Self-Improvement and Motivation for Success

Anthony Ekanem

• Publisher: Anthony Ekanem
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9783966100557
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

In order to be happy and satisfied, one needs to be motivated. Motivation basically gives us the hope to look ahead and dream higher. It is the force that propels us to go ahead. But why do we need to change? People change for various reasons. Some change because they dont want to face the pain in their lives. Some change because they are sick of their failures. For instance, poor grades can make us realize the importance of hard work while studying and can motivate us to change. Similarly, debts can makes us look for other jobs or to do more than one job.

Chapter 1

Self-Improvement through Motivation

In order to be happy and satisfied, one needs to be motivated. Motivation basically gives us the hope to look ahead and dream higher. It is the force that propels us to go ahead. But why do we need to change? People change for various reasons. Some change because they don’t want to face the pain in their lives. Some change because they are sick of their failures. For instance, poor grades can make us realize the importance of hard work while studying and can motivate us to change. Similarly, debts can makes us look for other jobs or to do more than one job.

The world is full of negativity, and regardless of whatever people say, we need to face this negativity and try to get over it. But it is you who has to decide. Who is in charge of your life? You or your surroundings? Once you decide that you are in charge of whatever happens to you, you will put your foot down and get over whatever negativity surrounds you.

It is easy for us to remain in the shelter of our comfort zone, but have you ever tried stepping out of your comfort zone and take a sneak peek into what lies beyond? What exactly prevents you from doing so? Failure? Fears? Shame?

The basic thing that you need to improve yourself is first, to have a goal and set some objectives. Once you know where you are headed towards, you will easily maintain your focus and not be strayed away by anything that hinders you.

Next is to set some concrete plans which can enable you to go for your goals. While planning, don’t just think within your comfort zone. Step out of the box in order to discover a newer you. Identify your problems and limitations and use techniques to get over them. Make sure that you know what your weaknesses are and correct them while being in the domain of the ethical values that you cherish.

Execute your plan and don’t worry whether you have succeeded or not. Failures would not break you, but rather would strengthen you. Rework your plans if they fail, identify loopholes and use methods which help you overcome these loopholes. Every failure teaches you what to avoid and ends in giving you a big lesson. Learn from these lessons so that you can strengthen the newer you.

Try to avoid negative thoughts and people. Such thoughts and words tend to self-limit your potential and make you go weak. If you believe in your plans, you focus on your direction and make changes only if you wish to, regardless of what others say. This approach would make you jump over the limitations that block your way.

Lastly, you need to enjoy life and take things as they come. When you are happy and content, your mind would work faster and success will come your way. So hold on hard to your dreams, take control of your life and set ahead to enjoy the journey with a newer you.

Challenging Yourself to be Motivated

The initiative of having a goal-oriented behaviour is also known as Motivation. The actual purpose of motivation is to decrease the mental or physical stress and to raise the factor of happiness in a person. Motivation is generally of two types: Intrinsic and Extrinsic. The intrinsic motivation is that which is exhibited by the delight or concern in the given activity and is rather intrinsic, that is, within the individual. On the contrary, extrinsic motivation is that which is exhibited or enhanced by external factors such as money, rewards, gifts or intimidation.

If a person is strongly motivated to achieve or gain something huge, then that person is being involved in aiming high for the future. This is the reason why motivation is inter-linked with challenges. Moreover, our body, physically and mentally, is designed in such a way that it is always ready to accept and face different challenges.

Motivation can be explained further by one of the scenarios given below:

If, for instance, one comes to know that they are in danger, then their immediate response would be to take all the necessary measures in order to prevent themselves from the danger and ensure safety.

The scenario mentioned above challenges one’s security and lifestyle. That is why, it manages to raise one’s motivation towards the act of protecting themselves. In this manner, we need to engage ourselves in various challenges so that our morale and motivation remain boosted. Facing and overcoming challenges tends to impart a positive feeling that increases one’s motivation. It also makes you test your patience and to what extent you can stretch yourself.

The best way to deal and involve challenges in your lifestyle is to take the daily routine as a challenge and use it to alter your identity and thinking. You can set daily goals and try to accomplish them successfully. A person’s general character and personality are formed via learning and practicing the norms and values of the societal culture. However, all the values do not have a positive influence on us. That is why one has to have a correct frame of mind and motivation so that they can create their own values and live by them. Therefore, continuous re-conditioning of your inner-self would let you see everything as a challenge and undergo the change of values that are needed. Too much relaxing of the brain would make you feel like a laggard so it’s better to keep the brain in action.

It might be tiring to keep yourself up to the challenges all the time but when you become used to it, you would master the skill of being motivated and successful.

