SELF-MOTIVATION

Discover the compelling and dynamic power that comes from being motivated or stirred from within

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” �"Chinese Proverb

Every day, we find people who started something but couldn’t follow through on their project or vision because they lacked the motivation to continue. Often, such individuals had looked to external sources for motivation, and since they couldn’t find it there, they had to quit.

From experience, I have found that human beings are highly unreliable when it comes to finding sustainable motivation to consistently pursue and accomplish your purpose in life.

Human beings are as unreliable as the wind�"continually vacillating or swinging towards one end of the pendulum or the other. Consequently, anyone who depends on people for the motivation to stay strong and focused on his projects or pursuits stands the risk of suffering disappointment at the end.

Your most trusted source of motivation can only be found in you. You are the only one that can consistently motivate yourself to continually move forward in the direction of your dreams. This is largely because you are the only one who understands the visions or dreams in your heart.

You are the only one that can fully articulate your dreams. Every other person can only deduce their conclusions based on what you tell them or their observations. And even at that, they do so, based on how much they can understand you.

If you can’t inspire and motivate yourself in the pursuit of your dreams with respect to your business or career, no one else may be able to do that for you.

Motivation is like the fuel in the car. The car needs it to move. Without it, the car will, at best, only be a piece of furniture, good only for the garage. It is also like water in your body which is necessary for maintaining all metabolic activities in living cells, whether plants or animals.

“Motivation is defined as the incentive or reason for doing something”. According to Merriam-Webster, “it is something which arouses action or activity”.

Motivation is a propellant or influence towards a particular line of action. It is like the trigger in the gun. The gun will not fire until the trigger is pulled. Everyone needs this propellant, this influence and trigger, to keep moving steadily in the direction of their dreams and objectives.

However, those who wish to be successful in their endeavours must understand that this is such a vital element or catalyst to success that should not be sought exclusively from an external source.

While it is true that one can find enough motivation in his outside environment, chiefly through family and friends, this is still an unreliable source of motivation.

If a person can’t find enough motivation in himself to sustain him in his pursuit, he may give up the fight when other external sources fail to hold him up.

There are several reasons why the external sources of motivation may fail ranging from the inability of others to understand your vision or dream, inability of others to accept or believe in your dream, personal problems or difficulties that may render them temporarily incapable of providing the needed motivation or support, envy and competition, etc.

So you see, if you are going to stay continually motivated to pursue your dream, then you must find a way to find the motivation you need in yourself, even when you can’t find it from other outside or external sources.

You must learn to be self-motivated. You have to find your motivation from within you.

This is one of the secrets of successful people. Even when nothing on the outside provides the needed motivation, they still stay motivated towards their goal.

How do you think they are able to do that?

You are right. They find their motivation from within themselves. They are self-motivated. Even when no one else understands or believes in them, they still find enough energy within to push through.

Their motivation is not based on other people’s affirmation and encouragement. While that is invaluable to success, it is still not enough. The one who wants to truly become successful must be stirred and influenced from within.

He must find the reason and motivation to always get up and work towards his goal from within him.

To enhance your ability to motivate yourself, I want to show you a few critical questions you must continually ask yourself to inspire you to action towards your desired goal or objective.

1. WHAT INSPIRED THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE?
As you push towards your goal, I want you to keep this question always before you. If possible, I want you to write it out and place it at a conspicuous location where you can always see it.

Why did you start this project, business, career, etc., in the first place? What inspired you to choose this path?

It’s possible that someone or something inspired you to follow the path you are presently in. Maybe it’s a person you greatly admire and he is doing what he is doing so well that you want to be like him.

As a pastor, I have a model I’m looking up to and I want to be like him. I have always been so inspired by the ministry of the highly esteemed Reverend Chris Oyakhilome ever since I was a teenager. He is doing the same thing I believe I am called to do, and he is doing it so well. So, I look up to him.

It may not even be a person, it could even be a need of which you feel called to meet. It could be a problem for which you believe you could provide the answer. It could be anything.

The most important thing is for you to discover what inspired you in the first place to want to do what you are presently doing. What was the motivation behind your choosing that path, business or career?

If you can find an answer to this question, it will help keep you motivated as you work towards accomplishing your goal.

2. HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU AS A PERSON?

The next question you need to ask yourself is, how does this affect you as a person? What benefit is it bringing to you as an individual? How is it contributing to your life? Is it improving your life or making it worst? Does it feed your passion? Do you find fulfilment in doing it?

