How long have you been thinking about starting a blog or even an Internet business empire? How long have you been reading all the blogs from all the gurus of Internet business? You’ve been devouring all the latest business podcasts and you’ve sunk quite a few dollars into books, online courses, and all the latest whiz-bang techno-gadgets designed to help you get your blog and Internet business going fast.

Yet, here you are, still consuming more information, still planning, still brainstorming…and still no business. Maybe you’ve even take a few small steps but now you’ve stalled. Look, I can’t do anything about how you spend your time. Next year, you’ll be another year older and unless you do something different, you will not be any closer to having your blog going with an income stream established.

Internet businesses are not created overnight…at least not your first baby. When everything is new to you, things tend to move along more slowly. I understand that you’re cautious. Some caution is good. But DO something already! You don’t have to quit your day job tomorrow, or even next month. And though you may be anxious to quit your sucky day job, you can start a business in your spare time (like I am) and at least not have to worry about where the money will come from to buy food and pay your next car insurance bill.

Starting an Internet business is practically RISK FREE! Buying a domain name is cheap, web hosting is cheap, your time is ultra-cheap. Once you have your domain name and web hosting, you can launch your blog, using WordPress, in a matter of minutes. In a single evening, you can have your blog roughed in. And since you don’t want to launch your blog without any blog posts, start writing and posting excellent content while you take a month or two to shape the look of your blog and any other Internet business-related tasks.

You don’t have to know everything there is to know about blogging or starting an Online business before you take these steps. You don’t need the “next big information thing” in Internet business. I’m not saying you won’t ever need it, I’m just saying, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere and I’m putting it down right here!

What good is all that  Internet business knowledge you’ve been consuming for months or even years if you’re never going to use it? Don’t be another pipe-dreamer and flush opportunity down the toilet! You’ll never get there if you never start!  So stop reading and START already!

But hold on there, Sparky. If you’ve been in the Rat Race for years and you’re thinking about starting an internet business, there’s a little dose of reality that you may as well face now: It’s probably not going to be as easy as you think. For all the great benefits of internet business and all the headaches that go along with the Rat Race, there’s one thing that holds true for most people regarding work habits. That is, you will be more likely to “get it done” when you are somehow held accountable, and when there are some undesirable consequences for not getting it done.

Think about it. As much as you dislike your job and want to get out of it, you continue to go to work every day and do what needs to be done. Why? Because if you don’t show up, you’ll have to answer to someone and you’ll probably face some consequences that you’d rather avoid. If that’s not enough, there’s always the risk of losing your income and any other benefits that come along with the job. If you had no one to answer to and there were no negative consequences, do you think it would be harder to make yourself go to that job every day? Yeah, it would. The reality we’ve been facing lately is that, even if you’re talking about starting your own business, being your own boss, and doing something you enjoy, it’s still sometimes tough to “get it done” – for the lack of the very things we hate about the Rat Race! There’s nobody telling us what to do and when to do it, and there’s no “punishment” for putting it off  ”just one (more) day.” At least, not until recently…

We took a vacation recently and it gave us some time to do a lot of planning and talking about our businesses. We’re both pretty good at the planning and talking. It’s the doing that trips us up. Since there’s no boss shoving deadlines at us, and no threats of immediate “punishment” of any kind, it’s far too easy to put things off and avoid doing the things we know we should be doing. As much as we hate the Rat Race, it’s what we’re used to and how we’re used to functioning. In a nutshell, neither of us is happy with how slow our progress has been. And, until recently we have been struggling to find a way to keep ourselves on track. We realized that accountability and consequences are two of the most obvious things missing from our current situation. So, we set our minds to the task of finding a way to hold ourselves accountable and to, well, punish ourselves for not doing what we should be doing. And we finally found it. We found our “swift kick in the butt.”

A while back, we bought concert tickets to see Jack Johnson at Virginia Beach Amphitheater. The concert is coming up July 16th, and it’s something we’re really looking forward to. So, we decided to use this concert as an incentive to get our blogs launched. We’ve come up with a list of the “absolute necessities” for each of our blogs – the things that have to be in place in order to launch. If we can get everything on that list done by midnight July 10th, we’ll be on our way to the concert. If we don’t get this stuff done by the deadline, there will be no concert for us. This is the kind of incentive that usually works pretty well for us. There are specific things that need to be done, and there’s a specific date by which they have to be done – or else there’s a consequence that we really want to avoid. Kind of like the “incentives” you get from a Rat Race job, only you get to pick your own reward, consequences, and time frame.

When you find yourself stuck, and not making progress toward your goals as quickly as you’d like to, what do you do to get yourself back on track and moving forward again? What’s your kick in the butt?

