Motivation series conclusion. Click introduction to start at the beginning.

Over the past few months, I’ve been writing a series of posts on motivation. There isn’t really a way to cover such a deep and sometimes perplexing subject in only several posts. However, I tried to frame some of what I view as the most essential pieces of the motivation puzzle in such a way that you can read any single post and benefit from it, or you could read the entire collection and, perhaps, experience a paradigm shift. That was my intention and I hope I succeeded.

Motivation Summaries

Looking back on this series, I wanted to revisit each post and give an excerpt as well as add a few additional thoughts. Clicking on the title of each post will take you directly to the full version.

Change Occurs from the Inside Out

“It’s simple, really. What you think affects how you act. Everything you do consciously begins, first, with the thought of doing it. Certain thoughts of a specific quality, when habitually repeated, result in certain habits of behavior. Where you are today in life is a result of your habitual thoughts followed by habitual actions. You cannot consistently feed your mind negative thoughts and expect positive results.”

This is about the nature of how we change and evolve as a result of our habits of thought. This relates to motivation at its deepest level because motivation is so closely tied to how we process everything that happens to us—every experience we have or observe other people having—and how we think about ourselves. In order for any meaningful change to occur in our lives, we’re usually going to need to start at the core level of who we are and what we think about ourselves—our capabilities, our self-worth, our skills, how smart we think we are, how well-liked we perceive ourselves to be. If you wonder why you aren’t very motivated, look in these corners of your beliefs, first.

If You Do Things the Same Way, You’ll Get the Same Results

“Does your daily routine support your goals? Whether you’re planning to start a business, lose weight, quit smoking, or get a new job, you need to ask yourself this very important question.

“If you’re like me, you’ve been a closet entrepreneur for many years; you’re always tossing around the idea that you would like to quit your job so you can follow your passion. Who wouldn’t want to ditch their day job and replace it with their own business or an income stream that is based on what he or she is passionate about?

“Well, I have some bad news for you. If you don’t change your daily routine then you’ll likely never realize your goal.”

Seriously, take an honest look at how you live. Are you willing to turn off the TV, stop surfing the Internet, stay home instead of hitting the club or pub, miss going to the movies with friends in order to get your life moving in a new direction? There seems to be two kinds of people: those who have dreams and achieve them, and those who only dream. How you live your life, on a day-to-day basis, largely determines what your life will be like in the near future. When you start making meaningful changes, an increase in motivation isn’t far behind. On the other hand, if you just keep doing the same thing every day, don’t expect anything to ever change.

Instant and Unlimited Enthusiasm!

“Motivation and enthusiasm are two ends of the same stick. While it’s great to be enthusiastic about your goals, enthusiasm alone will never supply enough power to keep your motivation at full throttle. Enthusiasm, as it turns out, is the fuel that powers your acceleration, creates drive, and generates momentum; but when your fuel runs out, the engine stops.”

Enthusiasm, however, can be turned on if you know how. The reason you may have low motivation could directly relate to the fact that you do nothing that makes you feel enthusiastic or you have no meaningful goals that you are reaching for. Enthusiasm is unbridled passion! There’s a lot you can do that would instantly turn on your enthusiasm like flipping a switch. This is a skill you can learn. Find your switch or create it, either way, the power is truly in your hands.

Do You Overlook Small Details that Impact Motivation and Success?

“You want to stop eating sweets but you keep a jar of M&Ms on your desk. You honestly want to quit smoking but you have packs of cigarettes lying in every corner of your life so that you’re never far from that temptation. You want to start paying down some debt yet you keep several credit cards with you at all times. These details often go overlooked but have a very big impact on your level of motivation and success. Ignoring these small details often means the difference between progress and frustration.”

All around you are tiny details that you consistently miss—details that deplete inspiration, confine motivation, and ultimately prevent success. Making small adjustment on a regular basis can be like stepping stones that you cross over to reach greater levels of personal and professional success. Making minor adjustments will ratchet up your motivation. This is all about tweaking your life a little at a time.

