Create Change in your life

Can you occasionally be found procrastinating? What even is procrastinating? Well it is basically putting things off, being lazy (in so many words), not doing what you should be doing, finding excuses to do what you know needs to be done and instead doing nothing. I am guilty of this. If you do find yourself delaying activities or chores or anything productive for that matter, it pays to actually spend some time to look at what exactly is going on inside your head, i.e. the pictures you are making, the voices you are hearing and the feelings you are getting just prior to the activity or task that you need to be doing (it may even be just getting up in the morning). Some people may get a voice that says ‘You should go and do the dishes’, which often prompts the immediate response of ‘I don’t want to’, which leads to inaction, as nobody likes being told what to do, even if it is a conversation in your own head.

Other people may get an image or play a video of the activity, which may also prompt a negative response. For example a movie of yourself filling out your tax return (or some other equally tedious activity) is unlikely to fill you a rush of excitement to go and start the activity. One way to combat the ‘You should go and do such and such’ is with a softer ‘it will be nice when the activity is completed’ or ‘it will be useful to have this activity finished’.

This will then lead you to think about the activity when it is done, which should provide more motivation for you. Alternatively if an image or video of the task being done doesn’t fill you with motivation, then perhaps you could change it to a video of the task completed, and see how much more motivated you become. Think of the task as finished instead of the process of actually doing the task (especially if it is a mundane activity such as doing the dishes).

Everybody’s motivation strategy will be different and what works for one person may not necessarily work for somebody else. It is best to learn what goes on in your own mind, and if it is not producing the results you want, then change it.

admin Goal Setting / Motivation motivate, motivational

Do you or have you ever set goals either monthly or weekly and then not completed them or even made them a priority? Have you perhaps conveniently forgotten about them, or maybe even deliberately ignored them. Or was the practice of actually writing down the goal in the first place success enough for you? Your goals exist because they take you closer to where you want to be in life, and there are daily or weekly tasks you need to do in order to achieve your goal.

While an objective of losing weight may be a long term goal it will be made up of a many smaller tasks that will need to be completed daily or weekly.

If you have already written your goal down then you must already consider important enough for something to be done about it.

Why then is it that sometimes it does not get completed?

Does life get in the way?
Do you have too many other things to worry about?
Are you just lazy?
Do you come up with excuses such as ‘I’ll do it later’ or ‘It will get done, just not today’.

If you are serious about changing your life, you are going to have to get serious about completing the daily tasks that your goal requires.

Excuses and laziness will not work and you will find yourself no nearer to your goal, the process of you writing down your goal will become meaningless.

You will be static, while you may not be getting any closer somebody somewhere with the same goal probably is. While you are sat there doing nothing, making excuses there are people who are completing their goals and who are making something happen, don’t you want to be one of them?

Some tips for making sure daily tasks get done;

Every Sunday make a weekly checklist of all the things you want to do for the week ahead. Include all days from Monday to Sunday. Write down everything that you want to do for that day and what you want to complete. See yourself having completed the task.

Assign a time to do it, for example between 7-8. (if it means not watching TV, so be it) Congratulate yourself when you complete the task.

Know what you have to do before the day arrives, it can be very easy sometimes to just wake up and suddenly decide something else needs to be done that day. Don’t get sidetracked like this unless you have already completed the task you set yourself on Sunday. Stay focused on what you need to do. The time you allocate for your task should be used for that task only and not other work.

Don’t try and plan too much, it is easy to get carried away when writing down what you need to do and give yourself too much, this can make you feel overwhelmed and is one way that you can start making excuses to not finish or even start some tasks.

admin Goal Setting / Motivation, Happiness Goal Setting / Motivation

When making changes in your life, a technique that you can use that can help focus your mind, as well as provide you with motivation is writing a letter to yourself. The letter is addressed to you at some point in the future, either 6 months or 1 or 2 years time. In the letter you write as if you are living your ideal life with all the changes you wish to make having been made.

Describe your ideal life in detail, where you live, your relationships, your work and the way you feel. Create a visual image using sensory rich detail and emotions. Write as if you are living the life right now in the present tense.

Write it back to yourself, don’t hold back or be reserved about what you have achieved, really let your imagination run wild, have fun with it, don’t sensor it because you think it is too unrealistic.

Write the letter as if it is from a happier more fulfilled you at some point in the future.