A Clean Slate
There are a whole lot of people who are reflecting on their lives and wondering what they’ve accomplished. But I’m here to tell you that spending your time thinking about the past is worse than making the choices which created it in the first place. Let’s do something right here and now. Let’s wipe the slate clean. The past is in the past and there’s nothing you can do about it. But this moment, my friend, is special. What you do in the next moment is totally up to you. What you do in ten seconds is completely your choice. Where you spend your precious time next week is something in which you have a vote. Give yourself permission to stop thinking about how your sucky choices have created less than what you expected of yourself in life. And start doing the very thing you’ve been considering…DO SOMETHING!

For some of you, I’m guessing you’ve already taken your first steps, but have you stalled yet? Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. I’ll talk more about this in a minute. But for many of you, there is something brewing inside you…hope (maybe with a tinge of desperation). You’ve probably been reading around the Internet for inspiration. You’ve read the books and blogs that tell you how OTHER people have make thousands of dollars by starting businesses online. Maybe you’ve dabbled in it yourself only to find yourself sucked into Google AdWords and making a whopping 30 cents for an entire month…but paying out $15 bucks in fees. Maybe you’ve read great things about affiliate marketing and for only $1000 dollars you can learn the secrets to the meaning of affiliate marketing life through some awesome elite ebook or Online club. I’m not saying that there isn’t a time and place for these things but put first things first.

Start Something New
One thing I know for sure is that time will pass regardless of what we do with our lives. The question is, will tomorrow bring more of what yesterday served? If the answer is yes and you’re cool with that then go spend your time doing something meaningful. The truth is, you’re here because you want to start something new. It all begins with making a choice that you don’t want tomorrow to be like yesterday. You know that doing nothing won’t change your life, so it’s time to start something new…and now is the best time to do it. I’m not here to tell you what it is that YOU should be starting. Tammy and I started this blog so we could share our journey and hopefully inspire others to do the same while educating and offering the tools that we use and find helpful. But none of that matters if you read about our experiences and don’t get involved. It’s time to be decisive and take control of your future.

One Month From Now
If you wake up tomorrow and finally take action, you will finally begin to override the inertia that’s taken over your life and you will be shaping the next ten seconds, the next week, and the rest of your life. Things are taking shape with Tammy’s business and with my business. And even though we’ve hit some bumps in the road, we’re still rolling. Why? Because we refuse to stop. Our lives are different now than they were a year ago and a month from now, it will be different still. There is energy building…an unstoppable force created by our choices and actions. You have the power to do the same thing with your life. So set your mind right now so that one month from now, your life will be different. Look at the habits that keep you stuck in your rut and do something different. Even in the next five minute, change your routine and take a step, no matter how small, that will add to your life rather than suck the meaning and purpose out of it. It is possible for anyone to start making different choices! Start living your life fully awake! Don’t sleep through every day dreaming about other people and their successes and wishing it were you.

One month from now, no matter when that is for you (depending on when you read this), I want you to come back here and leave a comment and tell us what you did and how your life is different and better now as a result of finally taking action. Put it on your calendar or as an email reminder…either way, we want to hear from you and we’ll be here to cheer you on. Dare to begin living your dreams. Look around you, there are a lot of people doing nothing. But doing nothing won’t change your life…and YOUR life is about to change. Now go make your life awesome!

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Everybody needs to be creative now and then. For entrepreneurs like us who are trying to become self-employed and create sustainable income through a small business, great ideas are like gold. It’s far better to have many average ideas than only one that’s above average. Why? Because when we have a much larger pool of ideas to work from, we’re more likely to hook into one that needs only a little tweaking to turn it into something remarkable.

If you’re like me, you keep a list of ideas. Some of these may eventually turn into future income streams. I have a lot of ideas, though many are still a bit undeveloped. However, I’ve noticed that there are times in which I’m more likely to have a multiple-idea burst. This happens after I’ve done something very exciting or when I’ve watched a movie that has me really charged up with energy. That’s when the ideas seem to come to me in clusters. Here are some examples of movies that seem to lubricate my creativity:

Back to the Future

I saw this movie at the theater while on summer vacation between my junior and senior years of high school. It was a bright summer day and I had no obligations. Life was about following my interests and having fun. I was already feeling that summer-time bliss when I went to see Back to the Future. The movie was fun, creative, exciting and ended on a high note. The final scene had the perfect ending and it featured the rousing Huey Lewis and the News song, The Power of Love playing at full volume. I walked out of the theater feeling like I was Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox). I was all juiced up and the world seemed ultra-lucid. In moments like this, we can feel invincible; like we can accomplish anything in the world. I felt physically taller, stronger and at the top of my game.

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951 version)

This may be my all-time favorite movie. For me, it represents the essence of future potential. Science fiction blends with the imagination inducing dreams of possibilities. The heart of the movie storyline questions our fundamental humanity—how we relate to each other, how we get along, how we handle crisis. It causes me to reflect on the kind of world we have created and if it’s possible to change or fix what’s broken. The philosophical underpinnings of this movie are very rich as is the cinematography. From the play of light and dark during the night scenes at the spacecraft, to the message given to the world by Klaatu, my mind moving at the speed of light by the end of the movie. I can’t help but ponder our place in the universe. After watching this movie, my creativity skyrockets, like the spacecraft leaving the earth in the final scene.

