The power of motivation
“Be honest with yourself and you will be happy,” says motivational speaker and life coach, Veli Ndaba.
Motivation is the reaction to meet unfulfilled needs.
Some needs are so distant in our lives, such as graduating with an advanced degree or saving for retirement that the drive to satisfy that need is often overcome by more immediate needs, such as sleeping, recreation, interacting with friends, and many other daily needs that also must be satisfied.
The occasional diversion from the longer-term goal is okay.
But there are two things that you can do to feel better about the diversions:
• Examine the long term need and make sure it is really your goal, rather than a goal that others have told you should be your goal, but it isn’t really. This is no easy task, but a re-examination of one’s goals should be done periodically anyway.
• Have a discussion with your “self” about the priorities of all of your unsatisfied needs or goals. Are they real, or excuses to avoid doing the harder to achieve goals? If they are excuses, then you are back into the previous point, about examining the goals you are avoiding.
Everyone goes through this throughout their lives. The people who are honest with themselves end up the happiest.
Motivation is only real when you know that in the extra mile the reward is sweet and tasty and once you bite it, it will quench your thirst and hunger which has been there all the time if you are connected to it.
To stay motivated, have two or three short term goals whose achievements will keep on reinvigorating you and infusing you with energy and motivation to keep going for your long term goals which may drain you if you are only focusing purely on them.
This is the strategy I’ve been using for years and has worked wonders for me.
