| TOP 6 WAYS TO STAY MOTIVATED |
| TOP 6 WAYS TO STAY MOTIVATED
by Billie A Williams © 2006 “The only limits to the possibilities in your life tomorrow are the buts you use today.” Les Brown 1. Get motivated every day Write everyday and do not edit as you go. Use Affirmations, quotes, clichés, and up beat friends to keep you motivated. Join a writer’s group where you have to produce so much a day. If you are in some other profession seek a like mind, someone who is motivated and follow their lead. The root word of motivation is motive—a reason to act. The cognitive or rational side of motivation is your vision. 2. Have a vision for your life, a vision big enough to motivate you. Set goals, baby step goals. Be determined not just hopeful. Create the life you want, not what someone else thinks you should want. The shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line. Four Vital things to answer – and please answer these in writing: A. Where are you right now? B. Where do you want to go? (Where do you really want to go—short term, long term and anything else in between) C. What territory do you have to cross to get to where you want to be? – If there are obstacles how do you plan to deal with them? First name them and then define your plan to deal with them. Get to know the real you. How you work best, when, what obligations do you know you have? D. What are your daily limitations? Compromises, devise strategies to fit circumstances, learn new skills if they are necessary to the place you want to go/to be. 3. Fuel your Passion What do you love? Where do you want to go? Do something toward that everyday. Be generous with your praise and stingy with your complaints. Learn what you need to know, Go where you need to be to get the boost you need. 4. Work hard enough to get results “You have to think above the note you wish to sing,” Mrs. Tallio my 10th grade music teacher used to say. It’s as true in life as it is in music. Don’t blame writer’s block, lack of self-discipline, low self-esteem, laziness—these are excuses to keep you from acting on your vision. “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars,” Les Brown says. It’s all about productivity. You need to stretch outside yourself, outside your self-imposed boundaries, move outside yourself. Write one sentence on your current project the minute you turn on your computer or sit down at your desk, the kitchen table wherever you write. It ends the inertia, it’s a beginning. You no longer have to stare at the blank page. One sentence will spark another while you are reading your emails, chatting on your loops, doing the busy things you normally do. You’ll zoom back to add that sentence or thought to the first sentence because it is already there just waiting…Before you know it your mind is ablaze with ideas for your current project and you are motivated to continue. The “Do it now!” or “Just Do it!” Principals hold true here. Move and the universe moves with you—stagnant water does not refresh or grow – action moves mountains in one baby step at a time – think of the ant – and the rubber tree plant. That is productivity. 5. Put good materials into your mind. When computers first were showing up in every household—a new saying came along “Garbage in, garbage out,” a computer can only give back what you stick into it The very same thing applies to your mind. You need to add to the fuel if you are going to expect great things to come out of your thoughts. If you are going to write a mystery—read good mystery books – some suggestions would be Lawrence Block, Ross Macdonald, Raymond Chandler, Sue Grafton, James Elroy, the list goes on. Read best sellers pick them apart to see what makes them tick – how they got to be best sellers. Read John Fowler’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman – to see how to build a novel. Read how to books like Sol Stein’s How to Grow a Novel. Read the classics for the sheer beauty of the language and to discover how they lasted all these years – what do they have that you want your manuscript to have? If you’re not a writer – you still need to feed from the trough of the masters – who in your field is considered an expert? Absorb as much as you can from books, classes, apprenticeships or mentors. Talk to people you admire for their talents in the area that you want to be. Pick their brains, how did they get where they are. Read biographies of the greatest people in your field they are sure to give you motivation and ideas to launch you in the right direction. 6. Ride the momentum when it comes, and it will. Use the momentum to power you to the next step on your path of where you want to be. Just take the next step and the one after that and the one after that. An ant hill is built one grain at a time and if you ever see one of those in Africa that tower into the landscape you will see that all it takes is one grain, one baby step to build an empire. Be sure to use your shameless self-promotion when ever appropriate. Get yourself out there. Get your accomplishments known, your goals out where people will cheer you on. Robert Spenser, when asked for advice on writing the novel and getting it published said, “Write it. Send it.” There is no other way to get out there, to reach your goals, to live the life you want then to go after it. Feel the fear that we all have and use it for the energy that it is. JUST DO IT and Do it now! Billie A Williams www.billiewilliams.com billie@billiewilliams.com Feel free to write with any comments. |