What do motivational thoughts do?
They help you take action. This isn’t about positive thinking or motivating quotes. Those have their place in shaping your attitude and thinking. However, what motivates each of us is unique, so you need to have your own thoughts – those which are most effective at getting you going.
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” – Albert Einstein
This is a decent quote, and it may help you look at the positive side of a situation, but what if it just doesn’t get you excited? Then you need to apply a little brainpower to make the idea your own. You have to make it a truly motivational thought for YOU.
Motivational thought of your own is the key.
“Making it your own” means experimenting with a good thought until you find a way to use it in your own recipe for motivation.
“The thoughts that work for you are the thoughts you need to be thinking.”
Learn your motivations. Experiment and get to know how your mind works. Here are a couple of examples that might help you get through difficult time.
1. Imagination-driven Motivation
This is very good one that I often use and works. If you’re in a difficult situation and don’t feel like dealing with it. As you sit there, you play around with the idea of opportunity coming from difficulty. Now, imagine yourself being interviewed someday about how you overcame this difficult time and tuned the difficult situation to your advantage. This is how you create your own motivational thoughts.
2. Sharing Motivation
I find that beyond just thinking a thought, if I explain it to someone, I get excited. That is my own self-motivation recipe. When I feel unmotivated about writing, for example, all I explain an idea I have for some article to my partner or friend. By the time I am done, I’m very motivated to work. Explain someone what you are about to do. This works!
3. Fear-Driven Motivation
You can get creative in your motivational experiments. Maybe thinking about being poor makes you get up and get to work. Maybe thinking about being sick and fat makes you get up and work out. The thoughts of situation that you do not want to see yourself to be in would make you motivated. If this work for you then imagine that. That is a great motivational thought.
4. Visual Motivation
If visual thoughts are more motivating than mental conversations, then use those. See pictures in your head that get you going. Or actually look at the picture in your hand help you get going.
5. Pride-Driven Motivation
Perhaps when people say you can’t do something, you do whatever it takes to prove them wrong. You may be related with something like this… This is a big turn-off for some people or turn-on for others. If this keeps you going, then it might be motivational to think about them saying you can’t.
6. Reward-Driven Motivation
When there is a truly uninspiring task you have to do, try promising yourself a reward for completion – make it one that really means something to you. Keep that thought in your mind to keep yourself motivated. A trip to the beach and even a simple bowl of ice cream may be some of your more powerful motivational thoughts.
Hope you find something that works for you. Keep doing that until achieving the things you want in life!
Let me know how things work for you.
Zen For Life 