Get Motivated Stay Motivated

I attended a commencement exercises for grade school yesterday.  The guest speaker has taken the pupils, and the audience as well, to a storyland and I took note of the interesting points that she said.

• Abraham Lincoln failed seven times.  Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States of America has failed to be elected in Congress and Senate several times.  He also even ran for vice-president and failed. But on his first attempt to ran for presidency, he succeeded.  His story was a very inspiring one.  Lincoln has been regarded as one of the greatest presidents in the United States and behind his success were failures.  He may have failed several times, but he stood up and made his way to success. His success was not only by becoming a president, but becoming a great person.
• Diligent can beat the intelligent.  If you are diligent, you are eager to get to the top.  Whereas if  you are intelligent but lack the confidence and courage, you are more likely to be defeated by the intelligent ones.
• Achievement is not measured by how many awards a person has but by how many times he stood up every time he falls.  W e are honed by our experiences to be a better person and thats the real achievement we have.

Perseverance is a very important characteristic one must possess to succeed in his goals or dreams in life. Here’s an inspiring story about Froy Candelario, an agent based in Southern California that I got from eBestAgent:

He sells way too many homes. Anywhere from 300 to 400 homes per year for the last 10 years. He doesn’t even list his listing on MLS. He sells 80% of his home by himself which means he represented both buyer and seller sides to keep all his commission. He works with only 4 staff members. He is one of the super agent in the whole country. He gets his listing with only cold calling and door knocking. Quite amazing stats. He’s net worth is estimated at upward of $100 million.

Froy’s true story is not in his real estate stats. Originally Froy is from Mexico. He and a friend decided to come to the United States, the land of opportunity to escape poverty from Mexico. They cross the border by hanging on to the underside of a train. They rode for hours, clinging to the train for their lives. They had no idea where they were and they could not let go for fear of being run over by the train. The miles clicked by and they were getting extremely tired. Finally, Froy’s friend could not hang on any longer. He let go and was crushed. Froy was devastated by the loss of his friend, but vowed to hang on. Less than five minutes later the train stopped. Froy had reached his destination. He had made it to the United States.

The lesson that Froy learned from his immigration experience is that one componen of success is being able to hang on a little bit longer than the next guy.

source: eBestAgent

I think Froy was highly motivated to succeed.  They have gone that far and it was not the time to give up.  There was no giving up, actually.  They have gone through a lot of sacrifice and it will be put to waste if they gave up.

With one’s high motivation to succeed, he can be able to hang on a little longer and persevere to go through the hardships that faces him in his struggle to achieve his goals.  It was just a matter of hanging on for a few more minutes in Froy’s case.  That few more minutes has changed Froy’s life and made him succeed.

Goal setting.  I have written about it here several times already.  Its importance, the process, and the likes.  This time, its about how it affects us.

Having dreams makes us feel inspired, that’s why we have that dreamy look sometimes in our face, right?  To dream is absolutely free.  The thing you want to have in life or something you want to happen, comes true in your dreams.  Realizing our dreams and making it into a goal makes us more hopeful although sometimes we lose hope.

When we set our goals, we have something to look forward to in life.  You wake up in the morning and start the day doing something for that goal.  The things we have set on how to achieve that goal gives more color and purpose to our life.  Life could be pretty boring without having something to look forward to - doing routine  tasks everyday.
If you haven’t started setting your goals yet, start now and do it the SMART way!

The “what if” question is sometimes what makes us fail.  It hinders us from trying things out and develops fear in us.  We usually think of the negative result that might happen.  Here are some examples”

• What if I fail?
• What if I don’t do it right?
• What if I don’t finish on time?
• What if I can’t do it?

Those are just few of what we usually think if have to do something to achieve our dreams.  We always have fear.  But we should realize that if we don’t do anything, we will never know the answer to those “what if” questions.  Those questions will only discourage us from trying things out.  Remember that by not trying to do it, we already failed.  So why not think of the positive “what if?”  Let’s try these:

• What if I succeed? - this will help us envision success that will motivate us to do it.
• What if I can actually do it right?  - this way, we will believe on our own strength.
• What if I start it now? - this will give us the energy to start achieving our goals or dreams.
• What if I’ll try to do it? - this will help us get motivated to work on our goals.

If you think that the law of attraction is not effective on you, think of the reason why.  The law of attraction, as what I have posted here before, is about being positive.  But sometimes, we may not realize that we also have to be more aggressive.  We must not just think that we can achieve our dreams or goals to be positive.  But we must also believe that we can achieve it.

Being positive is not only about thinking or believing.  You must also strive to achieve your dreams or goals.  When you say that you will be able to finish your task in time, it helps to believe in that.  But you also have to do continue doing it so that you can really finish it in time.  Thinking and believing that you can finish it in time is what helps you to stay motivated.

Some may think that you just have to think and believe of something for it to happen.  Yes it will but you must be doing the process.  The law of attraction only helps you to achieve your dreams or goals.  Its not the one who makes it possible, but you.  It gives you hope and motivation.  It also helps in making you more aggressive and confident in achieving your goals and dreams.

