8 Tips to stay Motivated and Succeed

By Jack J. Kelly

Are you at a point in your life where you have decided it is time to pursue something special? Is your current life, job, or relationships unfulfilling? Do you feel that you are not realizing your full potential? Is there is something missing? It could be a grand ambition to become ridiculously wealthy, or on a smaller scale, to lose ten pounds. Maybe you just want to finish a college or graduate degree that you only have a few remaining courses left. Perhaps it is time to find a better, well-paying job with greater potential for advancement.

The vast majority of people don’t go past the wishing and dreaming about it phase. A small amount of people start, run into roadblocks, and quit. Life gets in the way. You get discouraged, and then the idea just gradually fades away. Only a few have the willpower, stamina, focus, and desire to see their goals to fruition.

There is an art to staying motivated, and I will help you.

1. No more fu*#ing around. You need to get your act together, grow-up and get serious.

First, make a firm decision to see your goal all the way through. Whether it is obtaining a new job or starting a business. It’s easy to think about it. It’s cool to tell your friends about your plan. But know you can only rely upon yourself. You must push yourself to make it happen. It’s not a game now. It is a plan and you need to work on it every day no matter what. There will always be obstacles. There will always be push back. There will be haters that would love for you to fail. Ignore everyone and all impediments. Mentally prepare yourself for hardship, failures and setbacks, and promise yourself to fight through them all.

2. Surround yourself with like-minded positive people.

Most people suck. They are unhappy and live a miserable existence. Instead of being happy for you they secretly want to fail and join them in misery. If these are your friends and family, separate yourself from them. You don’t have to disown them, just keep a healthy distance while you are actively pursuing your goals, and living your best life.

Life is too short to be surrounded by toxic people who whine, complain and only see the problems and dead ends. Instead, seek out like-minded people. Find others who share your passion and drive. If you are seeking a new job find others who are on a similar path. Take them out for a coffee and share notes. Get ideas from them. Meet with successful recruiters and pick their brains to find out what works. Join networking events, and meet-ups. You will be invigorated by their energy. You will learn new interviewing techniques. You could brainstorm why you may have not received that job offer, and work towards making positive changes to your interviewing style and approach. The same is true for pursuing other endeavors.

3. Take good care of yourself mentally and physically.

See yourself as a high caliber athlete. Eat right and exercise. Take care of yourself mentally, emotionally and physically. You must have a healthy diet and workout routine. Go to sleep early and wake up early. Stop drinking, smoking and drug taking, even prescription medicine that you know your really don’t need but it makes you feel good. You need to be in peak condition to focus on reaching big audacious goals. 

4. Visualize yourself succeeding.

Visualize yourself in the place where you want to be. It could be sitting in a nice corner office at a top-tier global firm in your brand new job. It could be jogging ten miles now that you lost twenty pounds. Perhaps, you are now the proud owner of a new business.  

5. Replace negative feedback loops with positive self-talk.

Immediately replace any negative self-talk with positive encouraging thoughts. Tell yourself to succeed. Will yourself to succeed. Convince yourself that you will succeed. There are enough negative people out there; you don’t need to be brought down with your own negative thoughts of failure.

6. Don’t wait, start now.

Everyone waits until after the holidays and New Year to act. It is too easy. People will agree with you, if you make excuses to postpone starting something new, “Yes, now is not the right time. Wait until…” You could wait forever. There is never a right perfect time. Well, there is one great time to start something big, and it is now. Don’t put it off. Start right away, even if it is only small steps at first.

Pick-up speed as you go along, and keep moving forward. Think of yourself as a shark constantly swimming and looking for prey. 

7. Know your weak spots and find help for them.

We are all good as some things and pretty bad at most things. Focus on your core strengths. When it comes to your weaknesses, seek help. If you are looking for a job but are an introvert, seek a career coach or a good recruiter who could help you with interviewing. The recruiter could help you craft an elevator pitch in which you could sell yourself. He could also work with you to improve how your answer challenging interview questions.

8. Celebrate every little success

Since it is challenging to stay focused and motivated working towards an ambitious goal in the face of obstacles and set-backs, take the time to congratulate yourself and celebrate all the small milestones along the journey. By celebrating the triumphs you will gain more confidence. You will recognize that it is possible to succeed. Most average people sprinkle their achievements everywhere and pile up their failures. Consequently, they see a mountain of failures and can’t find the success. You are not average. You are better. Sprinkle the failures and pile-up high the successes. Each little victory spurs you onto bigger victories. It will keep you psyched-up, confident and motivated.