Yo! Excuse the sheen, but I get pumped by working out. What does it for you?
Could be blasting that one piece of music until your ears bleed or barking at yourself in the mirror…or is that just for emergencies?
What I’ve found is that the best way to motivate yourself to your top performance is to find self-motivators that really connect with your needs and desires. I’m talking about developing your own internal supply of extra energy and effort when you really need it.
Here are 9 ideas to transform yourself from a disbeliever into a motivated self-believer. Are you up for the challenge?:
- Peek Under The Covers – Get Self-Aware. Be honest about your greatest shortcoming and target that. Find what’s holding you back and obliterate it with action. Are you a procrastinator? Lazy? Or have you been over-promising and under-delivering? This can happen to a lot of flippers, who think they’re good at sales because they never stop talking and say all kinds of unsupported things. Whatever your main obstacle is, decide to overcome it right now. If you procrastinate, write up an Action Plan and implement it. If you’re lazy, borrow the Action Plan from the procrastinator and team up in making it real.
- Imagine Yourself As You Want To Be, and I don’t mean picturing your adorable ass in a pretty car with a mansion in the background. Envision what a successful you is good at. What skills or qualities do you need to develop to make it so? Make it so!
- Do Your Body Good. If you’ve never balanced a good diet, exercise and sufficient rest in a healthy lifestyle, you have no idea how energizing and motivating it can be. It gives you several advantages over the limp and aimless. It’s like being born anew, full of vitality and purpose. It will also affect your brain activity too, turning you into a lean and mean thinking machine.
- Positivize Your Self-Talk. This is an excellent way to re-engineer your motivation. How many of you slam yourself in the privacy of your own mind? Show of hands! Maybe you even curse yourself out loud? I’d call you a doofus, but that’s not the point. The point is, the stuff you tell yourself becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in your behavior and results. If you keep calling yourself a moron, you will do moronic things. However, the opposite is true. We’re too quick to put ourselves down when, if we pause and choose to change, we could lift ourselves up to new levels of achievement and happiness. After all, what would it hurt, apart from your negative self-esteem, if you emphasized the good things instead of the bad crap in your self-talk?
- Stay Away From The News. Don’t let the world’s tragedies weigh you down. Ration your intake of, or go cold turkey from, the faraway, events of the day. The kinds of inputs you choose to absorb have a direct impact on your state of mind and outlook. It may sound harsh, but sometimes a total abstinence from the bad news is the best thing you can do to raise your spirits.
- Adjust Your Goals. It’s very tempting in this business to set unrealistic targets when you first start out. Sadly, there’s nothing more demotivating than trying to reach a bar that’s way out of your grasp. An equal downer is having no goals at all. Without them you never experience the full sense of progress and achievement you could have. Either revisit and adjust your objectives or set realistic goals right now. Start off easy and take some early wins. There’s nothing more motivating than momentum that comes from success, no matter how small.
- Decide To Ride It As Far As You Can. If you’re in this business, BE in this business. Decide to see how far you can go by committing to the fundamentals, passion and growth steps required to become a star or a Flipping Ninja (check out this easy-to-read guide to doing exactly this in The Flipping Ninja Blueprint). Motivation comes with knowledge and skill. Your confidence soars, particularly when you apply the principles, strategies and techniques, and see real results in dollars.
- Choose Your Company Wisely. You know the characters who just want to bring you down? Dump them. I’m serious. You’ve already given them sympathy and a damp shoulder, but it’s time to create the right environment for you to succeed and that means having positive influences around you. Now, I’m not talking guys with pompoms, but having a real mentor to cheer you on is worth more than money, I kid you not. When you choose to associate with people who cheer you up, inspire and galvanize you into action, your life takes a positive turn that will motivate you to do more and enjoy more.
- Do It Now! Once you know what comes next, do it! Don’t let your Action Plan become a Dream List, floating around in the back of your mind, alongside winning the lottery and having an unknown, rich relative die conveniently. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you to start. Get inside your head and take control of your destiny. You can do this, you know.
Motivating yourself is the best gift you can give yourself. Such self-reliance becomes a secret store of confidence and willpower that you can draw on when you really need it. Build on your self-motivators and you will not only overcome disappointments more swiftly, but you’ll elevate your performance in all aspects of your life.
Come on! What are you waiting for? Go!
