These 5 thoughts are killing your motivation

We all live in a world where it’s hard to do things differently. We may have dreams, but pursuing dreams need persistence, resources, luck, and what not. As the result, hopelessness grows and we lose on our aims and goals. However, there is one thing that keeps us moving towards our goal no matter what the circumstances and setbacks we come across in the journey. That thing is the motivation.

Motivation is derived from our thoughts and they, only, have tendency to kill motivation. We have to be mindful of these thoughts if we have to keep ourselves motivated. Here are 5 thoughts that you need to be aware of to be able to ignore them and experience internal power known as motivation:

I’m not lucky enough to get the opportunities

This is a delusional thought. It keeps you away from the reality. It keeps you away from motivation. You must realize that opportunities don’t knock at your door; they must be found and earned. There might have been times when you deserved something and someone else was awarded with it but, fact is you can’t shed tears on it for whole of your life.

You must be wondering how you create opportunities yourself. I know it’s not easy. But it’s not untenable either. You have to push yourself to keep trying over and again. Pushing yourself will enlighten spark of motivation within you. You have to keep searching for opportunities and keep trying unless you finally find the right one. You must understand it comes with the belief ‘trying is doing, and doing is getting’. You don’t have to wait for fate and luck to play role for you, rather; you have to take control of your life and your matters yourself and that’s what most successful people have been doing for centuries. They know motivation is not revealed by the nature but taking control of your life brings motivation and purpose.

Moreover, in this modern era, you’re presented with tons of options to prove your worth. If you want a job, you may create opportunity by uploading and updating your CV on Linked-in, go out of comfort zone and socialize with right people, and appear at job interviews even when you fail to accomplish initially. Once you take practical steps to achieve something, you will realize the boost in your motivation level. So, don’t think of opportunities you want; think of opportunities you can create.

I would work hard only if I knew it would work out

This is like almost like saying, "If I’m assured I would get a job in a law firm, then I will be eager to purse a degree of LL.B."

A rational mind says you can’t be assured of result unless you go through the process properly. Bill Gates wasn’t assured of the success of his windows operating system; it was only when he put all his financial, mental, organizational, and physical energy in the project that served the needs of people and became a huge success. These kind of superfluous thoughts don nothing but kill motivation.

Another example, had Albert Einstein known his theory of relativity will be a huge success beforehand, would he have put in so much in the work?

I ask you – If we are assured of success before even trying, will we be working hard to pursue it? Most of us won’t. Because, we are assured of success, we don’t have incentive or motivation to work hard to achieve it. Moreover, most of us love success and result so much that we forget the pre-requisite to it which is hard work. So, successful people work harder than it is required and wait for the right time until their effort earns them fruits. Thus, motivation comes with doing and thriving for success; more you thrive, more motivated you feel.

I’m bearing the loss because of other people

This may be true in some cases. But, it doesn’t do much for you except satisfying yourself with the hollow self-pity and damages your inner motivation. You may not be able to perform tasks in time because your boss didn’t give you sufficient information, but, you cannot make this as pretext to your failure. You could’ve asked for it yourself, or took certain steps to get information.

So, point is, you can’t control the people and circumstances. You can only control yourself. You must acknowledge yourself as the sole reason behind your failure. Once you start taking control of yourself, you will see the difference in your performance in every aspect of your life. Blaming others for you failures will leave you with drain motivation level. Stop blaming others for your failure, accept it, take responsibility and promise yourself to learn and take steps to change and rectify it. Remember, life is not fair and few failures will be put on you even if you’re not responsible so it shouldn’t make you static in any sense, which will harm motivation for big achievements.

I’m too busy to do it

You’re never too busy to do things that matter the most. You have time; all you need to decide is how much of it to spend on what.

Remember the clichéd maxim, "Time is Money?" start prioritizing things. If some task takes less long than scheduled time then give remaining of time to next task in line. Always try to put effort to end a task at hand as quickly and effectively as possible so that you’re left with sufficient time to perform other tasks. Because if you don’t, you will have things stuck up leading to frustration and it destroys motivation to do anything. So, once you prioritize things and start doing them effectively, you will realize you have a lot more time than you ever thought.

I’m not God-gifted with talent

You’re wrong when you think most of successful people succeeded only because they had innate talent in them. It is false. This thought does not do anything but makes you despair and drains you off the motivation in life. You must understand that talent is nothing more than combination of 3 P’s: perseverance, practice, and persistence. People become successful because they put in consistent effort and have courage to face off hardships in the way to success. Talent becomes useful when it is nurtured with the above 3 P’s.

So, if you lack skills to do something, don’t blame lack of talent. Remember the 3 P’s and take an initiative to learn the skill, practice it, and be persevering in the effort to pull it off. Yes! It will pull off in the end. By acting on these steps, you will feel optimist and you will have all energy boosting your motivation level to thrive for success and prosperity.

Ability to believe in what you already possess and dedication to learn what others are not is the true talents required to succeed in life. You, surely, have them.

Peace Quarters