Some examples of things you might want to include are;

Dear Yourself,

• I am currently living in …
• It’s nice to have …
• I am …
• I never thought it would be like this …
• It just goes to show …
• Right now my life is amazing …
• I have managed to …
• I have many …
• Next week I will be …
• Just last week …
• I never thought life could be …
• My ‘####’ is really going really well …

When completed read it back to yourself and pick out a few things that you can start working on straight away. Have fun!

admin Goal Setting / Motivation Goal Setting / Motivation, inspire, motivate, motivational

Poverty consciousness is related to motivation, we are either moving away from something, moving towards something or sometimes both. When people are motivated by moving away from things, (things they don’t want, distress, discomfort or pain) they don’t always pay too much attention to where they are going to end up. When people pay too much attention on their problems and not on solutions it can be a bit like ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’, their attention is on what they don’t want, and not on what they do want. To put it another way, they won’t see where they are going, because they keep looking at where they’ve been, this is what is known as ‘poverty consciousness’.

Successful achievers generally don’t wait until something gets bad before they do something about it, they take action before pain or discomfort forces them to.

Are you a worrier, do you get anxious a lot? You are probably somebody who is motivated by moving away from things as opposed to moving towards things. Once you move away from something and the problem gets further away, you may well start to lose your motivation, as the problem no longer exists. When motivating yourself it is important to understand if you are moving towards something or away.

The boss that drives you crazy, the work colleagues that annoy you can provide you with plenty of reasons to find another job, the ‘move away’ from motivational strategies can be a very powerful force. However if you predominately keep moving away from things where will this take you?

A low salary can spur you onto learn new skills so your earning potential increases. A car that keeps breaking down can motivate you to save money to buy a new one. A cold wet winter can motivate you to book a holiday.

But when you are constantly moving away from things the question surely becomes what are you heading for exactly, where is all this taking you? It is good to be motivated, either towards something or away from something, but if you find yourself always moving away from something and not actually towards anything then maybe a balance needs to be found.

It is when too much attention is put on what you don’t want at the expense of looking towards and making plans for what you do want in the future.

I am guilty of this, I know what I don’t want but this just means I know what I want to avoid, however it doesn’t help me focus on what I do want.

The way your mind operates is such that when you say you don’t want something, it still has to focus on what you don’t want, your mind doesn’t understand negation.

I don’t want to lose money (last thing you mind thinks is ‘LOSE MONEY’)
I don’t want to work in an office (mind thinks about working in an office)
I don’t want to etc……

It can be hard to create a compelling future for yourself if all you are doing is imaging all the things you don’t want. Always looking at how bad it has been, how bad it is, all the things you have never had, all the places you have never been, all the unhappy times you have had, all the miserable jobs you have had. This is ‘poverty consciousness’ in action.

‘That job didn’t work out because ….’
‘I remember working there it was so ….’
‘I’ve never had any real money, life has always been ….’

What are you moving towards right now? Take a list of all the things you don’t want and change it into a list of things you do want.

Avoid ‘poverty consciousness’ and start looking at where you are headed and what you are going to have in the future.

If you have a lot of ‘move away’ from strategies then change them into ‘move towards’ instead to get a more balanced motivation strategy. For example change ‘I don’t want to work for my boss’ into ‘I want to work for myself’.

Don’t fall into the trap of always being motivated to move away from something and towards nothing.

admin Goal Setting / Motivation motivational, The mind

If I said to you in 3 months time you would have the change you wanted in your life and your life would be exactly like you want it, what would your immediate reaction or thought be?

• It’s OK I already know I will have the change I want in 3 months time.
• Great! What do I have to do?
• No it won’t, it is just not possible.
• It will not happen at all, don’t joke about things like that.
• It would be nice but I doubt very much whether it will happen in 3 months.
• Yeah whatever, I wish.
• Are you serious? I don’t think so.

If your initial answer to the question is a positive one (1-2), then that would suggest that you already have the self-belief needed to make it happen. This is good, if you do then I would recommend you write it down on a piece of paper and stick it somewhere prominent so you can be reminded of it every day.

For example.

• 3 months from now I will have lost 14 pounds.
• 3 months from now I will be speaking good basic conversational Spanish.
• 3 months from now I will have completed 100 pages of my new book.
• 3 months from now I will be selling my handicrafts online.
• 3 months from now I will have found a new job with better prospects.

If you believe it will happen but are not sure how it will happen, as an exercise try this; Go into the future to when you will have what you want, and look back to right now. As you look back on yourself at this present moment, what are the steps you would have taken now to make your goal come true? What actions did you take? What was your day to day behavior? See each step you would have taken in your mind’s eye.

What were you doing each day to work towards your goal? Be vivid and detailed in your descriptions of the activities you did? This way you will know exactly what you have to do right now, to make where you want to be in 3 months from now a reality.

Remember to write down the goal, a few times if need be and put it somewhere where you will see it each day. Don’t be afraid to even send yourself a text message or an email reminding you about what you need to do each day to get where you want to be.

If your reaction to the question was negative, such as, ‘it won’t happen’ or, ‘I don’t think so’, can you guess what will happen in 3 months time? It is not rocket science to understand that if you say something will not happen, then the chances of it happening are slim.

