Being motivated comes from taking your dreams out of the realm of fantasy and starting to make them a concrete possibility. This is the first step in making them a reality.

Motivation is the desire to take action, and the belief that your actions will lead you in the direction you want to go.

To create motivation, to figure out exactly what it is you want to have in your life. Saying ‘I just want to be happy’ is very vague, and our minds cannot grasp hold of such an abstract goal. We need to define our goals clearly in order to know where we are headed, and what we need to do to get there.

It is also very important to believe that your goals are possible to achieve. To make it easier for yourself to be convinced of your chance of success, try breaking a bigger goal into smaller steps. That will not only make your first goal more quickly and easily achievable, but we can generally picture ourselves on the first rung of a ladder more effortlessly than we can imagine ourselves at the top. Don’t worry about the top of the ladder when you are standing at the bottom. Just focus all your attention and effort on that first rung.

Big goals are very rarely achieved in one stage. Most goals, like most journeys, are broken into many steps. As the Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” You don’t necessarily need to believe that you can travel the thousand miles- you just only need to believe that you can take the first step. That first step will then provide even more inspiration and motivation for taking the second and third steps.

It becomes easier and easier to be motivated and to stay motivated when you see the concrete results of your actions. The action, result, motivation snowball begins to build, and gain momentum. However, the first step is action.

Whether you need to find motivation in order to take the first action, or whether the success of the first action creates the motivation is a chicken and egg scenario. And guess what? It really doesn’t matter. So long as the action is being taken, the results will happen.

If you are finding it difficult to be motivated and to take action, there are several things you can do. One is to use creative visualization. This means creating a mental picture of the outcome you wish to achieve.

Take your time, and make it as real, detailed, and immediate as you can. If you are struggling to get a website up and running, imagine yourself with just the home page finished. Use all your senses in your visualization. Feel the elation at the successful completion of your task. See the screen with its clear, bold text and graphics. Hear the voice of your friends telling you how great it looks. Let your feelings of excitement and elation build until you can no longer sit still, and your fingers are itching to get to a keyboard.

Another great way to find motivation and to stay motivated is to read the stories of other people who have overcome obstacles and achieved their dreams. These motivational stories remind us that there is always a way to create what you want in our lives- we just need to believe it!

What Does It Take To Have a Positive Mental Attitude?

I wanted to expand some more on the article I wrote recently “Mental Attitude Is Everything” as there is so much to say about this topic of Positive Attitude. And, don’t be surprised if later on I will want to cover this topic again as I truly believe that Mental Attitude IS Everything.

So, what does it take to have a positive mental attitude? As I ponder on the response to this question it occurs to me that there is no easy way to answer this. It would seem that some people are born with the ability, if you will, to be eternally positive about everything that happens to them while others see nothing but hardships and failure. Although, these people are often perceived as “Nothing bad ever happens to him/her”, that they were born with a “lucky star”. As I mentioned in my previous article “Mental Attitude is Everything”, these “hardships or failures” should really be seen as opportunities, stepping stones toward the goal that you want to achieve. But, how you might ask do we achieve this positive mental attitude? It was not easy for me to answer this question but this is how I believe you can change your attitude and become a more positive person.

The first step that comes to my mind is Attention. Pay attention to your thought pattern. What is the first thought that comes to your mind when something does not go as you wanted it or expected it? Is it “Now what?” or “I just knew this was going to happen!” or any other negative thought pattern. This may be one of the most difficult steps because you probably have been so deeply conditioned to follow this kind of thinking for so long, probably most of your life, that it happens automatically. Not only that, but it is likely that this conditioning began from your parents or whoever was involved in your emotional development, even society! Now, I said “difficult” NOT IMPOSSIBLE. Every time this negative thinking comes to you, replace it with something positive such as “I wonder where this turn of events will take me” or “Well, it seems I’m going to be learning something new”, you catch my drift.

