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Confronting our own death doesn’t have to wait until we run out of life. In fact, being able to vividly imagine our last hours on our deathbed creates a paradoxical sensation: the feeling of being born all over again—the first step to fearless self-motivation.
“What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into that picture as if it were already true.”
Without a picture of your highest self, you can’t live into that self. Fake it ’till you make it. The lie will become the truth.
Rather than focusing on our goals, we are distracted by our worries and fears. But when you focus on what you want, it will come into your life.
Whenever I’m afraid of something coming up, I will find a way to do something that’s even harder or scarier. Once I do the harder thing, the real thing becomes fun.
It’s hard to stay motivated when you’re confused. When you simplify your life, it gathers focus. The more you can focus your life, the more motivated it gets.
It is always our choice. Which world do we want to see today? Opportunity is life’s gold. It’s all you need to be happy.
You have much more control over your environment than you realize. You can begin programming yourself
consciously to be more and more focused and motivated. Get to know your control panel and learn how to push your own buttons. The more you know about how you operate, the easier it will be to motivate yourself.
Stop worrying about what you think of yourself and start building a track record that proves that you can motivate yourself to do whatever you want to do.
You can start coming up with all kinds of unexpected solutions to the challenges that life throws at you.
Your own key might even come from the spiritual literature of your choice. You’ll find it when you’re ready to seek. It’s out there waiting for you.
One of the greatest opportunities for motivating yourself today lies in the way you use your drive time. There is no longer any excuse for time in the car to be downtime or frustrating or time that isn’t motivating.
Carefully planned work will motivate you to do more and worry less.
If you’re a pessimist, your biocomputer has been programmed heavily in that direction. But it doesn’t take long before a new pattern can emerge. As a former pessimist myself, I can tell you it really happens, slowly but surely.
Take your time. Start out lazy. Soon, your tasks will be keeping the
slow but persistent rhythm
Kierkegaard once said, “If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never.”
It doesn’t take authentic circumstances to be who you want to be. It just takes rehearsal.
French psychologist Emile Coue said, “Always think of what you have to do as easy and it will be.”
Playwright Noel Coward once said, “Work is more fun than fun.”
“Thinking is the hardest work we do,” said Henry Ford, “which is why so few people ever do it.”
“Make each day your masterpiece.”
Today is a microcosm of your entire life.
You were “born” when you woke up, and you’ll “die” when you go to sleep.
If you learn to love the opportunities your problems present, then your motivational energy will rise.
They are happier people because their day is being created by the power inside their own minds, and not by the power of the world around them.
psychologist Rob Gilbert’s observation that “losers visualize the penalties of failure, and winners visualize the rewards of success.”
To realize the best possible future for yourself, don’t look at it through a box containing your own past.
Nietzsche once said:
“Everything in the world
displeased me; but what displeased me most was my displeasur...
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Colin Wilson’s point of view that “imagination should be used, not to escape from reality, but to create it.”
Self-mentoring is the best mentoring you can get because your mentor knows you so well.
“Learn as if you were to live forever. Live as if you were to die tomorrow.”
“Clear the clutter from your mind,” Deaton says, “and remove the obstacles to greater success.”
“I came to realize that people build themselves personalities as
they build houses—to protect themselves from the world. They become its prisoners. And most people are in such a hurry to hide inside their four walls that they build the house too quickly.”
But always compete in the spirit of fun, knowing that finally surpassing someone else is far less important than surpassing yourself.
“The way we choose to see the world creates the world we see.”
Don’t look outside yourself to find out who you are, look inside and create who you are.
“If I had just a year to live, how would I live differently? What exactly would I do?”
If
you want to create yourself, like a great painting, don’t be afraid to use tiny brush strokes.
If you’re not motivated to do something you know you need to do, just decide to do it badly.
When you are laughing, you are open to anything.
“Poverty is no disgrace,” said Napoleon Hill. “But it is certainly not a recommendation.”
If you become a good list-maker, you will learn how to motivate yourself by what you’ve written.
It’s not what a goal is that matters; it’s what a goal does.
We think we can change them in ways
