Motivation
A 10 Step Action Plan for Instant Motivation
If you need immediate help, try these ten tips over the next ten days and then observe how your life changes. Write down the changes in a personal notebook. Continue with what works and discard what doesn’t.
Here are my 10 tips for instant motivation:
1. Your self-motivation program starts the night before
Try to get to bed early. If you are tired or sleepy throughout the day (even if it’s from boredom) remember that an hour of sleep before midnight is worth more than an hour of sleep after midnight. So rearrange your schedule to go to bed earlier.
2. Plan the next day the night before
In your personal motivation notebook, write down what you plan to do tomorrow. With each activity, make sure it is framed in a positive way. For example: Instead of “prepare monthly report” write down “prepare monthly report—knock my boss’s socks off.” You get the idea. At the end of your list write down “something great happens that I don’t know about.”
3. Reflect and visualise the things on your list prior to bed
It’s okay to feel this way—just put any fears or guilt about feeling this way out of your mind by refusing to give such thoughts energy. Keep concentrating on how great your list feels. Your self-motivation program is kicking in already.
4. Write down what has been causing you to lose motivation at the end of your daily plan
Go ahead and write them down, it doesn’t matter how big or complex they seem to be. Now it’s time for some well needed sleep. Just before falling asleep, tell yourself that you are going to gain new insight into the list of issues or problems you just wrote down.
“A well spent day brings happy sleep.” – Leonardo da Vinci
5. Fall asleep to some music that concentrates on the higher music octaves
This will open up the higher centers of your mind and prepare your subconscious mind for problem solving.
6. You should lie in bed the next morning for a few minutes
Read over your daily plan and once again, imagine how good it will feel when things go your way. Now get up and get ready for the day feeling very self-motivated.
7. Eat something for breakfast that has a decent amount of protein in it
If you are a coffee drinker, think about giving it up. Feeling nervous or jittery will definitely interfere with your self-motivation. Here’s a good tip: Don’t give it up cold turkey, that’s too hard. Instead, make every other cup you drink a cup of decaf. Pretty soon you won’t be able to taste (or feel) the difference. You will cut your caffeine consumption in half immediately.
After about a month of this, you can start drinking decaf exclusively. If you are a heavy coffee drinker, you’ll find that you will now only want 1-2 cups per day and the detox process was painless. Eventually you won’t even want the decaf and you can substitute fruit juice or water.
8. Listen to uplifting music on the way to work
You should have music to start your day that makes you feel good. This is designed to open your energy centers and help you to think clearly. If you go to lunch later in your car, play some more of this type of music. Do not listen to the news or any talk shows on the way to work—the problems of the world are not yours to solve. Managing your day and being self-motivated is.
“Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.” – Benjamin Franklin
9. Now you’re on the job and ready to face the day
Suddenly your phone rings and a huge problem comes up that is unexpected and nowhere on your daily plan. What to do? Take a minute to jot down the problem in your personal notebook and do what you did the night before: i.e. “my best customer didn’t get their shipment on time—and I knocked my boss’s socks off by solving the problem.”
Take a minute to feel how good it feels to have solved the problem. Now proceed to deal with the problem–you can do it because you’re self-motivated! As you go through your day and perform each item on your daily plan, check off each item as they are finished.
10. At the end of your day, do the steps outlined in steps 1-5 again, but add something to it
As you make your plan for the next day, add one more step. Feel how great it feels to have ticked off the items in your daily plan and tell yourself, “I’m the best and most qualified person on earth who could have accomplished this.” Now get busy planning your next day.
Something else to consider, if your environment is cluttered and unorganized, you are going to find it difficult to follow this plan. If this is your situation, you need to spend the time it takes to clean your home, office or other workplace.