Success. It’s something most of us want to achieve. If you’re reading this, I can guess that you’re pretty ambitious. I can also guess that you’re open to doing what it takes to make your dreams come true.
If you’re a business owner, there’s a good chance that you’re always on the lookout to expand and improve not just the bottom line but also other areas of your enterprise such as customer service, product development, marketing and all the rest.
If you’re an employee, you’re the type of person who will chart a “success course” that will take you from where you are to where you want to go.
You don’t believe in leaving things up to chance. You’re the type who will plan your rise to the top or to a leadership position that you have your eye on.
I know all this about you because anyone who reads an article on “power tools to get what you want” isn’t doing it because they plan to sit on their couch flicking through the latest shows on Netflix.
So we can agree: you are passionate and you are driven. But are these traits enough? Will they get you all the way to the top of your industry or area of expertise?
Here’s something I need you to consider…
Ambition and passion will work for you only when you’re fired up, enthusiastic and ready to take on the world.
What about the days when you feel there are dark clouds floating around — not outside your window but inside your head? What about the days when you can barely inspire yourself to get out of bed in the morning let alone confront the long list of tasks, phone calls, appointments and the billion other things that are “threatening” to overwhelm you?
These are the days when you need to reach into your metaphorical “Toolkit for Success” and find ways to motivate yourself.
Yes. It’s that secret component that is the difference between success and failure. Winners and losers. And if I were being dramatic… Triumph and tragedy.
You can have all the passion and ambition in the world but it means nothing if you can’t motivate yourself to do what it takes to achieve your goals and dreams… To take action and keep going no matter how many obstacles and challenges get in your way.
Here are 5 powerful tools and techniques that will get you motivated and keep you motivated to get anything you want.
Tool #1: You Are Positive
I’m not talking about those folks who badly need a dash of reality in their lives.
You know the kind I’m talking about.
These are the people who insist on looking at the “bright side” and refuse to take action even if their life or business is falling apart. They keep telling themselves that, “Things will work out.”
No, I’m talking about the realistic optimist. The kind who takes note of what went wrong, learns from it so they don’t make the same mistakes again, and then moves on. No dwelling. No “beating themselves up” over the past.
This sort of positive outlook will speed up your journey to success because you’re not wasting time worrying about what’s already happened. You’re too busy fixing mistakes and taking the next step to success.
Tool #2: You Recognize Self-Motivators
What I mean by this is that you’re always on the lookout for amazing people who are able to pick themselves up, brush themselves off and go, “What else you got?”
These are the people who refuse to stay down no matter how many curve balls life happens to throw at them. When you recognize other self-motivators, you can choose to spend more time with them.
This will help you gain firsthand experience on what it actually takes to succeed. You’ll learn how these self-motivators handle failure and frustration, which are two of the most dangerous pitfalls on the road to success.
Tool #3: You Are Comfortable with Discomfort
You have to be. Otherwise, you’re going to get stuck inside the comfort zone and that’s pretty much a death sentence for success. I can’t tell you many amazing, genius-level people I’ve met who have ended up unfulfilled and disillusioned because they were stuck in the comfort zone.
The comfort zone traps even the smartest most successful people. It’s easy to get caught up in it, especially when you’ve managed to achieve a certain degree of success. You tell yourself that you’re happy with what you’ve already achieved. You tell yourself that you don’t need to work harder, try more, expand your horizons. This is the kind of thinking that will cause you to slip into a routine that leads to failure.
The first thing to know about the comfort zone is that there’s no such thing. You’re either moving forward or falling backwards. You can’t stay in a “comfort zone” and hope to sustain your success.
Learn to embrace the discomfort of reaching for more, improving yourself and expanding your personal skills or business goals. When you do this, you will never get left behind.
Tool #4: You Keep Your Eye on the Prize
Successful, motivated people have laser-sharp focus on their own goals and dreams. They find ways to keep themselves on target as they continue to do the daily, mundane tasks that will get them to where they want to go.
You can’t run a full marathon if you haven’t taken the time to do the dull, everyday work of training. It’s this training period that the unsuccessful have trouble with. They can’t motivate themselves to wake up every morning, rain or shine, get out there and do what it takes to strengthen their bodies and minds.
They forget that their main goal, the thing that got them started on the journey, is to be able to tell themselves that they achieved a bucket list goal of running a marathon from start to finish. Instead, they focus on the dreary, day-to-day of having to train again, and again, and again.
So, if your goal is to create a 7-figure business, for instance, what’s your big prize? Do you want to change the lives of the ones you love? Do you want to help save the environment or protect wildlife? Do you want to help educate children around the world? Find that prize that will drive you through all that boring daily work that needs to get done.
And never take your eyes of it.
Tool #5: You Don’t Judge or Blame
One of the best ways to stay motivated and stick to your path to success is to make sure that you take ownership and responsibility for all that you do and everything that happens.
For instance, if you’re looking to get a promotion at work but someone else beats you to it, you don’t waste your time and energy talking about the unfairness and the injustice of it all. You need to be too busy looking at alternate ways to achieve what you want. Maybe that’s moving to a new department in your company or maybe that’s switching jobs.
Blaming and judging should not be in your repertoire because it will drain your energy and your time — energy and time that you can use to start taking action and achieving your goals.
Understand this: the world isn’t fair. It never will be. That’s the bad news. But there are also good news.
You’ll be amazed at how much can go your way when you start to take matters into your own hands to design your own future.
These tools will help you get yourself up when you feel that life’s getting you down. They will help you experience a refreshing change of energy and focus when you feel bored or tired from dealing with too many obstacles or challenges.
Most importantly, these tools will help you strengthen your motivation muscles as you journey toward the goals in your life or work. Use them regularly and you’ll soon realize that you’re pretty unstoppable when it comes to moving toward what you want in your life.
You’ll learn to shape your own destiny rather than have other people or circumstances rule your world. And that’s when you’ll realize that you’ve become what you’ve always wanted to be: a huge success.
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