Building Your Self-Motivation Muscles

Building Your Self-Motivation Muscles

Are they sculpted or flabby?

It happened again. On Monday you wrote out a to-list for the week but procrastination took over and won again. You got fired up to start a project but were unable to keep the fire burning.  Most likely you chalked it up to a lack of will power.  You hit another motivational slump. It is time to start building your self-motivation muscles.

Motivation is the desire to do something. Shockingly simple! It’s not some magical ingredient that gives us power to do whatever we want; it’s simply the desire to want to do it. Motivation is there or it’s not.

Motivation is like a muscle.

Motivation starts and ends with you. Smart and enlightened business owners know that their personal motivation is like a thermostat. They set and maintain the level of their motivation.  It’s a choice and that’s what sets them apart and defines their income.

If you want to excel in business, self-motivation is essential. A highly self-motivated person always outperforms a genius who can’t get anything done.  Your attitude, mindset and approach will always play a huge part in helping you to build the business, close more sales and earn the money you desire.

Two of my favorite quotes are “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” Says Jim Rohn. “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.” Says Andrew Carnegie

Some of the most common questions asked of me by business owners are, “Can you help me to get and stay motivated?” “Can you come in and motivate my staff?” I tell them that motivation isn’t something I offer or provide; motivation is something, with my help, they can discover and develop in themselves.

When we’re motivated and things are going good, we get things done, we feel invigorated and we know that we did something meaningful. When we’re not motivated we don’t feel the need to get things done and we don’t produce results. Not earth shattering news, just the shockingly simple truth.

Every day I listen to people who say they want to increase sales, grow their business and be more productive but they lack the motivation.

Lack of motivation isn’t the problem: they all have a desire to be better and increase their income. What’s missing is the commitment: they‘re not willing to do what’s required. They don’t want it bad enough. They’re only wading in the motivation pool and not willing to jump in and swim.

I call that a gap. Their motivation and commitment levels have a gap that only they can close. They’re waiting for that magical day when wake up feeling motivated to take action. It’s doesn’t work that way. It works the opposite way. You take the action, even if you don’t feel like it, and then and only then can motivation, willpower and disciple drive it home. Nobody is motivated all of the time and everybody (including me) has a lazy side. Our lazy side is always there to create opposition to success.

Your job is to close the gap, fight urge to be idle and resist making excuses.

The “I have no motivation” excuse has two sidekicks. They are, “I have no willpower and I have no discipline.” Declaring these absolutes keeps you stuck in your excuse and they always turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The words motivation, discipline and willpower are merely descriptive labels. They are ways of describing a pattern of committed action. You can’t wait for the motivation to kick in and then take action. Remember, it works the opposite way. You take the action, even if you don’t feel like it.

Motivation is the cause and commitment is the effect.

Anyone can get motivated. It’s staying motivated that’s the hard part. Think about how many Mondays you started a diet. Motivated on a Monday and deflated by Thursday. Or how many New Year’s resolutions you made on January 1st and were history by January 16th. It’s not enough to just be motivated, you need to partner up with commitment.

Motivation is the inspiration, force and stimulus behind you that offers a subtle push, a gentle nudge, or full-blown shove to move you and your business forward. Need a push, nudge or shove, I’d be happy to help.