Gleb and I decided it would be a fun project to swap posts and guest blog at each others sites today.
The benefit of this is that our readers get a fresh voice for the day, and we get to build a work flow, which may later allow for quick substitutions in time of need.
I’m personally planning to be away a few weeks this summer, so I’m starting to build a guest blogging team now; when the time comes Alex Shalman . com – Practical Personal Development will be in good hands.
Since Gleb has a passion to learn more about people, he asked me to write about what motivates me most, so I’m here to cater to that. I hope that I don’t disappoint him with what I reveal, since it isn’t exactly a secret formula, but its practical and it serves me well nevertheless.
What Motivates Me
In the process of discovering my true self, I decided that I would stay as congruent as I possibly could with what I believe to be my intentions. When I find myself being truly passionate about a goal, I revert back to being a little kid – I have only a single train of thought and I have all the energy and vitality in the world to get me there.
Simply put: truly knowing where you want to be is a prerequisite to being motivated to get there. Honestly, you could sit there and write ambitious goals all day, but without any real passion for milking a poisonous snake, or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro like John Goddard, you won’t see yourself at the finish line.
Big Why!
One of my best friends says that “If one has a big enough why, he can accomplish anything.†This statement really resonates with my paradigm of achievement. Having a big why allows you a different fixation while performing tasks that would otherwise seem boring or hard. You can literally zone out from the means and concentrate on the end.
For example, two janitors go in to work to complete the same exact job. One janitor is grumpy, because he knows he’s going to have to get his hands dirty and clean a lot of toilets that day. The other janitor is whistling away happily, because he knows this job will keep his children fed and the health insurance will keep them safe. Is your why big enough?
Make it Manageable
My key component to staying motivated is breaking things up into manageable junks. I do this for absolutely everything. When I shovel a driveway, I break it up into quadrants. When I run on treadmill, I keep track of the fraction of time that I’ve run – five minutes passes and I think, I only have to do that 5 more times, easy!
When I’m in front of the computer I break my to-do list into next action steps – write an article for Gleb, clear out google reader, read 20 pages of this book, reply to my e-mails, etc. This keeps my mind from going idle or getting bored, because I know I have that next fun thing to do!
Summary
- Know what your goals truly are
- See yourself at the finish line
- Have a big WHY
- Keep your goals in front of you, in manageable chunks
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this post and found it as educational as I intended it to be.
If you’d like to hear me from me, I’ll be at AlexShalman.com (or feed) until Gleb has me back again. Speaking of Gleb, he got me curious about how other people keep motivated. If you have a “secret-formula†or unorthodox technique that you use, please join in on the discussion and post it in the comments section.