The second step that occurs to me that you need to do is to be Disciplined and Patient (Is that steps A and B within step 2?). This is going to take time! Be patient with yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was your thinking pattern. You are going to find yourself going back to that negative mental attitude over and over again. Be easy on yourself, forgive yourself and try again and again. Have a list of responses ready so that you don’t have to think of what to substitute your negative thought pattern with. Be prepared!

I left the best for last, you must have FAITH! You have to believe that it is possible to change your habit of thinking negatively in response to your life’s events. This is a learned behavior and it is possible to change it. You can change anything about yourself if you put your mind to it. No excuses. You might find yourself saying “Oh, this is the way I am” or “I’ve always been this way”. This is nonsense, excuses that people make to not go through the effort of changing, of improving themselves. These negative thoughts are NOT who you are. You were not born this way! They are your thoughts and therefore you have the power to change them if that is truly what you want. If you believe or have faith that you can change your negative thought pattern into a positive one, then you will put the effort necessary to accomplish your goal.

Try these steps and you will find yourself living a happier life, filled with new opportunities. You will ask yourself, where did these opportunities come from? Well, they were always there, you were just blinded by your own negative thoughts.

Goal setting is equal parts art and science. Many people create goals that simply don’t work. If you’re in business, you don’t have the luxury of creating goals that don’t work. You need to work effectively and you need goals you help you do it.

Here is a great way to create good goals that work… that keep you on track. They’re called SMART goals and the acronym SMART will help you to remember the things that each goal needs to be:

*  Specific: Your goal needs to be stated in a way that is clearly defined. Saying, I should work more, is not a goal that will be kept. However, saying, I am going to work a total of 8 hours each day, is a goal that is much clearer and specific.

*  Measurable: This is closely related to the above attribute except that it also includes a way to make sure you are on track. A goal setting that says, I want to make more money, isn’t measurable. However, a goal that says, I want to earn $6000/month, is a far more measurable goal. It’s easy to see, at the end of the month, whether or not you achieved it.

*  Actionable: This means that your goal should be something that you need to do yourself in order to accomplish it. If you want to increase your income this year, it’s not realistic to say, I’m going to win the lottery this year, because you have no control over whether you will win the lottery or not. However you might say, I’m going to increase my sales efforts by cold calling 10 people each day, which is something you can take action on yourself.

*  Realistic: Goals that are actually achievable are much better and far more motivating. You’ll feel better about yourself when you do hit goals than if constantly shoot for them and fall short. Realistic goals should not be so easy that you hit them every single time but should not be so hard that you never reach them at all.

*  Time-oriented: Similar to the measurable attribute, your goal should have a timeframe for you to accomplish it in. Deadlines help people achieve their goals. If you anchor your goal to a time, you’ll be able to watch your progress.

You can remember this with the acronym, SMART, so that when you are goal setting, you can create better goals for yourself. This is a popular goal-setting acronym in business, although occasionally the words are changed slightly to reflect the needs of the business.

It is a fact that many people never live a successful life and hence never see their dreams come true. In fact, most of us are just a statistic in the world population. Psychologists have tried to answer this question; why do most of us live mediocre lives and never achieve anything in life?

Some would love to believe it is all about fate and that you are not in control of your destiny. While others claim that nature favors some people hence the issue of caste (Hinduism) came into existence. Some religions claim that every individual has a destiny and no man or woman can change their fate. Even though this is partly correct, I believe success to a large extend is about personal responsibility. You can become successful; in fact you were born to succeed.

Any individual who wants to achieve something in life must take responsibility of his/her actions and have great determination to surmount every challenge that comes in life. Visionaries are the kind of people who are destined for success. They turn impossibilities into possibilities and dream of a reality that may not be visible as yet.

Achievers are people who believe change can happen and the future is bright no matter how difficult thing may be at the moment. Visionaries bring out the creative element in them to build a better tomorrow.

Today I motivate you to strive to bring out the best in you. Strive to reach your inner most being and you will discover that success will be within your grasp.