Motivation: Winning the Battle in Your Mind

Motivation is a peculiar and complex state. What motivates one person can be very different than what motivates another even though they are striving for the same goal. Some people can motivate other people but only to a certain degree. At the end of the day, you still have to work out a way to get yourself motivated. But when everything looks bleak and all you want to do is to surrender, where do you find the will to carry on?

Begin with winning the battle in your mind.

The battle always starts in your mind. One part of your brain tells you to move, work, and strive for your goals. The other part tells you that it is foolish. It is always easier to listen to the latter, because it is more convenient, less taxing, and easier to do. The former forces you to act and follow-through. All things being equal, people always choose the less inconvenient, easy way out. But this isn’t always the better choice. In fact, it is never the best choice.

What separates highly effective people from those who are non-effective is their ability to make the right choices most of the time, even if these choices are the most difficult to accomplish. They know how the game works and they try to beat it every single time. Exhausting, yes, but it is also gratifying. There is always a sense of satisfaction in defeating your worst enemy – your own mind.

How do you win the battle that goes on inside your mind?

Understand your thoughts and how they affect your emotions and your will power. Negative thoughts can easily kill your sense of direction. It comes in many forms – lack of self-confidence, general negativity, lack of belief in others and procrastination; the list is endless. Each of these has the power to convince you to give up and accept the fact that you can't carry on. Identifying each of your negative thoughts is the first step to winning yourself back from a defeatist attitude.

It is no simple feat, however. It takes time before one can shut out the chatter in the mind that says 'give up, give in'. And sometimes, even when you have already succeeded in neutralizing your negative thoughts, it is still easy to give up at the first challenge you come upon. After all, it gives you time to rest from the unending struggle to achieve whatever it is you are pursuing, even for just a moment. But don’t buy into that. That short period of rest can turn to days, weeks, months, years, ultimately paralyzing you from taking action and living a full life. That's the characteristic of discouragement. It offers you immediate gratification without offering anything in return.

You will gain positive momentum every time you choose to follow your motivation, instead of succumbing to a demoralizing attitude. Each time you listen to the positive choice in your mind, you build self-esteem and that offers you power to make the next positive choice. Your motivation increases along with your sense of well-being.