Today, my aim is to help you to take action.

“Action is the foundational key to all success.”Pablo Picasso.

It doesn’t matter how experienced we are, or at which stage in life’s journey we find ourselves, we all need a little help to keep ourselves going on occasions; let’s call that self-motivation. What then is self-motivation? Simply put, it is the force that drives you to do things, that drives you to take action that moves you progressively and positively towards the achievement of your goals. It is one of the main building blocks of personal development and actualizing fulfilment in life. The importance of being appropriately motivated cannot be over emphasized as it is what helps us to take important action and as I said, it is a paramount ingredient in achieving our long or short-term goals. The power of will is one of our greatest assets. This asset has allowed us to thrive in some the most challenging and difficult situations.

Research shows that the willpower to take action and failing often will help you boost your confidence level. And being confident is essential to your success. Here are a couple of great articles to help you learn and grow following any such failure:
a) How To Learn From Failure.
b) How to Bounce Back From Being Knocked Down.

In the book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, the authors demonstrated the potentials achieved through willpower. Better relationships, careers and robust health are some of what were attained. However, some form of propellant is needed in order to motivate us to succeed. It could be intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from within and extrinsic motivation comes from reward and external sources. The former requires that we take responsibility and learn how to motivate ourselves to take all important action in our lives. The willpower required to achieve set goals creates internal conflict in many people – they often struggle to muster up what is needed to take action, to properly grind out the actions and drive ourselves forwards. This is sometimes an ongoing battle we need to overcome in order to progress.

“You cannot score a goal when you are sitting on the bench. To do so, you have to dress up and enter the game”Israelmore Ayivor.

Here are a couple of great articles to help you with willpower and determination:
a) 7 Evidence Based Ways To Boost Your Willpower Today.
b) Using Self-Hypnosis For A Snow Balling Effect of Enhanced Determination.

So, the question becomes- what happens when there is a persistent lack of self-motivation and what it can possibly cause? Lacking motivation will cause you to lose sight of what’s ahead and you’ll not take action. It can get you entangled in obstacles, leave you utterly confused. When all these happen, your next question becomes – how can you motivate yourself to take action?

Here are some ways to keep you self-motivated to take action in your life:

Interact with people that have a similar focus or goal:
The popular motivational speaker Jim Rohn said you are the sum of the five people you spend most of your time with. This helps to keep you focused. These people will be your greatest source of inspiration when the times get tough. In this new age of social media even if you are not physically present you can surround your online space with people that can motivate you through their online presence. Whatever you do, if you want to be motivated, it’ll help if you have motivating and motivated people around you. Are you influenced by people who take action in their lives?

Get connected to your reservoir of inspiration:
“Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.”Zig Ziglar.

Keep a sense of mission and goal-focus about you, by topping up your motivation. 

When you experience moments of ‘internal wars’ allow yourself time to completely stop what you are doing and think about topping up your reservoir of drive and self-motivation that will ensure you take action. Whether at work, school, gym or home always carry your internal reservoir of inspiration around and be sure to use from it to defend yourself against negative self-wars. 

Keep a list (on paper or using an app on your phone and/or PC etc) with your goals on and refer to it often, consider keeping a list of all the reasons you wish to achieve those goals too. Additionally, keep a list of favourite motivational quotes about you that you can refer to and remind yourself of your inspiration and the purpose that is driving what you are doing. Think of your reservoir of self-motivation as the fuel that will ensure you take action steps towards your goals in life which ultimately lead to a more satisfying and rewarding life.

Keep it progressive and manageable:
“People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.”Lewis Cass.

It is great to dream big. Dream big and then take action relentlessly towards those dreams. Sometimes you might start small. It is even sometimes advisable to do so. The bigger you attempt to go too quickly might make it more difficult to control and you can end up feeling frustrated and lacking motivation. Sometimes your big dreams and goals might seem unattainable at the beginning, so progressive action towards them will make more evidence for you that you can do this and keep encouraging you. Keep the tasks small and achievable, also celebrate each successful step along the way. This will also help you build confidence in yourself and your skills. You will feel more motivated because you can see yourself actually setting and achieving milestones. You are progressing, you take action, and that action in and of itself starts to motivate you further.

Get rid of excuses:
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie.

Excuses are your greatest enemies. They basically consume your ideas and destroy your motivation for taking action. Never believe your excuses are tenable for your idea. Instead confront them and show them the way out.

Go and have a read of this article which gives a process to blow-out excuses from your life:
Making Excuses Already? Enter Self-Hypnosis.

Listen to inspirational music:
Music is food to mind and soul. Be sure to feed it music that is uplifting, inspiring and relaxing in order to boost notivation and get you in the right mindset to take action. Find the type of music that makes you spring to action and indulge yourself regularly.

Here is a great process that shows you how to use all your previously mentioned lists and combine them with music to start each day off in incredibly motivating fashion:
Wake Up And Be Awesome! 

Read motivational books:
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”Joe Sabah.

Books help not just your vocabulary, but they can also boost your confidence and motivation. Now the trick to this is – don’t just read but make an effort to practice what the book says. Do your best to read a book a month and learn something valuable from it that you can employ in your life.

So today, you can listen to audiobooks, read electronic books and download them all in an instant. Likewise, they do not have to be motivational texts only – and let’s be honest, there is probably only so much personal development and self-help literature we can stomach. Consider autobiographies of people that inspire you, or true-life stories about amazing feats, or sporting successes, or about people who contributed to the development of human existence, big thinkers, dreamers and inspirational themes. There is so much out there that can drive and inspire you to take action.

Stop Procrastinating:
Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”Thomas Jefferson.

Take action because you may never have that opportunity again. So why not just get it over with. What’s the worst that can happen? Procrastination is the enemy of efficiency, and efficiency is a key step in staying motivated.

Here’s an article to help you with that:
Ending Laziness, Ending Procrastination and Getting Motivated.

Be consistent:
“Be content to act and leave the talking to others.”Baltasar Gracian.

It is very important that you show punctuality in all situations of life. Get up early every day. Give yourself time to relax and reflect on what you are about to accomplish. This will also show that you are self-motivated and ready to get doing. Here are a couple of great articles to help you with that:

a) Why You Need Routine In Your Life.
b) How to Become a Morning Person.
c) How To Be Incredibly Productive: 10 Keys to Productivity.
d) 9 Ways To Make The Most Of Your Time.

“The path to success is to take massive, determined actions.”Tony Robbins.

Success in any aspect of your life depends on your personal approach to the journey. Motivation is the key to having the right mindset that will allow you to seize opportunities and continuously take action. Knowing that you can and will achieve whatever you set out to do is a great way to start.
How do you remain motivated to take action? I would love to hear.

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Have some of themes here resonated with you? Then have a read of these pages:

1. Do you need help or support in a particular area of your life?
Coaching with Adam Eason Or Hypnotherapy with Adam Eason
2. Would you like a satisfying and meaningful career as a hypnotherapist helping others? Are you a hypnotherapist looking for stimulating and career enhancing continued professional development and advanced studies?
Adam Eason’s Anglo European training college.
3. Are you a hypnotherapist looking to fulfil your ambitions or advance your career?
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Likewise, if you’d like to learn more about self-hypnosis, understand the evidence based principles of it from a scientific perspective and learn how to apply it to many areas of your life while having fun and in a safe environment and have the opportunity to test everything you learn, then come and join me for my one day seminar which does all that and more, have a read here: The Science of Self-Hypnosis Seminar. Alternatively, go grab a copy of my Science of self-hypnosis book.