Anything Shakespeare

There’s something mystical about the works of Shakespeare in movie form. I always feel imbued with deeper insight. I feel like my thoughts and imagination become sharpened and highly coherent. And again, I usually feel stronger and more capable of achieving anything I set my mind to. Feeling stronger usually equates to a deep inner strength and confidence. When I make a decision, I make it with greater conviction and certainty of outcome. The irony is that tragedy seems to be at the heart of many Shakespearean dramas, though there’s usually some kind of redemptive quality in the end. Either way, I find it very powerful and moving.

Charlie Chaplin in City Lights (and other funny movies)

I grew up with a general idea of who Charlie Chaplin was. He was a comedian from the silent (black and white) film era. I knew he was old-school but he was supposed to be pretty funny. Then one day, my mom invited me to watch a Chaplin movie. Since the rest of the family was going to watch it, I joined in. The movie was City Lights. I’m not stretching the truth when I say that within the first five minutes, everybody was rolling with laughter. We all were laughing so hard, we couldn’t see; I had tears streaming down my cheeks. I was literally lying on the floor in front of the TV, laughing uncontrollably. You know how it is when you laugh long enough and hard enough you almost start convulsing? Yeah, I’m not kidding—it was that funny. Let me remind you at this point, that City Lights was a silent movie…it only had a musical score playing.

There is something so deeply cathartic about watching a movie that touches you in some way. There are many great and inspirational movies that can charge up your confidence, boost your creativity and strengthen your conviction. Think back about movies you’ve seen. Are there any that stand out as being particularly meaningful and that filled you with the resolve needed to start a new project or move in a new direction in life? Movies can trigger a precise combination of body chemicals that enhance your faculties in ways that can empower you beyond belief. I suggest you plan an important activity immediately following an inspirational movie: brainstorming business ideas, planning the next step in a project, making an important phone call, writing an important letter or blog post, power researching, etc.

Give it a try. Make a list of movies that you know have empowered or inspired you in the past and plan a block of time to watch one. Then, after the movie, do an activity that requires some creativity (I particularly like brainstorming). Of course, you can also be spontaneous and watch any movie that looks good. So grab some popcorn, kick back, watch a movie and get inspired!

What movies inspire you and make you feel more creative? Let us know in the comments.

Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all

men are created equal, that they are endowed

by their Creator with certain unalienable

Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty

and the pursuit of Happiness.

This is a day of celebration for people who live in the United States of America. We are celebrating the day we became an independent nation. Independence was declared on July 2, 1776 (the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence) and was formally recognized on July 4th. Today, we celebrate and recognize our independence. But, most unfortunately, the majority of citizens of the United States are still not truly independent; a situation I find myself in and am presently working to rectify.

Freedom & Independence

Written into the Declaration of Independence is the recognition that we are all equal and that each one of us is born with rights that we cannot, at birth, be separated from. We are alive and nobody has the right to take that away from us. We have the right to freedom (liberty), and we have the right to pursue happiness by any method or means as we desire. Why, then, are so many people in the United States so dependent on an income that will only allow them to live one week to the next? Why are so many people dependent on the U.S. Government, unable to survive without aid or assistance; always one small step away from poverty? Why are so many people bound by careers they dislike; chained to a desk, a production line, a paycheck or the status quo? What, then, is Independence? From the evidence I can see, most people, apparently, do not really know. I believe, however, that most people are absolutely clear on what independence is not; what freedom is not.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Why should anybody continue to work at a job that makes him miserable? Why should anyone be chained to a life of misery, subjecting herself to bitter and constant unhappiness? The Declaration of Independence is, in my opinion, one of the greatest and inspiring documents ever written. But here we are a couple hundred years after this momentous occasion and the hard-won independence; and the right to freedom and the grand pursuit of happiness seems like a far-off dream. We are still, as I see it, a nation of slaves of all colors and creeds. We are slaves to our fears, slaves to our circumstances, and slaves to our deeply-flawed beliefs. Is there anything more noble, more respectable, and more desirable than Personal Independence? Can we not see the folly of following false beliefs; beliefs that keep us trapped in abject poverty regardless of how much money we earn each year? Can we not see that there is no liberty where fear is the foundation of our failure to act in the highest good for all humankind?

Where there is fear, there is hesitation and indecision. How, then, does one pursue happiness? How does one rend herself free from the ill-formed beliefs that weigh upon her, crushing all hope for true happiness? How, when one is cemented in place by paycheck or circumstance, does one remove the blindness which keeps our birthright of freedom and our independence just beyond his vision? Like the founding fathers discovered, nothing so great as independence can be gained without sacrifice; without great effort and the deep conviction that the cause for which we are fighting is deserved by all who apply for it? Freedom and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights.