Whatever business or career you choose should enhance and make your life better. It should positively improve your life. Even if it doesn’t improve your financial state (which is most unlikely), at least, it should add some form of value to you personally that can compensate for other areas.

You should feel fulfilled doing what you are doing. Your business or career should enhance your worth as a person and improve your social standing. It should improve your personal value.

It’s important for you to find an answer to this question. Knowing how what you do affects you as an individual will help to determine the level of motivation you can get from doing that particular thing.

Nobody gets motivated doing something that ultimately works against him. There’s no how I can be motivated doing something which does more harm than good to me―something which directly or indirectly destroys my life.

If it doesn’t help you achieve your purpose in life, then its tendency to motivate you will be very low. You will not find any motivation doing it.

Also, if it doesn’t help you pay your bills, there might be a problem, unless you find something else that can take care of your bills while you pursue your passion.

On the contrary, if this thing enhances your life, then, you will be stirred up and motivated to work towards it. You will be self-motivated to pursue it with everything you have, even when there's a clear absence of other external sources of motivation.

3. HOW DOES IT AFFECT OTHERS?

Another question you should ask yourself is how this affects other people.

I believe you’d want to know how your life affects others. And let me tell you, in case you don’t know yet, that the value of your life is measured by how much it impacts other people, and how your life affects other people is determined by what you do with your life every day. This includes your profession and how you go about it.

Is what you do for a living affecting the society positively or negatively? Is your business or career providing value or the required services to society or not? How are people affected by what you do? Is what you are doing improving people’s standard of life?

Ask these questions and find the right answers to them. If you must be self-motivated, then you need to have something that stirs you to action from within you.

I don’t know about you, but I want to live my life making positive contributions to the world every day. And as such, it is important for me to know how my career or business achieves this aim.

For example, I’m excited about writing this book because I know there’s no telling how many lives this one book can transform. I’m writing principally to positively transform people’s lives by affecting their thoughts. I want to change the world through mental transformation. So, I am excited and stirred to keep writing, even when I feel discouraged.

Self-motivation is a product of the full assurance of accomplishing a desired outcome through what you are doing. It is a result of an assurance that something good will come out of what you are doing. Even when you cannot explain it, something within tells you that it’s going to be alright.

This is one secret most successful people have mastered. They are exceptionally self-motivated. Even when no one and nothing encourages their efforts, they still find a way to encourage themselves. They are fully persuaded within them such that nothing can shake their resolve.

One of the greatest Kings of Israel―King David of old―on one occasion, went to war with his warriors to defend another city, leaving their wives, children and livestock at the camp.

By the time they returned, they found out that there had been an invasion and their wives, children and everything they owned were all carried away as spoils of war.

In this particular account, it is said that both David and his warriors lifted up their voices and cried aloud. You can imagine what it means for a warrior to cry. They had all lost their family and everything they owned while trying to protect others.

But something happened, according to the story. All the warriors suddenly―out of pain and frustration―turned against their Commander and contemplated stoning him to death.

But in the midst of this, it was recorded that “David encouraged himself in the Lord His God” (see 1 Samuel 30:1-6).

One of the gospel writers, Mark, told a remarkable story about Jesus in the books bearing his name. According to his record, Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem with His disciples. He had recently told them that He would be arrested in Jerusalem and crucified, after which He would rise again on the third.

Now, they were on their way to Jerusalem where, according to Jesus, He would be arrested and killed. But something was so strange about Jesus, and this made His disciples uncomfortable. He was going to die, yet He was enthusiastic about it.

Mark recorded that as the disciples walked behind Jesus who was leading the way, “they were amazed. And as they followed they were afraid…” (Mark 10:32).

He was motivated about His cause even though it meant certain painful and shameful death.

There will be times when you will look stupid, confused and unreasonable for aiming unrelentingly at your target. Everyone and everything will suggest to you to quit. There will be no one to give you any form of motivation or inspiration to carry on. At this moment, you must encourage yourself. You must inspire and stir yourself.

This is one of the secrets of great people. You must be ready to ask these three questions for self- motivation and find answers to them, because in them lie the secret to your self-motivation.

Every successful person is self-motivated, self- inspired and self-stirred towards the pursuit of his dreams.

This set of people find the motivation to pursue their dreams, not from any outside source, but from within them. This is one of the things that differentiates those who give up and those who succeed.

Don’t forget the Chinese proverb, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

An excerpt from SUCCESS MECHANISMS: how to find your path and chart your course to greatness.