As anyone who has ever tried to keep a New Year's resolution will tell you, motivating yourself to get something done is not always very easy. When the time comes to put the resolution into effect, we forget, or we decide that we have more important things to do, or we are in the wrong mood.

The principal reason for this is that, if we fail to create in ourselves an emotional response to the idea of achieving what we decide to work for, we are setting ourselves up to fail.

One famous life coach often helps people to give up smoking, but because he has a high reputation, he likes to stack the odds in his own favour. In other words he filters out potential clients who lack the necessary motivation, since he knows that they are unlikely to succeed.

How does he do this? Simple. He asks each potential client to give him three reasons or benefits for giving up smoking. If they cannot give him three reasons, he tells them to go away and not to return until they have thought of three.

Now I don't believe that there is any magic in the figure three, but statistically, the more reasons you can think of to justify your decision, the more likely you are to have your emotions aroused by the thought of success.

Suppose you think of several good reasons for your New Year's resolution. Does this guarantee that you will have the right level of motivation? Not in the least. After all, the clients of the life coach mentioned above are being coached by him and he will work on raising their motivation. He is merely concerned to ensure that he has the raw material (the three reasons) to work on.

But if we can guess the sort of method he might use on his clients to raise their motivation, could we not use the same method to motivate ourselves? Absolutely.

So let's look at the most likely method on Learning How to Motivate Ourselves:

Visualisation

The most useful way to motivate ourselves is to visualise success. Think of any goal that you would like to achieve, the bigger and the more attractive the better. Perhaps it involves retiring to an idyllic island, taking a vacation in an exotic location, climbing a mountain, or buying a super-car. Perhaps it is already in reach. Perhaps it isn't.

Now, choose a place and a moment when you can relax and not be interrupted. You need only a few minutes. Begin by reflecting on the reasons or advantages that achieving your goal will bring you. Then close your eyes and imagine that you have achieved that goal.

How does it feel? What do you see? What does it sound like? If people are speaking, what are they saying? Does your goal have a particular taste? Immerse yourself in this imagined reality for a minute or two, concentrating also on the advantages or reasons that you have already identified. Tell yourself how blessed you are to have achieved your goal.

After a few minutes, open your eyes and note how good you feel. Ask yourself if you now feel motivated to pursue that goal, however hard it may be to achieve it. I shall be surprised if you don't.

The trouble is that motivation doesn't last forever. It can gradually subside and disappear over time. Even a few hours are enough. You know how good an idea seems when you are lying in bed, but how you no longer think so when morning and reality dawns? That is an example of how motivation can degrade.

So the advice I give you is to set aside a few minutes each day to revisit your goal in your imagination, preferably at the same time each day, so that you establish a routine. Relax again and close your eyes, and repeat the immersion of yourself into that desired position where you have already achieved your goal and are enjoying the fruits of it.

Planning

Unfortunately, it isn't enough to build motivation unless we use it to make plans and to put those plans into effect. A good way to do this is to brainstorm all the steps that you will need to take to achieve your goal. Then put them into the order in which you will need to tackle them. In some cases, you may be able to see parallel chains of steps that may be tackled more or less at the same time. Whatever the steps are, they will all have the effect of gradually putting you nearer and nearer to achieving your goal.

Now, be ambitious and set a date when you hope to achieve the goal. Work back down the chain of steps, giving a date for each one. If you were over-ambitious, you will find that you do not have enough time to achieve the goal by the date that you have set. No problem, just set back all the dates by the same number of days, weeks or months.

Action

Enter all the steps in a diary or on an Action Plan that you draw up specifically for the purpose. It is a good idea to put such an Action Plan up on the wall, where you can see it as a reminder of the project. Now make sure that you read your Action Plan or diary every day, so that you are reminded to carry out the steps as they fall due. If possible, aim to take some action to move you nearer to your goal each day, no matter how small that action may be.

Don't worry if one step takes longer than you estimated, or if there is a delay occasioned by illness. Just adjust the dates of the remaining steps to cope with the delay.

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