What’s Wrong with Working?

It must be stated; it must be made perfectly clear that there is nothing wrong with working a 40-hour-per-week job. Work, in and of itself, is the backbone of this country and the foundation of Independence. However, when one feels trapped by an unfulfilling job or dissatisfying career and continues to maintain such miserable conditions, one is neither free nor independent. When one is haunted by want and left wishing, hoping, and praying for true happiness but she has no concept within herself of what true happiness really is, how can she expect solid conditions to change into such an ambiguous cloud? There is nothing wrong with working, nor is there anything wrong with a desire to be free of a day job, as long as you are consciously working toward greater levels of freedom and happiness.

A Personal Declaration of Independence

We are living in a country where there are few limits to what one can achieve. The Declaration of Independence is a national declaration of independence which give the people of this great nation the freedom to do with our lives whatever we choose as long as we don’t impinge on another person’s freedom. We, as a nation, are free. But we, as individuals, are not yet free…at least not most of us. Do you sincerely want to be free? Claim it now! Do you truly desire happiness? Claim it now! Today is the day to make your own personal declaration of independence! Vow to dispel the beliefs that harbor fear. Vow to find a job that is deeply fulfilling, whether that means self-employment by some work-from-home program or changing careers entirely. Don’t worry about the past; focus only on the present moment, which is the only moment in time that you can control. Use your time wisely to move step-by-step in the direction of your greatest dreams. Cultivate a greater vision for yourself and the world. Stop listening to society, to friends, or to any naysayers. Nobody knows what you can and cannot do, therefore, nobody has the right to tell you what your truth is or should be. Reach for the happiness you deserve and help others, along the way, to do the same thing. Become all that you are capable of becoming, then serve as a beacon for others who are still trapped by the false belief that they can never be free; that they can never have personal independence.

Only he who believes; only she who is fearless will ever find true happiness and independence. Let today, Independence Day, come to be not only a celebration of our nation’s independence, but of your own personal independence. Vow to be free; vow to be happy, and declare your personal independence today, and forever!

The following is a copy of my recent guest post at MotivateThyself.com.

Ever have those days where you’re sitting on the couch with the TV remote in your hand going over the same tired channels again and again while you’re thinking, “Okay, I really need to get motivated!”? Has your life fallen into and endless routine of sameness where one day blurs into the next? Do you think about how just a few years ago, you were motivated, energized and very active but you don’t know how to get it back?

For some reason, many people, at one time or another, seem to innocuously slip into the no-motivation zone while their attention is somewhere else. We suddenly wake up and realize that we have no ambition anymore. Why? While there are a million reasons for this, you don’t need to know them all before taking steps to get your motivation groove back. Here’s a list of 12 motivation tricks that can give you the jolt you need to snap out of your sleep-walking life.

1. Start a new relationship. You don’t have to replace your boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse, but simply starting a new relationship with a new and interesting person with whom you have a lot in common can add some spice to your week and move you out of the doldrums. Go somewhere new and strike up a conversation. It works!
2. Pick up a new hobby. This is especially nice if you can involve a friend–perhaps a new friend! Also, if you have children, a spouse or significant other, start together and enjoy each other’s company. Picking up a new hobby or reconnecting with an old one can jazz you up and substantially boost your level of motivation.
3. Work out! Yes, I know this idea may hurt, at first, but if you don’t overwhelm yourself, in a very short amount of time, you’ll begin to feel like a million bucks. Grab a friend, set a goal, and hold each other accountable. Working out with a friend is a great motivator and so is losing weight and looking better. Don’t focus on what you’ll be losing (free time, excuses to be lazy), focus on what you’ll gain (feeling better, looking great). If you take exercise seriously, the gains you make in your energy level, your confidence, and your motivation will skyrocket.
4. Eat more fruits and veggies: Like exercise, if you can incorporate even a modest improvement in your eating habits, your psyche will turbo-charge your body and you’ll feel more motivated to take on new challenges.
5. Get inspired! Seek and explore inspirational teachers, coaches and people. Perhaps you need a life coach to get you inspired. Maybe you need a good book like the quotes of Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe finding some new music that has great energy is just the thing. Have coffee with someone who is very optimistic and ask what inspires her. Start or find a local group of people who get together once a week to talk about how to get inspired. Very often, looking for inspiration in the company of like-minded people will intensify the results. Whatever your source, finding a way to get inspired is a great way to quickly get your motivation muscles moving.
6. Teach someone a new skill. Find someone who is looking to learn a skill in which you are an expert. Spend some time teaching him. The reciprocity and motivation will flow both ways.
7. Have some fun. Sometimes we get into motivation a rut because we haven’t done anything fun for a while. Break out of your routine by participating in a fun activity. Go bowling, hiking or play putt-putt golf; find people to play board games with; go sight-seeing or antique shopping; play laser-tag, go roller-skating or bungee-jumping; spend the day at the zoo; visit a museum you’ve always wanted to go to. Make a list and do something fun!
8. Sleep more. If you’re running on four or five hours of sleep each night, not only will you feel lethargic, but your brain chemistry will be all out of whack. The brain regulates feel-good chemicals like dopamine and serotonin. The simple act of getting enough sleep can balance out these chemicals and increase them to their natural levels. This, alone, could restore your normal level of motivation.
9. Laugh out loud. Laughter is one of the best ways to quickly enhance your mood and electrify your motivation. Make a run to the video store and rent a few good comedies. Then, while your mood is all bubbly, go out and have some fun (see item 7) or call someone and make him laugh.
10. Set a meaningful goal. In the back of your mind, there is probably something you’ve always wanted to do, be or have. Set a goal to practice or start working toward your objective. Then take some action right away. When you’re done, decide on when you’re going to come back to it so you can keep moving forward. Nothing motivates like a meaningful goal and regular progress toward it.
11. Discover a cause. Sometimes in life we become uninspired because we’ve stopped moving forward. But finding a cause that we connect with such as building houses for charity, providing drinking water in depressed villages, giving coats to homeless people, or anything that gives your life more purpose while helping others can totally rock your world! Get involved and volunteer to help! Who wouldn’t feel motivated by doing something like that?
12. Motivate another person. One of the absolute best ways to get your own motivation groove on is to motivate another person. Seeing the other person getting totally excited and enthusiastic causes a mirror response in your body. You feel great for helping to motivate another person and suddenly you feel motivated too. And now you’re ready to take on the world.