Here is an inspiring story I found that would really amaze us:

Putting Things in Perspective
Oftentimes it takes a light tap on the shoulder - or a slap in the face - to put things in perspective and bring a brighter note to our seemingly difficult times. One such tap is the story of Ben Underwood, a young boy who, due to the onset of cancer, has been blind since the age of three.

While this difference could - and certainly has - limited the goals, dreams, and daily activities of many, this particular case was different. Not only did Ben decide at age six that he was through using a cane, but three years before he began using a technique called echolocation, the same method used by bats and dolphins to perceive their environments.

It soon became apparent that Ben’s skills were off the charts, even called ‘extraordinary’ and ‘pushing the limits of human perception’ by medical doctors. Simply by using a series of clicks and gauging the time it takes for the sound to return and in exactly what fashion, he can operate in the world like any other child.

He skateboards, plays kickball with the neighborhood kids, and even chases down his brother to return a sneak-attack tackle. Ben can even tell the difference between a parked car and truck, all through the use of clicks with his mouth. Simply amazing.

The point of this story, as far as we’re concerned, isn’t that Ben Underwood has an amazing ability but that he took a weakness and turned it into a source of creativity, skill, and strength. He didn’t dwell, nor did he accept a state of life below his desires. Instead, he accepted the facts and moved forward with his life.

It’s the example of overcoming adversity that I want you to take to heart. If a young boy can function and maneuver without the use of his eyes, can’t you find a way to overcome your challenges? Can’t you find a way to get the things you want and to help those you care about do the same?
by Jason M. Gracia - Motivation123™
Get your free Motivation123™ Idea-Kit filled with dozens of quick and easy tips and ideas to help you experience a richer, more rewarding life at the Motivation123™ Web Site. Visit www.motivation123.com today!

Ben is really impressive not because of what he can do but by doing it.  He did not live by his limitations but instead, he found a way on how to cross it.  What’s inspiring here is that he did not live by his limitations.  He achieved his goal in his own way.  Likewise, we should not let ourselves fail in our goals.  We can find other ways on how to achieve it even if we lack other skills or maybe resources.

There has been so many articles or maybe tips about goal-setting. But do we really know what a goal can do to our lives? Why we need to have a goal? Here are some things that a goal can do:

• Generally improve our lives
• Gives us motivation towards work or tasks
• Make us realize what we really want in life
• Help us eliminate bad habits or traits
• Gives us focus towards achievement

These are just possible effects of having a goal in life. That is why we need to set a goal if we wish to achieve something. Remember that a goal is different from a wish or dream. Wishes and dreams are just things you like to happen without really doing something. Whereas a goal is something that you want to achieve and that you really do the things that will make you achieve it.

“To realize the value of one year, ask a student who failed a grade.  To realize the value of one month, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.  To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.  To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.  To realize the value of one minute, ask a person who just missed the train.  To realize the value of one second, ask a person who just avoided an accident.”

Time is gold, they say.  But time is precious than gold, isn’t it?  Gold may have great value but when you lost it, there is still a possibility that you can acquire it again.  But not with time.  Time moves forward and never in backwards, you can never go back to a specific date.

It helps big time to realize the importance of time.  It will cause us not to let go of opportunities, value every single minute we have and to do the things we want to do while we have the time.  A small delay in doing our tasks or the things for our goals in life is a time wasted.  We may be hesitant to do some things sometimes and it causes us delay.  What we need to do in this situation is to take the first step.  Just think of doing the first step and we’ll be all ok.  We sometimes think we could have succeeded already only if we have done the process the moment we have thought or we had the opportunity.  Do not think of failure, think of trying.  You will never succeed if you never try.  But the moment you fail to try, you already failed in your goal.

Time management is one of the effective ways in beating procrastination.  But it hardly works for us.  I think we have to plan out not just how to manage our time but how to make our plan work for us.  Here are some tips on how to make our time management plan effective:

• Motivation.  Motivate yourself hard in following what you have planned to do for a particular period of time or how you have planned to do your tasks.
• Patience.  It would be hard to adjust with your time management plan at firs if you are not used to it so you need a lot of patience.  Just think that this is for your success.
• Keep tracked.  Observe your performance and see how you have improved.  This will help you see if your plan works for you and how you can further improve.
• Revise your plan.  If you see that your plan is not really working for you, you can revise it until you get the perfect time plan for your tasks.

Procrastination will continue as a burden in achieving your goals until you do something about it.  Procrastination will only be beaten by ourselves.  No one can get procrastination out of us.  It is our choice to beat procrastination, others may influence us but the choice still lies in our hands.

Always defeated by procrastination?

There are these times when we really want to do something, like a project, to finish it early and won’t have any problems later on.  But procrastination is just so tempting during these times.  We may have wanted to fight it at times, but its just so tempting.  Its like the perfect time to do something else.  So how can you fight this off?

Perseverance.  Have perseverance over your goal.  Concentrate hard on reaching that goal and do not think of any excuses why you should do other things.  Sometimes we would have this excuse that we are not in the right mood to finish something or that its too noisy to study our lessons.  Every time we think of this, think of your goal.  Think of it like you have already succeeded to give you the motivation and would make you to persevere more.

Perseverance gives you more courage.  Fight procrastination with perseverance.  Think of it as an enemy that you want to defeat.  An enemy you won’t allow to overpower you.