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The next step in self motivation is to set some time for reviewing what you are doing. You cannot assume that what you initially set out to do is going to remain the same for ever. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What progress am I making towards my goal?
• Am I happy with the progress? – If you aren’t then you may need to review the way you are measuring your progress rather than how you are going about achieving your goals.
• Is my progress having an adverse reaction on my relationships? If yes, why and am I happy about this? – Sometimes people don’t take stock of who they are affecting as they seek to achieve something. Whilst it is right to work towards goals you want to achieve sometimes the cost is too great. Don’t underestimate the importance of relationships.
• How could I set better goals that will both inspire me and move me towards my aims.
• What have I found that motivates me?
• What things are demotivating me?

I’m sure you can come up with some more questions for yourself.

If you don’t keep reviewing two things will happen: 1) you will start to see your goals and objectives as laws you must keep (they are not meant to be laws) and 2) the power of your goals to motivate you will diminish. On top of this. of course, you will not be as effective as you could be.

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.