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We are a unique breed, those of us who are currently trying to develop work-from-home income or start a micro business, etc. Many of us just want to increase our income but I think the majority of us want to be free from having to work 40 hours per week for someone else. But there is a danger in the process that, if not recognized, can cause a great deal of stress and even make you miserable or lead to depression.

Are We There Yet?

It has been said in many ways that life is a journey, not a destination. The point is meant to remind us to enjoy the journey, to stop and smell the roses, etc. But how often do we really remember to do so? If you are in the process of “getting something going” that may eventually start generating income, that’s pretty exciting. But are holding your breath? Is your life on hold until your “ship comes in?” I’m not going to lie to you and say that I’ve beaten this habit. I still find myself doing it, probably less than most people, but it still rears its ugly head from time to time. I find myself dreaming of what the future will be like when I’ve accomplished my goal. While there’s nothing wrong with that, in general, it can be a problem if you feel that the only way to be happy is when you reach that future goal and until you’ve arrived, your happiness is on hold.

Social Conditioning

Part of the problem is social conditioning. We are raised in a culture that values accomplishment, stature, the respectability-factor, status, wealth and all the accolades that go with it. Society tells us that you are nothing unless you make X dollars per hour, per month, or per year and have this kind of house and drive that kind of car. This is a lie!

Society tells us that happiness comes at a price—no pain, no gain. If you want to be happy, you must sacrifice by working extra hours, or going to school for another 10 years, or having a big family, or a small family, etc. This is a lie!

The Big Lie

There are oh-so-many lies that are a part of our cultural indoctrination—we are raised believing in other peoples’ opinions, principles and ideals without cause, justification or proof. Since we are at the mercy of those who may not be aware that these are simply lies they have accepted and now live by, we naturally do the same thing. But I would have to say that the biggest lie is the lie we tell ourselves—that happiness is conditional.

If you believe it, you will live your life that way. Don’t believe the lie! If you find yourself putting your happiness on hold until X, Y, and Z conditions have been met, slap yourself in the face and wake yourself up! If you cannot find happiness now, you will never find happiness in the future because the future is always “ahead” of us—we can never catch up it. We have only one moment always. The moment is now. We cannot experience the future or the past. We can only experience this moment. Do not defer happiness. Instead, examine what is around you now and remove from your life that which doesn’t enhance your happiness and deepen your appreciation for all. Begin to cultivate an awareness that finds happiness like a compass finds North. Surround yourself with the people, places and circumstances that create enthusiasm and zeal for life and that inspire you. Help others rid themselves of the Lie Mentality. The power to choose to be happy today is in your control. Do not defer happiness for a single moment more!

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.

Be sure to stop by Behavior and Motivation, launched on July 4th, 2010, for more good stuff on motivation!

Motivation Series, Part 7. Check out part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6.

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.

School Assignments: You may have put them off until the last minute, but ultimately, you were (or still are) being held accountable by your teacher. Knowing that you were being graded or that you risked failing the class (which then led to much bigger problems) was just the right kind of accountability that motivated you to complete your assignments most of the time.

