Self-motivation as a tonic for success

There is a saying that it is easy to take a horse to the river. But what is not easy is to force it to drink water there. This saying is also true when it comes to achievement of success. It is one thing to try to
motivate somebody to achieve success in life. But your effort at inspiring the person may not achieve results until the person him- or herself is self-motivated. This is because
your effort will be fruitless if in your absence, the person does not have the determination to be successful.
  There are two parts to self-motivation or internal motivation, that is, mental and physical. In the mental stage, you conceive in your mind where you want to go; while in the physical state, you take action to get to where you aspire to be.


Pathway
Self-motivation, which consists of thought and action, is a key to success. This is because the willingness to act on your ideas is at least as important as the ideas themselves. If you want to be successful in life, you need to be a self-starter; give your success aspiration all you have; and dare yourself to act now. The world is full of opportunities beckoning at you every second, minute and day. But the key to making the most of those opportunities is action. This implies that you should dream your dreams, but motivate yourself to put your plans into motion.


Fixed-personality myth
The choice you make for your thinking either motivates you or not. Although clear visualisation of a goal is a good first step, a joyfully motivated life demands more. To live the life you want to live, action is required. In the words of William Shakespeare, “Action is eloquence.”
Steve Chandler, a sales trainer as well as a keynote and convention speaker submits that it is a myth to say each of us has a fixed personality. Chandler stresses that this is self-limiting and denies us our power of continuous creation. In our ongoing creation of whom we are, nothing has a greater impact on that process than the choice we make between optimism and pessimism. There are no optimism or pessimism personalities; there are only single, individual choices for optimistic or pessimistic thoughts.


First step
To be able to motivate yourself to success through self-motivation, you must be able to identify your core desires. Everybody has what it takes to achieve greatest desires, but to find the motivation and direction your life needs, you must identify your core desires. That is, things you are very passionate about. Whether you want to earn more money, establish cordial relationships or boost your self-confidence, you must first identify your core desires, that is, things that drive you from within.
Ideas
  Apart from identifying your core desires, you also need to have ideas to be able to succeed. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and the sky is beginning of your success that can be achieved through self-motivation.
Dr. Walter Doyle Staples, one of America’s most celebrated authorities on human-potential issues says all accomplishments, whether big or small, begin with an idea. Although ideas in general are not in short supply, creative and innovative ideas are, and so are people who can turn them into reality. You should prepare for success and your chance will definitely come.


Goal-setting
Having got the necessary ideas, another thing to do to be able to accomplish success through self-motivation is to set goals and plan. Before any adventure, take time to plan. Design your own plan of attack. Always observe a successful person, no sooner does he or she achieve his or her goal than he or she will set newer and higher goals in order to further extend his or her success and happiness. This does not mean that successful people have no disappointments. But they are successful because they know how to overcome challenges. When formulating your personal goals, you should endeavour to keep this simple PROBE rule in mind. That is, make the goals “Practical”; “Reasonable”; “Obtainable”; “Big” and “Exciting”.


Vision
    In addition to your goal-setting, you need to have a vision. Without a vision, you do not know where you are going and certainly cannot develop a strategy to get there. The vision you establish creates the future you will have. Establishing your vision requires that you integrate the person you are and the opportunity you have chosen to pursue to a cohesive whole.


Energy and good health habits
   Being energetic and cultivation of good health habits are another area worthy of consideration when talking about achievements through self-motivation. George Shinn, a renowned motivational writer and speaker says, “You need energy for successful motivation. Energy is like the propellant that goes into a satellite to provide thrust (action), like the gasoline that powers our cars. But the amount of energy an individual has to expend is …measured by the condition of the human body and mind.” Health is a person’s physical and mental state.


Addition
You need to devote your very substantial energies as fully as possible to the venture you are engaging yourself in, throw yourself into the work and spend long hours at it to be able to succeed. Additionally, you need to make your appearance an asset; develop a magnetic personality; build successful relationships; overcome worry, doubt, and fear; master your tensions and learn to relax; overcome failure; learn from your mistakes; and solve your problems.


Visualising your last hours
  Paradoxically, the readiness to visualise your last hours is a self-motivation tonic when we are talking about achievement of success. As Chandler puts it, “Pretending you aren’t going to die is detrimental to your enjoyment of life… Confronting our own death doesn’t have to wait until we run out of life. In fact, being able to vividly image our last hours on our deathbed creates a paradoxical sensation: the feeling of being born all over again – the first step to fearless self-motivation.”


Words of advice
  What is the essence of coming to this world without making indelible impression or become a great achiever through self-motivation? You need to deploy all efforts to be able to succeed and your best bet is to (re)activate your internal-motivation mechanisms.