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There is a wise old saying (not sure where it came from) that goes “failing to plan is planning to fail”. There is a great deal of truth in this saying and not least when it comes to being motivated.

We misunderstand motivation if we see it as being pumped up for a task. I guess we’ve all seen the films and T.V. programmes where the sports coach or leader gives a very stirrying speach about winning and what it means and then all the players/followers/soldiers/etc are all “up for it” and they go charging out to overcome the opposition. This isn’t motivation in the real world. It’s nice to get pumped up and determined for a while but being motivated is also about slogging through when things seem to be going wrong.

This is when we keep our focus on the prize but even more so when the plan becomes very important. You know it is very easy to become distracted from the purpose of what you are trying to achieve. Without a plan you can so easily go down paths that will lead you to more disappointment and failure. So you must have a plan if you are going to manage to keep going and the trick is to make your plan when things seem reasonably easy so you can keep going when things get tough. Of course, if things never seem easy then you will have to plan anyway.

So remember your goal and think about how you are going to get there. What things will you need on the way? How will you get those things? What people can help you to succeed? How can you get them to support/help you?

Make your plan of action and write it down. Then keep referring to it so you know what you are supposed to be doing. You will discover that just having the plan will be a big boost when it comes to getting some motivation to keep going.

I’m always hearing people say that they have to do something for themselves or it will never work. This is not true. It is true that people often fail in a task because they are not committed to something and it is also true that most people are at least a little bit selfish and can only get motivated when they know they will get the reward. But it is not true that you can only get motivated when you are the one who will benefit.

Consider why you are doing something

To get motivated about something you need to understand why you are doing it. This why might well be to improve yourself in some way, or it might be to help someone you love, or it might be driven by a passion for a cause but whatever it is you must have a why. You can get motivated when the end result will benefit someone else but you have to know why you are doing it.

Why is more about an image or a story than about a bland statement

For instance, if you goal was to lost weight for your children’s sake then just saying it is for your children is not a good enough why. You need to be able to spell out why you think it is important that you do this for your children, e.g. because I don’t want my children going to my funeral before they are adults. It gets even better if you can then picture something in your mind of what that will be like.

For yourself means nothing without an image

Even putting the emphasis on your own desires is not enough if you don’t have a good image. Just saying that you want something is not enough it must come from something much more real to you. This might mean having an image of what you will be like when you achieved your goal or it might be a story you can tell of a situation you will be in when you have achieved what you are trying to get motivated for.

I watched Australia’s biggest loser the other day and they were applying this principal very well. They got each person to choose an outfit that they wanted to fit in. This gave then a purpose because they could picture themselves in the outfit but also a story because they could talk about why fitting into that outfit was so important to them. Good motivational technique.

Motivating others

If you want someone else to do something then you can motivate them with a “why” as well. They need to understand why something is important to be done.

Your why must fit with your values

It is also important that your “why” is something that you can feel is important. If someone said that I should get motivated to steal something then it wouldn’t work (obvious example I know but it is important to understand this). If the why of a project doesn’t fit in with what I value then it won’t motivate me.

Conclusion

So then make sure you have a why you can believe in and that you can see in your mind and feel in your heart. Don’t get into the rut of thinking things can only succeed if I do it for me but instead understand why something is important to you. No amount of “doing it for me” will work unless you believe in what you are doing and can picture that success in your mind.

Feelings matter more than we would probably like to admit and this is very true when it comes to motivation. Most athletes will tell you that they need to have the right mood if they are going to perform at their best. This mood is not one of anger or stress (as many people would have you believe) but is instead a feeling of readiness, of energy, of success.

How you feel is more down to how you think than your circumstances.

You see your brain is a wonderful thing and capable of some amazing achievements but when it comes to emotions it is usually pretty stupid. Any signal can trigger off a feeling – good or bad. For instance about a week ago I was stuck in a traffic jam with my family for over 5 hours (don’t get me started on the cause). We had to travel that same bit of road a few days later and although I thought I’d done pretty well in the jam all kinds of bad feelings started to bubble up when we reached the same spot we had sat at for so long. Simple things can trigger emotions.

Use this to your advantage

But this simple thing can be used to your advantage. To get motivated you need to feel right about what you are trying to achieve. By remembering other times you were very motivated for something and applying those same emotions to the new situation you can start to feel the motivation. There is a simple technique known as anchoring which you can use and is explained elsewhere on this site (anchoring). If you anchor the feeling then you can use that feeling to get you motivated to achieve your ends.

Feelings are very powerful

If you feel that you can’t be bothered guess what? That’s right you won’t be bothered. If you feel excited about something then guess what? That’s right you will work hard to achieve it. The problem is that so often we start excited and then go to can’t be bothered and so we give up. The trick is in keeping excited.

