CHAPTER 31
It’s not about motivation, it’s about creating momentum
The only person who can motivate you is you! People can inspire you, inform you and assist you in gaining better insights, but you need to take action. Move yourself from having great intentions to implementing them. Over the next few chapters we are going to focus on what it means to create momentum in your life. As an analogy, think of two trains — one stationary and the other moving. At the end of every train line is a buffer stop consisting of a reinforced timber brace that prevents a stationary train from running off the end of the track. Now if that train was travelling at 100 kilometres an hour, five metres of reinforced concrete would not stop it. What’s the difference? One has momentum — it is not thinking about getting started! It’s moving ahead — fast! To achieve all you deserve, desire and are determined to achieve in your life, you need to create momentum. It’s about taking action, getting into flow and pushing through any resistance or reservations you may be experiencing. At the beginning of this book we spoke about the big picture and your long-term vision. Now we are going to move from macro to micro, to focus on the micro actions you can take to move from where you are now to where you want to be. There are four key factors involved in creating the momentum we need to propel us towards our goals and desired outcomes. The easy part is setting the goal; the hardest is staying focused on it. People who achieve the most in the shortest time are focused. They focus on the activities that count and they don’t get distracted by challenges or setbacks or the noise around them. This observation by British writer Stuart Wilde really struck a chord with me … ‘Opportunities move towards order, balance & power. They move away from scattered over-energised people & flee at high speeds from confusion & lack of consistency.’ In other words, when you know what you want and why you want it and are focused, the right opportunities are clear to you. So often people get excited about opportunities and possibilities but fail to give them the necessary focus and consistency, and then wonder why it just doesn’t happen Make the most of your time. You need to shift your thinking from managing tasks that take up your time to managing the priorities in your life to gain the most from your time. Each of us has 24 hours a day to spend however we choose to. It is one of the few aspects of life that is consistent for everyone. It is also the one thing that can separate the people who achieve from those who just get by, existing but never really living. People become frustrated when they don’t make progress, yet if they never allocate the time to make progress towards their goals, then how do they expect to achieve them? The Buddhists have a saying … ‘You don’t have as much time as you think.’ We tend to overestimate how much we can achieve in a year and underestimate what we can achieve in our lifetime. The key is to keep on persisting. What if you have a dream to become an author to provide for your family, but you live in a tiny flat that is infested with mice, you are on welfare to support your only daughter and at least 27 publishers have said your book is not good enough to publish? What do you do? Give up, get a job, be satisfied with just getting by, or give it another go? J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books went on to sell more than 400 million copies and gross over $7.7 billion. In less than 10 years she became one of the wealthiest women in the world. At the end of the day nothing happens until someone acts. It is never about your intentions. Everyone has good intentions. It’s about taking action that gets you closer to where you want to be. For J.K. Rowling it was writing in the evenings when her daughter went to bed, rather than watching TV, and it was knocking on one more publisher’s door after the first 27 had turned I know this sounds simplistic, but activity cures inactivity. Get yourself moving. Maybe it’s not the perfect plan or, with hindsight, the best tactic to have taken, but by doing something you change your circumstances and start to gain momentum. The key is starting from where you stand right now, not from where you have come from in the past. All too often people never get started because they have sold themselves on their own story. It usually starts with because, which is normally about what has happened to them in the past. The past is the past, and you can learn from it or be tied to it. Using it as the reason why you are where you are in your life is not an option. All the way through this book I have asked you to make decisions; the decision around activity is about starting. Creating a ritual that supports the person you want to become edges you closer to your goals and, even more importantly, assists you every day in feeling how you want to feel. Rituals can build you up and they can tear you down; they can be positive and also negative. Every successful person has a positive ritual that has helped shape their character, qualities and attitudes — almost their personal DNA. What rituals do you have that generate success and what rituals prevent you from you achieving the very best you? It is your rituals that determine what strength of character you bring to challenges and testing circumstances and how fast you bounce back. The answer is in this great quote, again from Malcolm McLeod … ‘Resilience is born out of consistent rituals!’ What are the rituals that make you stronger — mentally, spiritually and physically?
Focus
for them.Time
Activity
her down. Ritual