If your immediate reaction is negative then you either;

1. Don’t believe you can accomplish the task.
2. Don’t really want to complete the task.
3. Don’t want to be disappointed when you fail.
4. Don’t believe the task is achievable.

If it is number 1, then you should ask yourself why exactly it is that you don’t believe you can accomplish the task and how you know this with such certainty. I would also recommend you start imagining that it were possible and use the technique outlined above to find out how you go about achieving it.

If it is number 2, you need to ask yourself why it is that perhaps you don’t want to achieve the task, is it fear of failure or even success, if you are not motivated enough, change the goal so you are?

If it is number 3, take the approach of ‘there is no failure only feedback’ and take action towards your goal. Look upon everything you do as feedback, if you are taking action towards your goal you simply cannot fail, therefore any action you take is positive.

If it is number 4, then ask yourself; is the outcome I want in 3 months to large, is it realistic? (A million in 3 months, a new business generating massive profits.) If it is then change the goal to something which you know is achievable in 3 months, I don’t mean to cut back on your expectation of what you want for yourself, but only you know what you can realistically achieve in 3 months.

If you don’t right now believe the task is achievable then it is highly unlikely you will achieve it, simple as that. How much time can you spend on the goal, can you afford to give up your job? 1 and 4 are similar, but if you are working 12 hour days, then how much daily time will you have for the task you want to achieve?

For example the difference between 1 and 4 is this,

Goal 1. In 3 months time I will have lost 14lbs.

This is an achievable goal, people have done it in the past and people will do it in the future. But not everybody will believe THEY can achieve it.

Goal 2. In 3 months time I want to be able to write a book, as-well as working 12 hours a day.

While writing a book is achievable in 3 months, however not many people would have done it working 12 hours a day in another job. In this example If you know you are going to be working 12 hours day for the next 3 months, either change your goal, or cut back on the hours you are working so the goal does become attainable.

admin Goal Setting / Motivation Goal Setting / Motivation

Why is it that when we set ourselves goals we know we must achieve, we sometimes lose our focus and find ourselves not completing the activities we know we should? Do you ever have this problem? I understand that life can get in the way sometimes, we can get distracted, we take our eye off the ball or we often get involved in other activities. But when the days of doing nothing turn into weeks, and then months we might suddenly wake up one morning with a sick feeling in our stomach’s, a feeling that says ‘Oh! I haven’t done half of what I was planning to do by now’, and then you ask yourself ‘How did I let this happen?’

Is it laziness?

• Have you stopped believing you can achieve your goals?
• Has something happened in your life that prevents you from pursuing them?
• Do your goals not interest you anymore?
• Has your life changed that these goals have now become irrelevant?
• Have you lost all your motivation?
• Does it suddenly seem like too much hard work is involved so you’ve decided to stop altogether?

Why are you not putting any effort into making your goals come to life? Have you given up already?

Maybe you feel you have too much to do, so you feel so overwhelmed that you don’t do anything. If you are losing focus what can you do about it and how do you get back on track? I think the first thing to ask yourself is why are you losing focus? If it is because of unforeseen circumstances then maybe there isn’t much you can do about it, but if it is because you are becoming lazy and unmotivated then that is a different story. If it is then it may be time to get back to basics.

The frightening aspect of becoming de-motivated is that it becomes too easy to talk yourself out of doing what needs to be done. It is also very easy to stop believing that you can achieve your goals, both of which are detrimental to your success. If you stop believing, then in your mind it becomes pointless to continue working towards your goals. Why would you pursue something that you don’t believe you can be successful at?

I think this is a big issue with people giving up in life, they simply stop believing it’s possible. The dream becomes too big and too distant and the next thing that happens, it’s forgotten altogether.

If you have stopped taking action, start again as soon as possible, start by taking small steps a little each day, and make sure they get completed and that you record your activities if this helps. Also be sure to congratulate yourself for what you have done.

Always remember that nobody becomes rich or successful overnight, it takes hard work, action, determination and an unshakeable belief that it will happen.

Don’t lose focus, instead continually remind yourself (daily if need be) what it is you want and what you need to do to get there. It is too easy sometimes to fall into the trap of inaction and indolence but this is to be avoided unless you want things to stay as they are.

admin Goal Setting / Motivation Goal Setting / Motivation

Are there things in your life that you should be doing but you are finding it hard to motivate yourself to do them? If it is all starting to seem like hard work, then try changing the words you use to motivate yourself when you need to complete a task. Try saying you ‘want’ to do something, instead of saying you ‘have’ to do something. For example most of us might say something like:

I have to do my laundry today.

You wouldn’t normally say ‘I want to do my laundry today’, although you might.

