Create a Positive Mindset!

Learn the Key Factors in Self-Motivation

Self-motivation is complex. It's linked to your level of initiative in setting challenging goals for yourself; your belief that you have the skills and abilities needed to achieve those goals; and your expectation that if you put in enough hard work, you will succeed.

Four factors are necessary to build the strongest levels of self-motivation: 

1. Self-confidence and self-efficacy.

2. Positive thinking, and positive thinking about the future.

3. Focus and strong goals.

4. A motivating environment.

By working on all of these together, you should quickly improve your self-motivation. Let's look at each of these factors individually.

1. Self-Confidence and Self-Efficacy

Part of being self-motivated is having good levels of self-assurance, self-confidence, and self-efficacy.

Being highly self-assured means you will set challenging goals for yourself, and it's also a resiliency factor for when you encounter setbacks. If you don't believe in yourself you'll be much more likely to think, "I knew I couldn't do this" instead of, "This one failure isn't going to stop me!"

Self-efficacy is defined as a belief in our own ability to succeed, and our ability to achieve the goals we set for ourselves. This belief has a huge impact on your approach to goal setting and your behavioral choices as you work toward those goals.

High self-efficacy results in an ability to view difficult goals as a challenge, whereas people with low self-efficacy would likely view the same goals as being beyond their abilities, and might not even attempt to achieve them.

It also contributes to how much effort a person puts into a goal in the first place, and how much he or she perseveres despite setbacks. By developing a general level of self-confidence in yourself, you will not only believe you can succeed, but you'll also recognize and enjoy the successes you've already had. That, in turn, will inspire you to build on those successes. The momentum created by self-confidence is hard to beat.

Take these steps:

Think about the achievements in your life.

Examine your strengths to understand what you can build on.

Determine what other people see as your strengths and key capabilities.

Set achievable goals for yourself, work to achieve them, and enjoy that achievement.
Seek out mentors and other people who model the competencies, skills, and attributes you desire.

As you begin to recognize how much you've already achieved – and understand how much potential you have – you will have the confidence to set goals and achieve the things you desire. The more you look for reasons to believe in yourself, the easier it will be to find ways to motivate yourself. 

2. Positive Thinking, and Positive Thinking about the Future

Remember this…your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past. Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.

Positive thinking is closely related to self-confidence as a factor in self-motivation. It's important to look at things positively, especially when things aren't going as planned and you're ready to give up.

If you think that things are going to go wrong or that you won't succeed, this may influence things in such a way that your predictions will come true. This is particularly the case if you need to work hard to achieve success, or if you need to persuade others to support you in order to succeed. Your thoughts can have a major influence on whether you succeed or fail, so make sure those thoughts are "on your side."

Positive thinking also helps you think about an attractive future that you want to realize. When you expect positive results, your choices will be more positive, and you'll be less likely to leave outcomes to fate or chance. Having a vivid picture of success, combined with positive thinking, helps you bridge the gap between wanting something and going out to get it.

To apply "the power of positive thinking", do the following:

• Become aware of your thoughts. Write down these down throughout the day.
• Challenge your negative thoughts, and replace them with positive ones.
• Create a strong and vivid picture of what it will be like to achieve your goals.
• Develop affirmations or statements that you can repeat to yourself throughout the day. These statements should remind you of what you want to achieve, and why you will achieve it.
• Practice positive thinking until you automatically think about yourself and the world in a positive way, every day.

3. Focus and Strong Goals

As mentioned, a key part of building self-motivation is to start setting strong goals. They give you focus, a clear sense of direction, and the self-confidence that comes from recognizing your own achievement.

First, determine your direction through effective goal setting.

When you set a goal, you make a promise to yourself. Part of the strength of this is that it gives you a clear direction. Part is that you've made this promise to yourself, and you'll want to keep this promise. And part is that it's a challenge, and it's fun to try to meet that challenge!

But don't set just any goal. Your goal should have the following characteristics:

Clarity - Effective goals are clear, measurable, specific, and based on behavior, not outcomes.

Challenge - Goals should be difficult enough to be interesting, but not so difficult that you can't reach them.

Commitment - Goals should be attainable, and should be relevant – that is, they should contribute in a significant way to the major objectives you're trying to achieve.

Regularity of Feedback - Monitor your progress towards your goals regularly to maintain your sense of momentum and enthusiasm, and enjoy your progress towards those goals.

Sufficient Respect For Complexity - If the goal involves complex work, make sure that you don't over-commit yourself. Complex work can take an unpredictably long time to complete (particularly if you have to learn how to do the task "on the job").

 

See how each goal activity fits into the bigger picture of your overall objectives. If you fully understand your priorities, you probably won't feel as pressured to do everything at once. This can reduce stress and help you to concentrate on the most important strategies.

4. Motivating Environment

The final thing to focus on is surrounding yourself with people and resources that will remind you of your goals, and help you with your internal motivation. These are external factors – they'll help you get motivated from the outside, which is different from the internal motivation we've discussed so far. However, the more factors you have working for you, the better.