So to get motivated you need the right feelings.

To achieve anything you need to be motivated. At some point all of us has wanted to achieve something but few of us ever actually ever do. Self motivation comes from having a dream or a goal that is so tangible that you can see it and feel it. In this series of posts we are going to explore how you can reach the point where you can motivate yourself to achieve your dreams.

Know what you want

The first step in getting yourself motivated is to know what you want. You will often hear people say that you must do something for yourself (e.g. if you are going to lost weight or give up smoking then you have to do it for yourself and not for anyone else). This is only partly true. Some of us can be motivated by the thought of doing something for someone else. If you have a faith then you will be familiar with the idea of doing something for God. If you are deeply in love with someone then you may get motivated by doing something for them.

The important thing is that you know exactly what you want.

Imagination can help

Most of the things that you want do not actually exist. Even if you want something like a car or a big house the actual one that you are going to aim for is in your imagination. The better you can imagine something the more powerful the motivation. Take some time to build a picture of what you want in your mind so that you can almost feel it. If possible right those feelings down in as much detail as you can.

What do you want?

If someone were to ask you the question: “what do you want”, would you be able to answer them?

It is very hard to get motivated about something that you only vaguely appreciate. Many people say that they want happiness but happiness is such a vague idea that it is a very poor motivator. If you can describe what happiness looks like then you are more likely to be motived by that image.

Don’t be put off by thinking that if you imagine something that you don’t get you will be disappointed. It is better to have tried and been disappointed than not to have tried at all. If there is a chance you could gain what you have always wanted why do hold back on the chance you might not get it – that sounds like nonsense to me.

Get going

So right now set yourself a time when you are going to think about what you want. Then in that time develop a clear idea of what you actually want and get the idea so fixed in your mind that you find it hard to think about anything else.

To keep motivated for something it is important to spend some time thinking about the goal and not always about the task.

I’ve met a lot of people who seem to spend all their time on making sure that a task is going well. There will be lots of measurement and lots of planning but also there will be lots of times when it is hard to get motivated. Leaders who concentrate on the task and forget about the people who have to accomplish the task or the ultimate aim often find that their workers have lost interest. But this is also true for self motivation.

I think that how a task is to be done can be as important as the goal itself but a goal-less task soon turns into grind.

So take some time to think about why a task is necessary. Take some time to refresh the people who are working at the task. Give yourself a planned break to give your mind a chance to understand why something is necessary.

In Britain we have a saying: “the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence”. It means that things always seem better for everyone else than they do for you – so we should take time to realise that this is not true. Although the grass looks greener it actually isn’t, it is just the same old grass we all have.

I was reminded the other day of the time I returned to Britain after working in California for a while. I was struck by just how green everything was, it wasn’t just green it was a vibrant eye-watering green. Some of you might have had this experience yourself.

Of course as time passes the memory of how green everything is in Britain fades and you get used to it.

One of the dangers in life is getting used to things – whatever those things might be. As we get used to them we start to think that perhaps the grass is greener somewhere else. We need to learn to recognise that we are surrounded by wonderful things every day. We need to notice, as it were, the greenness of our own lawn.

This is perhaps most clearly seen in our relationships. There is something wonderful and comforting about getting used to being around people – it helps us relax with them. But sometimes this leads to a perceived kind of boredom. We start to think that other people are more interesting than the ones we have around us. We need to learn to see the people we mix with as if we have only just met them. We need to learn to appreciate the beauty and wonder of the people we see every day.

So let me encourage you to see your friends, your wife or husband, your partner, etc. as if you had just seen them for the very first time. Enjoy being around them and don’t let the green grass syndrome get you down.

What is life about? Is there some purpose to life or am I just drifting through the universe with no real part to play other than what pleases me? I believe that there is purpose in the universe and that we have a part to play in that purpose, if we want it.

To understand this I think we must look at the spiritual side of life. Those of you who read this blog regularly may feel this goes against the down to earth, practical approach that I promote. Well – I think spirituality is part of life and needs careful thought. Often faith is a very practical thing – bear with me because I think when you are trying to work out a purpose this stuff is very important.

It seems to be the done thing, at the moment, to invent your own version of the spirituality of the universe. We are encouraged to focus our attention on ourselves and how we feel most comfortable thinking about the spiritual. We must aim for those things that make us feel the best about the way things are in our life and then surround ourselves with a personal spirituality. There is a part of me that really likes this idea but I see one major flaw in it. If there is a God then God must actually be like something. What if God had actually chosen to reveal himself to people – not in little bits and pieces that we can pick up on and discover like a kind of mirror broken into millions of pieces but as he actually is.