Or another example would be:

‘I have to get my groceries today’, not ‘I want to get my groceries today’

The above are every day examples and it doesn’t really matter how you word them they will still get done.

But what about using it with activities that we sometimes struggle to get motivated for, like going to the gym? Instead of saying:

‘I have to go to the gym today’

you would say:

‘I want to go the gym today’

or

‘I have to complete this assignment by Monday morning’

becomes

‘I want to get this assignment completed by Monday morning’.

or

‘I have to lose weight’

changes to

‘I want to lose weight’

Just changing the words ‘have’ and ‘want’ can change how you look at what you are doing. Try it and see if it works for you.

If you suffer with Procrastination from time to time, why not put off not doing something? alternatively say ‘There are things I want to do today’.

This way you can become more motivated to complete the activities you should be doing.

admin Goal Setting / Motivation motivate, motivational

What drives you? What gets you all fired up and ready to go? What could you talk about for hours? What are your motivations in life? Being motivated is having a clear picture of something you want in your life and having the drive and energy to take action to obtain it. To change anything in your life you will need motivation. Ultimately motivation is the driving force of everything we do in our lives.

Sometimes just knowing that your life is not taking you to where you want to go is motivation enough to do something about it.

See yourself in 5 years time doing exactly the same thing you are now, living the same lifestyle, inspired? If not get some fire in your belly and do something about it.

You have to look into the future and see yourself and see the things that you want in your life. What are your goals? Lifestyle, Financial, personal? How much better will your life be when you have these things? Just imagine how different your life will be in the future if you start to get motivated right now?

When we are motivated we are either motivated to move away from something or to move towards something. For example ‘I want to move to a bigger house.’ (move towards) or ‘I don’t want to work in an office anymore’ (Move away from).

I think it is important to be motivated to move towards something, something that you can continually work at.

You don’t need to go to college to learn motivation, you can have it right now, and it alone can do more for your success in life than any qualification ever can. When you are motivated you can find extra energy to do more, see more and learn more in your life. Without it you will stay exactly where you are. If you have no motivation to change your life, then take a look around, because nothing is going to be changing in your life anytime soon.

“The past is like a river flowing out of sight; the future is an ocean filled with opportunity and delight.”
-Anna Hoxie

admin Goal Setting / Motivation Changing direction, Inspirational, motivate, motivational

How often do you write down your goals or desired outcomes? Do you set goals weekly, monthly, daily or yearly or not at all? How often do you achieve your goals? What was the last goal you achieved for yourself? Do you achieve your goals? I think setting goals is important, because let’s face it if you have no desired goal, then you have no direction and you run the risk of just drifting and letting life pass you by.

Time waits for no man. Six months from now what do you want to have in your life that you don’t have at the moment? What about 1 year from now, or 5 years? Where do you want to be?

Most of us have some sort of goal, even if it’s to pay off the mortgage. For some it might be to save up for a holiday or to buy that new car you have always wanted. For others it might be something more personal. Maybe you have career goals, relationship goals, health goals, financial goals, or self development goals.

Here are a few examples:

• Lose weight
• Become financially independent
• Learn a language
• Get a promotion at work
• Find a new partner
• Learn to sing
• Learn to play the Guitar
• Climb Mount Everest

Have you ever written down your goals or are they parked away in the back of your mind? I wonder how many people would rather watch TV then actually spend time writing down their goals? Maybe people don’t write down their goals because they don’t believe they can achieve them?

If you don’t have goals, how will you ever achieve anything in life? Goals are fundamental to success in life?

One way I have recently learnt is to use NLP to help clarify what the goal is by way of asking certain specific questions. This way it helps you become clear in your own mind what exactly it is that you want, why you want it and how you will know when you attain it.

Try asking yourself the following questions in relation to your specific goal; Maybe write them on a piece of paper, or type them out, then print it out and stick it somewhere where you will see it every day.

• What specifically do you want?
• What will that do for you?
• What will this outcome get for you or allow you to do?

• How will you know when you have got it?
• What will you see hear and feel?
• How will someone else know when you have got it?
• What is the first step?
• What is the last step?

• When, where and with who do you want it?
• How long do you want it for?
• Is the outcome in keeping with your sense of who you are?
• What do you get out of your current behavior that you would wish to preserve?
• What time frame will this outcome need?
• Who else is affected and how will they feel?
• How does it fit in with your other outcomes?
• How does it increase your choices?
• What will happen if you get it?
• What won’t happen if you get it?

• Can you start and maintain it?
• What resources have you already got (skills, people, money, objects etc)?
• What resources do you need?
• Who has already succeeded in achieving this outcome?

When you are clear about what your goal is and what you have to do to get it, you can begin to take steps to work towards getting it. Try it and see how you get on!

admin Goal Setting / Motivation Goal Setting / Motivation