You can't just rely on these "environmental" or outside elements alone to motivate you, but you can use them for extra support. Try the following: 

• Look for team work opportunities. Working in a team makes you accountable to others.
• Ask your boss for interesting assignments with specific targets and objectives to help you measure your success.
• Set up some goals that you can easily achieve. Quick wins are great for getting you motivated.
• Buddy up with people who you trust to be supportive, and ask them to help keep you accountable.
• Try not to work by yourself too much. Balance the amount of time you work from home with time spent working with others.

When you start your self-motivation program, you may tend to rely heavily on these external factors. As you get more comfortable and confident with your self-motivation, you'll probably use them only as needed, and for a little extra help.

Key Points

Self-motivation doesn't come naturally to everyone. And even those who are highly self-motivated need some extra help every now and then. 

Build your self-motivation by practicing goal-setting skills, and combining those with positive thinking, the creation of powerful visions of success, and the building of high levels of self-efficacy and self-confidence.

Your attitude and beliefs about your likelihood of success can predict whether or not you actually succeed. Set goals, and work hard to achieve them. Examine ways to improve your self-motivation, and regularly reassess your motivation levels. If you actively keep your internal motivation high, you can significantly increase the likelihood of achieving your hopes, dreams, and visions of the future.

Achieve your full potential and work with a Business and Life Management Coach who has over 20 years’ experience empowering individuals, executives and business owners to attain self-defined success in their professional and personal lives. Book a complimentary session at http://www.denisedema.com to get started today!

One Single Day Cannot Define You

One day cannot dictate the whole course of your life. Even if you feel it is the worst day of your entire existence, it is a small blip in the grand scheme of things.

What happened has happened – and it is over and done with. It is a small moment compared to the billions of choices and paths that lay in our future.

Real, sustainable growth is never sudden and rapid. Instead, it is growth that happens incrementally over long periods of time.
It is the small things we do on a daily basis that build who we become in the future, and the impact we leave on the world long after we’ve passed away.

Our minds are built to focus on significant events in our lives. When something makes us really sad or deeply disturbs us, our mind ruminates over it to find a solution or a way to cope.

Rumination is when we think about an event in our lives over and over again. Some psychologists believe it can aid in problem-solving, but when rumination goes haywire it can bring us into a state of depression. That’s because we are constantly thinking about something that we no longer have any control over. Thus, we feel powerless and hopeless.

We can overcome this negative cycle by changing our perspective. When you get stuck in these narrow patterns of thought, “zoom out” and see the bigger picture of your life. Change your thoughts from making it monumental to a moment that will pass. This will remind you that no single day can ever define you and your future.

Each day we make hundreds of choices. These each direct the course of our lives. And it is in these individual choices where we have real power and freedom over what our lives become.

Get the tools you need to excel in life. Work with a  Business and Life Management Coach with over 20 years experience empowering people to attain self defined success in their personal and professional lives. Book a complimentary session today!

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Become Aware of The Feedback In Your Life!

Our minds are a lot like a feedback loop.

We process information from our environment, we respond to it through our actions, and then we get new information back based on the effects of those actions. This cycle continues as we continue to adapt and change to new situations in our lives.

One key to happiness and success however we may define those terms, is paying attention to this constant feedback as much as possible.

When we do things that get positive feedback, we should continue to do those things in the future, because we know that they work and bring desirable results. And when we do something that gets negative feedback, we should change our course of action in hopes of getting different results.

However, some people try to ignore this feedback or they just aren’t good at being fully aware of all the feedback they get from their lives. They get stuck in their own ways, staying attached to old habits and old ways of thinking and believe those are their only options. Not because they actually worked or helped them live better lives but because that is all they know to do.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." -Albert Einstein

The more you pay attention to the feedback in your life, the better you can adapt and change to your life in a healthy way.

We receive feedback in a variety of forms including but not limited to:

• The feedback we get from our actions. Does doing that thing bring you closer to your values and goals in life or further away?
• The feedback we get from people. Are your friends, family, coworkers, or whoever responding positively or negatively to what you do and say?
• The feedback we get from our bodies. Does eating that make you feel healthy or less healthy? Does doing that activity make you feel fit or less fit?
• The feedback we get from our emotions. Does doing that make you feel more emotionally stable or less emotionally stable?

Everything we experience can be viewed as a type of feedback. To make the most of this feedback we have to exercise both awareness and honesty on a daily basis. This is the beginning of knowing what needs to change in order to improve and grow.

The first step is to pay more attention to things we normally don’t whether it’s our emotions, habits, relationships, health, work, or whatever else it is that makes up the components of our lives.

Be a witness to your life to help build more awareness to your everyday thoughts, habits, and routines.

Once you learn to harness your awareness in one area it will become easier to apply that same focused awareness to all other aspects of your life. In doing so, you’ll become more attuned to the various forms of feedback you get every day.

Secondly, to make the most of your feedback you need to be honest with yourself as much as possible. If you always distort your feedback into something positive or negative and you don’t actually see what the feedback is truly communicating, then you won’t be able to respond to that feedback in the most effective way.

Be more aware of your actions and be honest about their effects because that is the beginning of knowing what is needed to improve all aspects of your life!

