motivate yourself

Tips to Self-Motivation

We use the phrase “motivate yourself” loosely especially in organisations. Leaders want their teams to do better and are constantly on the lookout to improve motivation of their workforce. 

Ordinary people want motivation to go forward so they are able to live lives that they deserve. From heightening productivity to performance, it is a wonderful thing to desire. Yet not many know where motivation resides and how to access it.

The entire concept of motivation runs deep within us. So how do we improve motivation and drive purpose as this is definitely the more sustainable way to live life?

Motivation is synonymous to values, which are our deepest unconscious filter. It is what drives us from within. I share at a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) course that values are how we evaluate our life.

For example if one of my highest values is love then I will feel the motivation to find a job that promotes love. As an NLP Trainer who has been conducting NLP for life courses since 2002, I love my work.

I am promoting love and feeling love too, as I conduct my NLP courses. My life is surrounded by love and this motivates me to continue my work with passion as I have the motivation to go forward.

My work is fuelled by my motivation to drive purpose and so this is how you could motivate yourself in the long run, to ensure that this motivation is sustainable. Let’s break down the steps to arrive at this place. 

Steps to Motivate Yourself 

1. Identify 5 of your most important values

 Ask yourself the question “what’s important to me about life?” You may get answers like; 

• Prosperity
• Health
• Love
• Fulfilment
• Peace 

 Prioritise your values so you know their order of importance. 

2. Set goals based on this order of values. 

If you know that peace is most important to you, perhaps you may want to target some milestones to achieve peace in your life. Go down the list and set as many goals as possible. 

3. Feel the excitement as you start to feel motivation to go forward 

As you begin to pay attention to your goals and values you are re-orienting your mind towards what is important to you. Your ability to drive purpose will now begin to take charge.

At an NLP for life course this is when I begin to see participants really change their demeanour of being passive, to becoming accountable for the results they achieve in their life. 

In order to motivate yourself, you also need to understand intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. This is the distinction between both; 

Intrinsic Motivation

What I have described above is how to find intrinsic motivation. It is the act of doing something without any obvious external rewards. You do it because it's enjoyable and interesting, rather than because of an outside incentive or pressure to do it, such as a reward or deadline. 

​For example, when you go to a movie you derive pleasure from being there and hanging out with friends perhaps, after the movie. This is a very deep form of motivation as we choose to do something because we are receiving a feeling of some sort that satisfies our senses. 

Extrinsic Motivation

An external driver makes you do something. You are motivated to perform an activity to earn a reward or avoid punishment. For example, you choose a career path to please your parents not because you love the field. 

An NLP course certainly directs people to their passion hence is very focused on intrinsic motivation. The ultimate objective is to drive purpose where people have the motivation to go forward, without any push from their external environment like a boss or other authority figure. 

So, going beyond how to motivate yourself, I teach participants at an NLP course how to amplify this feeling even further.

As an example, if I have clicked-in to my motivation to go forward and I calibrate this as a 6 out of 10 intensity, my desire to amplify it and make it stronger all the way to a 10 out of 10 is possible.

All I need to do is imagine a dial inside me like the dial on my radio. Then amp up the sound and allow the feeling of motivation to become larger inside you. This is a much cheaper and faster way to get high. Who needs drugs?

This is why NLP Is hailed as an accelerator to change. Simple self-management tools are taught at an NLP for life course that has the potential to improve motivation and drive purpose.
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By this time, a person will be flying with no looking back, achieving their dreams to their hearts’ content. You can have this too!