How To Get Motivated To Achieve Your Goals

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great. 

~ Mark Twain ~

The key to successful goal setting is your ability to motivate yourself and stay motivated until you have achieved your goals. Getting and staying motivated is not as difficult as it may seem. It just takes discipline and some will power in the beginning.

First, let’s take a look at what motivation really is, and then see how you can get motivated to achieve your goals.

• Motivation is not a product of outside influence. It is a natural product of your desire to achieve something and your belief that you are capable of doing it. It increases in direct relation to how strong you build your desire and belief in yourself.

• Positive goals that are geared toward your pleasure and happiness are much more powerful motivators than negative ones that are based on fear. The right combination of both is the most powerful and motivating. Use both positive and negative motivators to your advantage.

Now let’s look at some ways that you can actually motivate yourself and stay highly motivated until you get your goals.

1. Start with visualizing your future successes and imagine the feelings you’ll experience when you achieve your goal. Intensify the feelings of accomplishment you’ll enjoy when you achieve your most important goals.

2. Mentally walk the path towards your success. Concentrate on how you will feel at different milestones on the way. Imagine how great it will be as you accomplish every step and expect each success to materialize. Celebrate your successes in your mind every morning and evening.

3. Assign a high priority to each task that you must achieve that will give each task a priority in your mind. Affirm to yourself that you will do what is necessary without fail.

4. Set a target for the amount of work you will do each day toward your goals. Schedule that amount of time in your planner and don’t allow distractions.

5. Visualize the desired outcome: Create a picture of what the desired final outcome will look like, and have this vision in your mind at all times during the day. Make up goal cards and carry them with you for extra motivation as you flow through with your schedule.

6. Set intermediate goals of the things you like to do, the things that you are good at and the person you want to be. Decide to make them happen. Make them a must have them in your life. Commitment improves motivation.

7. Use visual indicators to monitor progress and complete the task. Take pictures of your goals and create a “Vision” or “Dreams” board. Look at it, and monitor where you are with it. Write up progress reports.

8. Give yourself several affirmations to remind yourself of how capable you are and how commited you are to reaching your goals. Internalize and emotionalize each affirmation strongly. Affirmations work better when you intensely feel them as you positively speak them into your existence.

9. Watch movies that motivate you and move you to action. Visualize yourself as the hero.

10. Listen to music that motivates you, that excites you. Employ music that causes different responses for each emotion you need when you need them.

11. If you work better with competition, make a deal with a friend or family member to compete for the goal! Or, have them monitor your progress and present you with rewards for reaching them, or penalties for not reaching them. You must take it seriously for desire and motivation to kick in.

12. Get help and support from people around you or from professionals in the field you are working in, for example a career councillor, personal trainer, finance manager, trusted business associates, etc.

13. Define your own version of success, don’t let others define success for you. Your goals must be your own for them to motivate you. You have to be mentally invested in them.

14. Ignore or discount any negative influences or responses to your efforts. Put on your blinders and ear plugs to these negative people. Always only take council with people who have succeeded in your area before. Persist!

15. Make a conscious effort to do better than you have ever done. Solve problems and accept challenges as they appear. Plans will always change. What is important is that the planning process is implemented so that you have clear direction without hesitation.

16. Focus on your positive achievements and not the negatives. All people have some things they are not happy with. Concentrate on the things or people who empower your progress. Stay positive and enthusiastic about your journey and the results you are going to make happen.

17. Share your successes with trusted others as this will help keep you focused and voice your accomplishments. Celebrate early and often! There is nothing so motivating as a completed task that you had to rise to the occasion to succeed in it.

18. Acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses and work on them both, but work on improving your strengths mostly. Strengths motivate you and make you feel good at the same time. Highly motivated people use this to their great advantage.

19. Train yourself to finish what you start by refusing to quit until you are done. Cultivate the habit of determination and persistence.

20. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and if you make any, don’t punish yourself for making them. Understand that it is all in the process of succeeding. Successful people expect some failure on the way. They just carry on with their plans, or adjust and make new plans. The goal stays the same.

Now . . . that’s a list. Even if you just start practicing some of them you will see tremendous results in your goal setting program. You will get motivated and stay motivated all the way through life, while successfully achieving your wildest dreams!