Conviction: Tap the Amazing Power that You Possess to Instantly Change Your Life—Forever!

“Conviction is critical to motivation. In this post, I’m going to cover how to use conviction to instantly quit smoking (forever!), or how to start a diet and stick with it, and how to set any goal and increase your chance of success to nearly 100%. I say “nearly” because I cannot control your understanding of the concepts I’ll be covering; and I cannot control what kind of goals you have and whether or not outside forces could physically interfere with the attainment of your goal. So, let’s get started…”

I designed the entire series on motivation to build up to a crescendo that peaks with the last two posts. I actually included a warning with this post: “WARNING: AFTER READING THIS YOUR LIFE MAY NEVER BE THE SAME!” And though it is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I believe it could be true for most who read it. If you were to fully realize the power of making a decision with absolute and irrevocable conviction, I don’t see how your life wouldn’t change as a result. But the warning also applies in another way. If you understand what conviction means to accomplishing your goals, you will realize that it takes away most of your excuses for not taking action. You won’t be able to sit around complaining about everyone and everything that’s preventing you from accomplishing your goals. The responsibility is yours. Once you have conviction, you have no more excuses!

Accountability – A Secret Key to Motivation and Goal Achievement

“While conviction may be the heart and soul of motivation, accountability is like the magic pill. All goals need conviction—the power and drive that comes from firmly choosing to take action while not leaving room for anything but your expressed outcome. But the truth is, not all of the goals we set are goals in which we, ourselves, are personally interested. Sometimes we have to set goals that we are required or obligated to pursue by way of our job or personal associations. Then there are goals that we set in which the outcome is truly desired but we haven’t yet developed the conviction required to assure that we will achieve it. This is where accountability plays an important role. Let’s look at a few examples that most people have experienced where accountability has helped to motivate us—sometimes kicking and screaming—to reach a desired outcome.”

If you can’t seem to find the conviction to follow through on a meaningful goal, then the proper use of accountability will definitely do the trick. When I discovered the magic of accountability, I truly did feel like I had uncovered some kind of ancient artifact or stumbled upon the secret formula for the motivation pill.

There is, however, a danger in reading all the posts in this series (and I say this with all sincerity). What you will learn will suddenly put the power of self-motivation right into your hands. You cannot read it and ignore it because once you’ve read it, you can no longer pretend that the locus of change is outside of yourself. Therefore, you will have two choices: to pursue your dreams with all abandon, with enthusiasm, and with towering motivation, or accept your life as it is while watching others achieve their dreams. What do you want your life to look like one year from now?

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Although it seems that all good things must come to an end, I’m not finished writing about motivation. Aside from writing more about it on this blog, I’ll soon be making available a free ebook about motivation that will contain this entire series, plus I’ll include other unpublished material exclusive to the ebook.

Also, if you want to explore how you can more precisely apply the motivation techniques included in the free ebook (and take your motivation to a whole new level!), I will be releasing a companion ebook for purchase. It will include specific strategies, worksheets, and much more material not included in the free ebook or on this website. It’s still under development so I don’t want to say too much more about it, just yet, but this will be only for people who are seriously interested in applying what they learn about self-motivation and goal achievement in their everyday lives. It’s all about putting words into action!

If you think you might be interested in the companion motivation strategy guide and workbook, I suggest you read the free ebook. Why? Because it’s free and because it goes with the companion book so you’re going to need it anyway. Start there so you can become familiar with the foundational concepts of motivation. Then, if you decide to take it further, buy the companion book. For some people, the free ebook will be all they need to totally rock their world. And that’s awesome!

I sincerely hope you have enjoyed this series. I want to help you change your life like the concepts in this series changed my life. I had to discover them through trial and feedback over many years. But I hope this will be a big shortcut for you.

Lastly, please email me at scott [dot] quitters [at] gmail [dot] com [I had to write it in a spam-proof form] or leave a comment if any of the posts (or the whole series) rocked your world. If it did, please share it with someone else. Thanks, so much, for spending time here.

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