On the Job: If you’ve ever had a job, whether pet-sitting for a neighbor, or working for a Fortune 500 company, you were being held accountable for your work output and overall effectiveness every single work day. Your continued employment depended on completing tasks on time. Your raises were likely based on how effectively you did your job. If you missed a deadline or a required task, you were held accountable for that too. You were even being held accountable for getting out of bed and just showing up at work.

Society: When someone breaks a law, they go to court and wind up paying fines or could end up in jail or a state penitentiary. In some communities, certain belief systems or codes of conduct are closely adhered to. If you act outside of what is deemed “appropriate,” by any town, state, country or society, you may become an outcast in your town or among your peers—who hold you accountable.

Family Life: If you live in a house or an apartment or any other domicile, you will have certain responsibilities. For example someone will need to empty the trash, wash the dishes, and do the laundry. The consequences for not doing these basic things are that they pile up. But eventually, whether you live alone or with other people, circumstances will reach the tipping point—trash spills onto the floor, no more spoons or cereal bowls, nothing clean to wear to work—and you will be motivated (or more accurately, compelled) to take action. Also, going back to employment accountability, if you don’t get up and go to work every day, you don’t get paid and you can’t pay your bills. How do you think that would that impact family life? That’s some serious accountability!

Though the list could be potentially unending, in each example, we may not want to achieve the specific task but the pain from not doing it eventually becomes greater the pleasure we get from avoiding it, as in the going-to-work-every-day example. This is Human Nature 101. However, we can use this knowledge to our advantage.

Ye Olde Pain and Pleasure Paradigm

As we age, our motivations tend to change but our basic nature, which is wrapped primarily around pain-avoidance, doesn’t change. For example, if you were offered a chocolate-dipped, three-scoop ice cream cone or a slap across the face, the choice is obvious. This relates to the Pleasure versus Pain Paradigm which states that you will work harder to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. But in the ice cream/slap example just used, it’s a pretty easy choice. How about these two choices—which one would motivate you more? “Finish your 20-page report for school so you can get an ‘A’ in the class and feel proud of your accomplishment.” Or “Get your 20-page report done or you’re going to fail the miserable class and have to take it again!”

Getting an “A” in the class may not be enough of a motivator to work on the report, especially if you hate writing or intensely dislike the class. But failing the miserable class and having to repeat it would have most students saying, “No way I’m taking that class again! Of course I’ll finish my report.” We can take the same scenario and apply it to many other situations.

• Choose to stay late after work to compile data versus being told to have it compiled by morning if you want to keep your job.
• Lose weight to be healthier or lose weight to avoid having another heart-attack.
• Clean your room because it looks so much better when it’s clean versus being told to clean it or you’re not going to the movies with your friends tonight.
• Quit smoking so you’ll breathe better and feel better, or quit smoking to avoid getting lung cancer.

That last one is a bit complicated—as motivation can sometimes be. It sounds good on paper but, in truth, there is something I call deferred pain where the actual experience of pain is not immediate and therefore not as strong a motivator. If you ask any smoker, they all know the risk of lung cancer as a result of smoking but since they may not be experiencing the pain of lung cancer in the present moment or the foreseeable future, it’s not an immediate threat or motivator. The more present and intense the pain, the more likely you are take action to avoid it. Sometimes you are motivated to take instant action! For example, the fear of death years from now isn’t as great a motivator as the fear of intense pain one minute from now, so if you touch something extremely hot, you will instantly pull your hand away without even thinking about it.

Walking Across Hot Coals

Sometimes, we may have a goal that is extremely important to us, but actually taking the steps to achieve it would be like walking twenty feet across hot coals for a million dollars. A sudden windfall of a million dollars seems to be a common dream for most people. But if you were told that in order for you to get your “easy money”, you would first have to walk across hot coals, I believe that most people wouldn’t go through with it unless they had an even more extreme consequence for not getting the million dollars, such as going to jail for failing to pay your debts. One brief walk on burning, hot coals and all of your debts can be paid. For some, the pain from walking across twenty feet of hot coals is far less painful than the long-term pain from losing everything and going to prison.

When choosing between two painful options, we always choose the least painful option, no matter how circumstances appear. Although, it’s important to note that each person defines “pain” differently and has a unique pain threshold. Therefore, it may take more pain to motivate one person compared to another and what represents pain for one person may not even register for another person.

Making Pain Your Friend

Understanding our relationship with pain and how it affects our motivation and choices can give us a tremendous advantage when setting goals that we have failed to accomplish in the past. Knowing that we’ve become so adept at avoiding pain can give us leverage like nothing else can. The key is to employ strategies that use pain as leverage to promote behavior that will lead to favorable outcomes. In other words, make pain your friend.

Let’s examine two scenarios where people had goals that they were struggling to achieve, then let’s look and the accountability strategies that could break through their lack of conviction and help them reach their goals.