Being successful is very important for everybody. It is the intrinsic need of human beings to gain recognition, dignity and success. However, in order to be successful, one needs to be highly motivated. This is so because motivation gives one the power to propel themselves towards success. However, motivation is important for success due to other reasons as well. Some of these are as follows:

1. Motivation serves as the basic start up:

Have you ever been forced to do some work that you don’t like? How have you reacted to that work? Not that positively for sure! Now compare that work to some work that you like to perform. Do you realize the difference in your attitude when you compare both of these tasks? Which one was accomplished quickly with a better work quality? Of course, the task you liked performing was performed way better. This is what motivation is. It serves as a startup so that you can get ahead with the work. The most difficult aspect of any task is to get it started, and once things get started, there is no looking back. Therefore, motivation is a key factor in making you get started on your way to success.

2. Motivation makes you keep moving:

When on the path of success, you are not always rewarded with success. One has to fall down many times before getting up and moving ahead. Obstacles, after all, are an integral part to make you stronger. It makes you worthy of your success. So, you have to be mentally prepared to face the tough work, the challenges and the problems in order to move ahead. So, you need to keep yourself motivated in order to keep pushing and going ahead.

3. Do something extra:

What is it that the successful do that we don’t? We have always wondered about this and got no answer. It’s what they do ‘extra’ that makes them successful. Even if you have started up, moved one and faced challenges, you still need to push it beyond what your normal capacity is. Only then would you yield the fruit of success! Doing the necessary would get the job done anyway, so how about doing that extra bit, so that the task itself would boast about who has done it! Think about it!

4. It’s boring without motivation:

Why do you take books to read or listen to music when going on a long journey? It is to make you feel fresh throughout the journey. Same is the case with motivation. The road to success is long, boring and tedious, but if you have motivation as your companion, then you need not worry about anything. Difficult times can be conveniently endured by motivation as being motivated ensures that you not only do it the right way, but also enjoy yourself as you go ahead.

So always feel motivated, keep your hopes high and look towards a brighter future.

Factors behind motivation in successful life

We all know what motivation is and how it affects us. But often, despite all the knowledge and awareness, we still get confused by the concept of motivation. So what is it that causes all the confusion? Why do we fail to totally understand motivation?

Well, the basic function of motivation is quite simple. It is to provide us with happiness and to remove pain from our life. This is the fundamental on which all the motivational talks, sessions or books are based. What varies is the kind of happiness and pain that it tends to provide. This makes you read books and take sessions in order to realize what techniques you ought to do in order to be motivated.

So why exactly is ‘motivation’ the key factor behind our success? Why not ‘intelligence’ or ‘hard work’ for instance? Surely, motivation must have something that it got this status. The real thing is that whenever we want to perform a task, accomplish a goal or simply do some work, we need certain propelling factor that would make us do that work. This ‘propelling factor’ is motivation. It is this motivation that tends to make us fulfill the accomplishments and perform some work.

Now the question is: how does our mind feel motivated in order to make us perform that task? Basically, there are three important factors through which our mind functions. These are:

1) Conceptual

2) Perceptual

3) Emotional

These three factors, when functioning together, propel us to do the task. The conceptual factor is responsible to form certain beliefs and reasons. All the motivations we feel arise in this region as once we form a belief about accomplishing something, we feel motivated towards that task. The perceptual region is involved with the collection of sensory data. Once motivated, we use this perceptual sense in order to relate to our motivation and further increase it. The emotional region is involved with our emotions, which may be fear, happiness, excitement, apprehension or anything related to the task at hand. Motivation is also felt by the emotional region which then gives rise to the elements of excitement and happiness, which we feel when we are motivated.

This cycle of brain functioning tells us how our beliefs and values control our motivation. Once we have set the right approach and geared up with the right beliefs, we would never go astray from our motivated goal. A general rule regarding formation of beliefs is that one should always look for the positive things and find positive beliefs. Positivity is a great supporter of motivation and happiness and it multiplies the effect of motivation. Therefore, if our beliefs are backed up by the foundation of positivity, then we would be able to firmly uphold our motivation.

To conclude with, motivation is an asset that is conditioned by our brain. It is in our control about how we condition our mind to be motivated. Therefore, have healthy and positive beliefs which can generate and make you feel motivated.

 

 

Chapter 2

Goal setting

Goal setting is an important aspect for anyone to be successful. Goal setting enables you to achieve your tasks in an organized fashion and within the limited time frame. Therefore, it is important that goals are set very carefully. Proper planning is needed for goal setting otherwise one can lost their focus and get side tracked. When you have set your goals, you would not only feel confident about the work you are doing, but you would also prioritize what needs are to be fulfilled first. These raise your motivation and self-esteem and you have a positive outlook towards the work that you are doing.

While setting goals or even planning for them, you have to make sure that your goals are SMART. That means, they should be:

1. Specific – i.e. to the point
2. Measurable – i.e. you can judge how much of the goal is accomplished
3. Attainable – i.e. they should be within your potential of achievement
4. Realistic – i.e. they should be practically achievable and not something which is vague
5. Timely – i.e. there should be a time frame in which these goals should be achieved

So, having a SMART approach while setting goals would make you identify the loopholes, gauge yourself and help you achieve your goals easily. These goals would help you climb the ladder of success in slow but concrete steps.

When you have a large goal to achieve, make sure t...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Dealing with Life Challenges