The major faiths all believe that this is exactly what he has done. What I fear is that most people decide about spirituality based on what they know of their followers. Although I can understand this in my search for truth I find this too restricting. I also find that the bad followers of a religion tend to get far more attention than the good followers.

Without going in to the details I can say that for me the teachings of Jesus Christ seem to be what makes the most sense. Like everyone I am sometimes alarmed by the lack of Christian love in some churches but I also see through history the way that great Christian love has changed things for the better. Where it is followed fully the Christian faith makes a very positive difference to peoples lives.

Jesus Christ was very keen on talking about “the kingdom”. Essentially a place where God got his way. Jesus described this place as being wonderful and he was also keen to point out that we can be part of that kingdom now.

I don’t know if you think Jesus was God’s son or just bonkers but I personally think he understood the purpose of life and the universe better than anyone else ever has.

If you want to understand your purpose then you need to begin with an appreciation of the greater purpose of which we are a part. This greater purpose is, I believe, what Jesus described as the “kingdom of God”.

In God’s kingdom we have a part to play – a part that God has planned in. I also believe that the role we play is up to us. We don’t have to do what God want’s us too but life is going to be an awful lot better if we do.

If you want to understand your purpose you need to ask God to help you find it.

According to the gm.tv website research, led by psychologist Dr Malcolm Cross at City University London, has shown making and drinking a cup of Tea when under stress really does help. This, of course, goes against most other research that suggests the caffeine in a cup of Tea will raise your levels of stress. The research does seem pretty convincing though with a 4% reduction in stress being reported for those who had Tea after a stressful event compared to those who went without.

However 4% is a pretty meagure amount of stress reduction and this might not work for everyone. This study was undertaken in the UK where there is a kind of informal Tea ceremony in times of crisis – “let’s put the kettle on”. British people have often taken a few moments to think through a problem over a cup of Tea and it could well be the positive psychological effect of this stopping and thinking that could be the reason for these results.

I’m still to be convinced that Tea itself has any medical stress benefits but having a calming routine you can use whenever a crisis hits will certainly help (as I believe this study really shows).

Holidays are great for all kinds of reasons: get to spend time with those you love; get to do things you wouldn’t normally do; get to be lazy for a change. However I think one of the beiggest benefits is that they give you time to think.

We nearly all find it hard to find time to think. If you are always on the go you probably find that the end of the day (the traditional time for doing your thinking) is just the time when you don’t have any energy for thinking. I like to put my feet up like anyone else and I know that the T.V. can take over when things have been tough in the day.

So holidays give you a real chance to stop and do some thinking and this thinking time can be really important.

Here are some things you might like to think about:

• What makes me happy?
• Where do I want to be in five years from now?
• What is my purpose in life?
• How do I want to help others?

Of course you probably have your own things to think about as well.

This thinking phase is very important and I think should be done before you write any goals.

What do you do if you don’t have a holiday coming up – find some time to do some thinking anyway. What about taking a day off and going somewhere quiet (in the past I’ve found churches or monasteries to be excellent places for this)? What about taking a few hours over the weekend to do some thinking? But I’d recommend getting this into your diary to make sure it happens.

We’ve just been celebrating the 40th anniversary of a person landing on the moon. I’ve enjoyed watching the programmes and I’m just old enough to remember when it actually happened. There is still something very exciting about seeing it happen and it’s a real testiment to the ability of people to achieve great things when they are motivated enough.

One of the programmes I watched was about the people who walked on the moon. Two things strike me in particular about their experience.

The first is that they are just very ordinary people who still seem a little amazed that they were the ones who got to go to the moon. There was a clip of Neil Armstrong’s parents on a T.V. programme when he had just been picked for the space programme and they were just very ordinary people – like anyone’s mum or dad. You don’t have to be superman to achieve great things.

The next thing came at the end of the programme. The astronauts were speaking about how the moon landings had affected them. Every one of them that were interviewed said something about the spiritual impact of looking back at the earth from such a distance and seeing this small blue disk hanging in a great expanse of black. This had a profound effect on them which even today 40 years after can bring tears to the eyes of an astronaut. It took that distance to make them think bigger than they normally did. At a moment when technology had given them the chance to walk on another world, and at a moment when they were surrounded by technology to keep them alive, and at a moment when we might suppose they would think about the brilliance of mankind, they thought of God.

So I want to encourage you to think bigger. Try to see beyond the obious stuff of life and see the bigger picture. Why not get a picture of the earth from a distance and spend time thinking about the bigger picture of life.