Scenario 1: Reduce Spending to Make Your Budget Work

Amber has been trying to adjust her personal spending to make her budget work but she always seems to go over her targeted weekly allowance because she ends up eating fast food even though cafeteria allowance covers her meals and she has plenty of snacks on hand in her dorm room. Amber truly wants to cut back on fast food and extraneous spending and not go over her weekly budget amount but all attempts to change this behavior have failed and she’s having to dip into funds set aside for classes for the rest of the school year. She knows that simply cutting back on her fast-food spending by $30 will likely help her budget finally work.

Before we look at a strategy, let’s first ask the question, where is the pain? She is experiencing pain every time she goes over budget. She also experiences pain when she has to deny herself of her favorite fast-food. The two sources of pain are in conflict. However, her parents are keeping tabs on her spending so she knows she will be held accountable by them and if she runs out of money that means potentially having to delay taking more classes and this would prevent her from graduating from college with her friends. But the threat of graduating late is still a couple years off so that’s very distant pain compared to being interrogated by her parents, which is a few months away. The more distant the pain, the easier it is for Amber to ignore it. Therefore, her greatest source of pain is denying herself of her favorite fast food every week. College can be stressful and comfort food is one of the ways she copes with the stress. Though there may be other ways to deal with the stress, she really hasn’t tried anything else. She’s gotten into a routine that she feels powerless to change—though she wants to.

The Strategy: The goal is to create a penalty (pain) for not spending within her budget that is greater than the penalty (pain) from eating fast-food. The penalty can be almost anything, but it must be meaningful to the person who’s trying to change her behavior. If Amber chooses a penalty that isn’t really all that painful, it will likely not motivate her enough to avoid fast food. On the other hand, if the penalty is too great, she’ll simply not honor it. Since it is nearly impossible to hold herself accountable, Amber enlisted the help of two friends—her roommate and her boyfriend. Amber typically visits her boyfriend, who lives in her hometown, on Saturday, which is the only day of the week that she has free for driving out to spend time with him.

First, she asked her roommate, Dawn, to hold her accountable and if she spends over $30.00 on fast food, her car would go on a 24-hour lock-down. At 10:00 p.m. on Friday evening, Dawn was supposed to find out how much Amber spent on fast food over the last week. If Amber spent over $30.00, Dawn had permission to put an anti-theft lock on the steering wheel in Amber’s car which would prevent her from driving out to visit her boyfriend on Saturday. The lock would remain in place until 10:00 p.m. on Saturday evening. Amber gave Dawn the lock and keys and gave her permission to follow through with the plan exactly as stated. If Amber needed to run a local errand on Saturday, Dawn would take her or let Amber use her car for short trips.

Amber discussed this plan with her boyfriend who was willing to participate, mostly in agreeing that they would not visit if she overspent, although he express how displeased he would be if he wasn’t able to see her because she bought too much fast food. This plan was typed up and it included an expiration date which was at the end of the school year. The plan could be adjusted at any time, but it had to be adjusted in writing and wouldn’t take effect until the start of the next week. The only reason it might need to be adjusted would be if there were flaws in the strategy that needed to be reconsidered. With a good strategy in hand, Amber signed it and hung it in their dorm room.

Using this strategy, chosen by Amber, she is not likely to overspend because visiting her boyfriend is so important to her that she doesn’t want to risk not being able to drive out to visit him. Amber chose the rules and conditions. She set a penalty that was out of her control to prevent if she actually did overspend. Suddenly, the pain from not seeing her boyfriend was stronger than the pain of not eating fast food. Because of this, she was easily able to finally control her spending.

Scenario 2: Finally Write that Book

This next story is a true account of my own experience in using accountability for motivation. I had been working on a writing project that was very important to me even though I found myself procrastinating on it. If I love to write and if the project I was working on was actually important to me, why was I having such a difficult time getting myself to work on it? This is a dilemma that many writers face. Why do we avoid what we love? I can’t answer that for everyone but for me, as much as I enjoy writing, it sometimes takes lot of work. When you’re working on a project that requires focused attention and repetitive action for long hours, it can be mentally and physically fatiguing. This can turn something as rewarding as writing into a chore. Add to that the guilt you feel for procrastinating.

In my case, I decided that I needed some motivational aid. In the past, I had tried various forms of holding myself accountable, which usually failed miserably. When I gave the task to my wife, Tammy, it was not effective no matter what we tried. This is because she had no power with which to hold me accountable. She wasn’t going to give me a failing grade; she wasn’t going to fire me or put me in jail or stop loving me. After many tries with Tammy holding me accountable, I had finally reached the conclusion that it’s nearly impossible for a spouse to hold you accountable because there is almost nothing that they can say or do that will truly motivate you. I realized that, somehow, the motivation had to come from myself. This brought me, again, back to these fundamentals:

• People are motivated by pain or pleasure (often both at the same time).
• Pain is a greater motivator than pleasure.

