Page 16 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

The vision can be created right now—better now than later. You can always

change it if you want, but don’t live a moment longer without one. Watch what
being hungry to live that vision does to your ability to motivate yourself.

3. Tell yourself a true lie

I remember when my then 12-year-old daughter Margery participated in a
school poetry reading in which all her classmates had to write a “lie poem” about
how great they were.

They were supposed to make up untruths about themselves that made them
sound unbelievably wonderful. I realized as I listened to the poems that the
children were doing an unintended version of what Arnold did to clarify the
picture of his future. By “lying” to themselves they were creating a vision of
who they wanted to be.

It’s noteworthy, too, that public schools are so out of touch with the
motivational sources of individual achievement and personal success that in

order to invite children to express big visions for themselves they have to invite
the children to “lie.”

Most of us are unable to see the truth of who we could be. My daughter’s
school developed an unintended solution to that difficulty: If it’s hard for you to
imagine the potential in yourself, then you might want to begin by expressing it
as a fantasy, as did the children who wrote the poems. Think up some stories
about who you would like to be. Soon you will begin to create the necessary
blueprint for stretching your accomplishments. 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.

4. Keep your eyes on the prize

Most of us never really focus. We constantly feel a kind of irritating psychic
chaos because we keep trying to think of too many things at once. There’s
always too much up there on the screen.

There was an interesting motivational talk on this subject given by former

Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson to his football players during halftime at