Motivation

What motivates you to be successful? Perhaps nothing has, yet, which is why you're reading this! Here are some ideas:

Be clear on what it means for you to be successful.

If you don't know what you need to do to become successful, then it will be difficult to motivate yourself. Don't just think of school and exams, think of how you'd like your life to be. Think of friends and family, money, health, having fun, a great career, time for recreation, and so on. What is your idea of the good life?

Think of motivation as a skill.

Find ways of motivating yourself to do all sorts of things, not just going for major goals. That way, you'll get into the habit of putting extra energy into everything you do, and being successful will also become a habit. Think, what can I get motivated to do today?

Understand where motivation comes from.

For example, some people are motivated from inside. They know when they've been successful and don't need others to praise them. On the other hand, many people are motivated from the outside by other people, such as family, teachers and their friends. They know they are successful if they get a good response from others. It's not easy to change the way you are, but you can if you're fully aware of how you are. It's a good idea to be mainly motivated from within. That way you're in greater control of your feelings and happiness. It's great to have other people praising you and saying that you're great, but if you rely just on this, you're dependent on others for your happiness.

Set smart goals

I talk more about this on the goals page.

Raise Your Standards
Don't just try to improve in one or two areas. Think about how you can raise the standard of everything you do. Getting out of bed earlier, eating better, being on time more often, being more helpful, paying more attention, and so on.

Talk to your friends about success
Do this will friends that you can really trust and who won't put you down or rubbish your ideas. Get together and discuss ways to be successful; brainstorm ideas.

Keep a diary
The most useful things to note in your diary are these three:
1. What was best about today?
2. What was the worst thing that happened today?
3. What will I do differently tomorrow?
If you wrote only the answers to these questions, you'd become more successful automatically.

Use other people's experience
Whatever you want to achieve, many people have achieve something similar. Get into the habit of finding out how other people succeed. Get into the habit of asking for advice. Surprisingly, you can learn lots from almost anyone you talk to. Everyone has something useful to say about something. It doesn't matter what you want, someone at sometime throughout history

Feel the Fear and do it anyway
This is the title of a great book on overcoming fears, taking risks and really going for what you want. To be successful you will need to take risks. Enjoy the adrenaline of facing up to fears!

Make friends with the right people
Friends are important; really important. They influence you in many ways. so it makes sense to seek out the kind of friends who will help you succeed. Just ask yourself if your friends are helping you be the person you want to be or are they holding you back in some way. You do have a choice!

Be active, fit and healthy
There's no point thinking motivational thoughts and not being able to do anything because you lack the energy. Use every opportunity to get physically moving, eat well, treat your mind and body well.

Don't be afraid of failure
Many successful people have said that one of the keys to being successful is to fail more often. What that means is, don't be afraid of failure, and learn from mistakes. If you go for something and don't make it, figure out what happened and decide to go for it again doing something different. Keep trying.

Be curious
The world is a fantastic place - much more interesting that science fiction or soap-operas! Find out as much as you can; talk to people; decide that you want to learn more about the world and life. Ask questions. Make curiosity into a habit. Read magazines and newspapers. Watch documentaries on TV instead of cheap fiction.

Deal with setbacks
There will be times when you don't feel good. Those times, like everything else, will pass. Feelings come and go - they always do. Just make sure you keep your goals visible and remind yourself of the bigger picture of your life and where you want it to head.

Contribution
One of the secrets of a successful like is how you can contribute to others. Just think about how you will affect other people. If you can get a nice feeling from this, it will help to motivate you.

Appreciate
Appreciate what you already have, even if you don't think you've got much. If you think you're life is awful now, you'll be in poor mental shape for moving forward.

Enjoy yourself!

[-> next, go to the page on setting Goals]

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