Motivation is one of the hardest things on the planet to cultivate. That is if it doesn’t already exude from every pore in your body! You wouldn’t be reading this if that’s you though, right?
Tony Robbins once said that “In life you need either inspiration or desperation.”
If desperation just isn’t doing for you, you need to find a way to latch on to some inspiration.
It’s easy to be jealous of naturally-motivated people who seem to be on an effortless climb to the top of the mountain of success and happiness in this world.
Look at great motivators like Les Brown, Brendon Burchard, and Elliott Hulse. They seem to have been born to inspire others. Surely they must have jumped up out of bed every day since they were small children with nothing but positive energy and enthusiasm surging through every fiber of their being, right?
Each has a rising-from-the-ashes story. A point in their life when they felt they could go no lower. When they realized they needed to find their true purpose and to cultivate the passion and intensity necessary to leave their respective mark on humankind. That “ah ha” moment, if you will.
One of the greatest quotes about cultivating the motivation to succeed comes from Les Brown himself; a man who grew up feeling worthless due to a now-obvious misdiagnosis that he was “borderline mentally retarded”:
“Life takes on meaning when you become motivated, set goals and charge after them in an unstoppable manner.”
What could have motivated someone, who by all early accounts, had no chance of ever communicating with ordinary people, let alone motivating millions of people worldwide for over 30 years?
Just listen to this epicness first, then I’ll detail the 3 main factors that tend to motivate people to achieve:
3. Mastery and Skill
I don’t care who you are, or where you come from: Everyone wants to be good at something. Most of us, whether we pursue it or not, would like to be the very best ever at something — the best athlete, best entrepreneur, best in our trade, etc. Of course, sometimes the desire to be best at something just isn’t enough. If glory and impressing people are the only reasons you want to be a master at something, sometimes you’ll need one of the other 3 to cultivate the motivation necessary to put the work in to become a master at something.
2. Freedom From External Influences
On some level, everyone wants to be self-directed, free from what friends, family, coworkers, society, and the government think we should be doing. To live a live a life of our choosing. To have autonomy in nearly every aspect of your lives. If this is what inspires you to get out of bed before the rest of the world and stay up later than everyone else, running on little sleep but with tremendous energy and passion, then you’re an unstoppable force! Nothing can get in the way of someone who truly wants to be free, except for three walls around you and a set of bars in front of you. Even then, humans and animals will sacrifice a limb to get free if they’re trapped in one place too long!
1. Sense of Purpose
Your sense of purpose can be a combination of #1 and #2 or something totally unique to you and how you choose to lead your life. Perhaps helping your fellow man in some way is all you want from your life like the late Mother Theresa or Mahatma Gandhi. Maybe its raising a generation of children that will work harder and do better than anyone else in your family ever has. Whatever your sense of purpose: To know what you’re here for is the ultimate inspiration. People who “just know” where their life is going are the luckiest of us all. Nothing can stop you once you have this purpose in mind. Failures only lead to eventual success, meaning nothing can ever distract or discourage you from your goals and each day the sun rises is a new chance to reach the summit of your life!
“Write the script that you want your life to be” and then go do it.” Les Brown
Believe and achieve ladies and gentleman!
Main image by Celestine Chua