Get the tools you need to excel in your life! Work with a Business and Life Management Coach who has over 20 years’ experience empowering people to attain self-defined success in their professional & personal lives. Denise’s passion for personal development is at the core of her business and life philosophy and is committed to helping others achieve their full potential in order to live richer, more fulfilling lives. Book a complimentary session at http://www.denisedema.com to get started in reaching your goals today! Phone, on-site and e-mail coaching available.

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Ref: Emotion Machine

Kindness is a Virtue

Kindness is a personal quality that enables an individual to be sensitive to the needs of others and to take personal action to meet those needs. It is more than being nice and agreeable. It is a quality of one’s being, not just a matter of a person’s behavior. It is known as a virtue and recognized as a value in many cultures and religions. Research has shown that acts of kindness does not only benefit receivers of the kind act, but also the giver, as a result of the release of neurotransmitters responsible for feelings of contentment and relaxation when such acts are committed.

The Value of Kindness

Kindness is priceless, like other virtues and good gifts. Its blessings last throughout eternity. The model of kindness in a person can make a difference in a family and its ancestors, in a neighborhood, in an office or business, in a town, and in the world. Image what our nation and our world would be like if there were more models of kindness active in our communities rather than models of material success and personal fame.

Examples of Kindness

Truly kind persons are probably not the most famous ones in the world. True kindness is probably best demonstrated quietly without much attention being given to it. Here are some ways to tap into the virtue of Kindness............

 Reach Out to the Homeless

• Provide aid to a homeless shelter by donating clothes and food. Be part of serving food at a shelter. By taking personal time to serve your fellow man it demonstrates a high level of kindness that pierces the soul of a hurting individual. You can also volunteer at churches and other charities that serve the needs of the homeless.

Extend a Helping Hand to Parents

• Offer childcare help to parents who have several children. This simple act of kindness will help foster stronger relationships and give a much needed break to a mother or father. Offer to take children of a neighbor to an after school activity, the park or a movie while their parents go out to dinner.The sky is the limit to what you can do to assist a couple that is overwhelmed with little resources.

Be Helpful at Work

• Being kind to your co-workers doesn't require very much effort at all and can be done in so many ways. Help a colleague who doesn't expect it and carry a box of copier paper or cover someones shift, so they can pick up their child. Get an extra cup of coffee or a snack for a fellow employee. Celebrate their birthday by taking them out to lunch. Cheer up colleagues who may be having a difficult time by writing them an encouraging email or offer support. The key is to make a sacrifice, however small, in order to make a colleague's life a little brighter.

Teach your Children to be Kind.

• Encourage children to do kind things for other kids at their school. Ask them about children who doesn't have many friends or kids who are picked on by bullies. Share and teach your children to share. Kids can share their snacks, share their lunch table or ask a new person to play at recess. In doing so, they expand their group of friends, make a marginalized child feel better and inspire other kids to do the same. To teach children kindness it must start with you.  Strive to be kind and leave you're kids with a legacy of kindness. 

Touch the Lives of Those who are Suffering

• Reach out to persons who are suffering from terminal illnesses. Take stuffed animals to a cancer unit of a local hospital. Visit senior centers, nursing homes and hospice facilities to spend some time with people who are alone. Participate in different marathons, run-walks and other fundraisers that benefit persons who have medical challenges or diseases to raise money.

Improve the Lives of Children Less Fortunate

• Become a big brother or sister to underprivileged children. Participate in charities that feed hungry children, adopt, donate clothes, provide guidance and education by mentoring a child. Join organizations that provide sports and other activities for inner city kids. Visit hospitals or cancer units and donate toys during the holidays through Toys for Tots.

Preserve the Environment for the Future

• Demonstrate kindness towards the environment. Do your part in changing regular light bulbs to halogen based light bulbs. Walk to work when possible instead of driving a car to eliminate pollution of the environment. Don't throw anything on the ground or street to keep streets clean and beautified. Use solar and consider buying hybrid cars in the future. Focus your kindness on a massive scale. This doesn't mean you have to do a massively large good deed, it means you should try to perform kindness for the earth. There are countless ways to make our world a better place just a little at a time.

Kindness can be shown in so many ways. Smile and thank people in service jobs, open a door for others, help a person pick up some items that they have dropped, make a personal visit to a friend who is home bound. You can help change a distressed motorist's tire or simply hold the elevator for a stranger. Wave to say 'thank you' when someone lets you in front as you drive, or give up a good parking spot if you see a pregnant mom. Improve your community and volunteer to plant trees in a local park. Serve without expectations. Do at least one extra big kind deed a day. Create a Culture of Kindness.

My Request

If you know a kind person, thank them for this blessing. It will encourage and strengthen them, and you as well. Open your eyes and your heart to others, and their needs will stimulate and nourish the virtue of kindness in your own heart. Selfishness is the great enemy of kindness, so resist it. Give attention to this quality of their being, not just to how well they behave. Strengthen the virtue of kindness in your world, because in its expression you will transform lives. May you receive the help of a kind person when you are in need. Make kindness part of your legacy!

Work with a Business and Life Management Coach with over 20 years’ experience empowering people to attain self-defined success in their personal and professional life. Contact me  to book a free session and start today!

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