Kalanick, Uber
30. “Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world…if you do so, you are insulting yourself.” – Bill Gates, Microsoft
By adopting these sayings and the mentalities behind them, you can follow in the footsteps of some of the greatest business leaders. After all, who is better to learn from than the successful people that came before you?
