It’s been a long time coming.  A blog called “Motivate Thyself” has yet to hit on this very specific topic.  It’s one of those subjects that many try to touch on, but few do more than repeat the obvious.  “How to motivate yourself?” is a question that only YOU know the answer to.  Hidden deep inside all of us is both the desire to do great things and the knowledge to strive for them.  But for many of us, these are things that are buried beyond our normal understanding of ourselves.  So if you want to know how to motivate yourself, you have to first learn a bit more ABOUT yourself.

First: What IS motivation?

Think about a car, sitting on a flat, paved road.  The engine’s not running and the break is not engaged.  Your job is to push the car past a certain point.  So you lean into it and start pushing with all your might.  At first it’s barely budging, but then starts creeping ahead.  You dig deep and give it all you’ve got.  The tires start to make their way around and the car starts moving forward.  Now your energy is beginning to transfer from brute force to a kind of flow.  The further you push the car, the easier it gets as momentum starts to make its way into the scenario.  The motivation was the act of breaking the barrier between frozen and forward motion.  Once that took place, momentum was born and your energy enhanced.  So if you want to know how to motivate yourself, you’ll need to decipher your own personal tricks for breaking that barrier.

Second: Know what TRULY turns you on!

When I was a car salesman, my manager always tried to motivate us with money.  I remember one specific instance when I had been working really hard and was looking forward to the following day as it was my day off.  There was a big sale going on and the more salesman on the lot, the better it was for the dealership.  So my manager came up to me with a kind of evil grin and said, “You gonna be here tomorrow?”  (He knew it was my day off.)  “Because you’ll sure make a killing if you ARE here!”  In my mind I just rolled my eyes as I HATE being manipulated, but the point is, my manager just didn’t know my hot spots.  Sure, I like money and all that, but I cherish my time much more.  If he had honestly come up to me and said something like, “Hey Eric, I know you’re off tomorrow, but we could really use you on the lot.  And if it helps, you’ll probably make some good money, which never hurts.  But I totally understand if you can’t make it.”  I may not have come in either way, but that kind of honest request lights a fire inside me that is much more likely to drive me to action, than just shaking some cash in front of my face.  So if you want to know how to motivate yourself, you’ve got to know your REAL hot buttons.  I have been the one to dangle money in front of my face many times, only to crash and burn when my drive shows its shallowness.  But when I hit on what TRULY matters to me, nothing can slow me down.

Third: Focus on making the car move, not on moving the car.

Going back to the ‘car pushing’ scenario, I want to point out the importance of short sided thinking when it comes to motivating yourself.  Focus takes energy and energy is the resource that starts the car moving.  If our focus is spread out, our energy will be weak.  So we can’t afford to worry about anything AFTER the car starts to move.  That part will take care of itself.  (ADHD moment…)  It’s kind of like a magnifying glass in the sun.  If the glass was flat and therefore spreads the light equally over the object in its path, nothing would happen.  But by manipulating the glass to focus the light onto a pinpointed area, you harness all the power that the light has to offer, creating a powerful beam.  So if you want to know how to motivate yourself, you have to stop concerning yourself with the whole process.  Your job is to JUST break that ‘freeze barrier’.

Forth: You’ve got to CUT THE FAT!

Do you ever have those times in your life when even a few common tasks feel like a strain?  Chances are, you’re bearing the weight of so many invisible burdens that EVERYTHING is a challenge.  How can you put ALL your energy into starting that motion if half of it is being drained by these unnecessary burdens?  I’m not suggesting that we can go throughout life, totally care free and lightly loaded, but much of what we willingly take on becomes a burden, not a future asset.  Look at your days, see what takes up your time and determine the value of these tasks.  Then cut those responsibilities that drain more than they produce.  (Another ADHD moment…)  You know when you get a new computer and there’s all that CRAPware preloaded on it?  You know, those free trials of this and advertisements of that?  And you know how sluggish everything runs because of it?  Then you uninstall all the junk and suddenly your computer feels fast and efficient, the way you expected it to.  Well this is precisely how many of us live.  Loaded down with good intentions and what seemed like good ideas, we sluggishly go through our days, wondering why we can’t get anything done.  So if you want to know how to motivate yourself, you need to go to ‘Add/Remove Programs’ and take care of some business.  Unless, of course, you have a Mac.  Then you can just sit there and laugh at the Windows users. 

Fifth: Learn to use past motion for future motivation.

I like to run during the winter.  It’s easy to do when it’s cold outside and a great way to get some fresh air.  But if I get out of this healthy habit, I find it much harder to act on.  But if I can push through a few sessions, I find that the ones ahead are much more fluid.  One positive makes the possibility of a second much more viable.  Five, even more so.  So if you want to know how to motivate yourself, you need to learn the magic of momentum as you harness the power of your past positive motion.

I hope I’ve done this topic justice.  I would like to think that “Motivate Thyself” knows a little bit about how to “Motivate Yourself” (that domain name was taken, by the way. )  But in the end it’s completely up to YOU.  There’s no magic pill or formula to make it happen.  Your drive is the product of your own doing and your willingness to endure the pain on your way to prosperity is key.