In the examples above (school, work, society, and family life), pain-avoidance was an effective means for accountability. Knowing this, I decided to design a new method of accountability that might actually work, with Tammy’s help. My plan was to create a goal with a measureable outcome, to set a penalty, and to give Tammy a rock-solid way of enforcing the penalty. What follows is the plan I used.

The Strategy: My goal was to write two pages per week. I would log my progress and Tammy could ask to see my work at any time. I thought about what penalty would be meaningful to me—something painful enough that I wouldn’t want to default on my goal each week. I decided that if my two pages were not completed by 9:00 p.m. on Saturday evening, Tammy had permission to shut my computer off and lock it so I couldn’t use it again until Sunday morning.

When I first thought of the idea of locking my computer, a ripple of fear went through me—I knew I had found the perfect penalty. What is the significance of locking my computer on Saturday evening? Well, every Saturday, around 10:00 p.m., I meet up with my dad, my two brothers, my sister-in-law, and my two nephews and we all do some online gaming. It’s one of the highlights of our week—something we all look forward to, especially since we live in different parts of the country. My nephews are young and they can’t wait to play each weekend. If I missed my target of two pages, I would be disappointing them and the rest of my relatives. I knew that this was the kind of motivation and accountability that would work for me. And it did work! I think during this experiment, I only missed my target once. And that was due to a momentary lapse of mental coordination, (I had a “duh!” moment).

Selecting the Right Motivation

During the 1990s, I was a self-employed piano teacher. For the ten years that I was actively giving piano lessons, I conducted motivation experiments with my students. After thousands of lessons and years of trial and feedback, two things became very clear to me.

1. Everyone has a motivation.
2. The motivation changes in value over time.

I have tried so many different methods of motivating students to practice every day. And though it may have taken numerous attempts to find that perfect motivation for each student, I became convinced that every student had an offer (or motivation) they couldn’t refuse. In the case of motivating my students, I created a system that centered on their likes and preferences. I combined pleasure-seeking with pain-avoidance, which worked well most of the time, plus I implemented accountability, which balanced it all nicely. However, what motivates a person can change over time. If you become used to a specific reward or penalty, it can eventually lose its ability to motivate. Therefore, be prepared to change your penalty when its effectiveness begins to wane.

The end result with my piano students was phenomenal. I eventually refined my process so that many students were practicing every day for up to two hours per day, without parental intervention. Yes, they actually chose to practice and they chose how much time they wanted to practice!

Keys to the Motivation Kingdom

If you use accountability to keep yourself motivated and on-track with your goals, you will find this to be a very powerful process that can help you achieve more than you ever thought you could.

Nine Keys to Effective Accountability:

1. You will need a trusted and willing person (or group of people) to hold you accountable.
2. You need a clearly-defined goal that can be measured.
3. You will need time and/or date deadlines.
4. The person being held accountable must choose a penalty that is meaningful and motivating to him or her and must be willing to follow it.
5. You must provide a no-fail way for your helper to exercise the penalty, if needed.
6. Both (or all) parties must be clear about what conditions would trigger the penalty.
7. You may need to periodically review the penalty and replace it with a more effective one in the event that the original one loses its potency or if it wasn’t very effective from the start.
8. Both (or all) parties must be clear about what conditions would conclude the arrangement.
9. Everything must be in writing!

Accountability Works

You may have noticed that I’ve focused primarily on pain-avoidance or “negative” consequences as the penalty of choice for motivating through the use of accountability. Though I prefer positive rewards and motivators, they are not nearly as effective as a pain-inducing penalty that you would want to avoid at all cost. The bottom line is, people work harder to avoid painful experiences than to have positive experiences. What I have written here is my opinion and is based upon my own observations, experiments, and experiences; it is geared primarily for your own motivation. Though much of this can work with children, there is an entirely different approach I would suggest for them since you’re dealing with developing psyches. We, as adults, are not so tender and can handle choosing meaningful and sometimes painful penalties. And if you really want a method that will finally help you to accomplish a significant goal—especially a goal that you’ve failed to accomplish in the past after countless tries—creating a plan to hold yourself accountable can be earth-shatteringly effective! Do not underestimate the power of accountability.

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If you’re not already moving in a better, more self-motivated direction in life but need an extra push, what are you waiting for? Accountability may actually be the motivator that will finally work. Go try it and let us know how it works out for you.

I know this was a very long article so I sincerely appreciate you sticking with it. I would love to hear what you think about it so please consider leaving a comment. If you have enjoyed this article, please Digg, Stumble, Tweet or otherwise share this with those who may benefit from it. My goal is to teach these motivation skills in this article and the entire series to as many people as possible. By sharing a link to this post, you can help spread the word about our site and give someone important motivational tools that could make a big difference in his or her life. Thank you for reading.