Page 28 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

That one thought eased itself into my mind at that moment and never left it.

It is not an original thought, but Dyer’s gentle presentation, filled with serene joy
and so effortlessly spoken, changed me in a way that no ancient volume of
wisdom ever could have. That’s one of the powers of the audiobook form of
learning: It simulates an extremely intimate one-on-one experience.

Wayne Dyer, Marianne Williamson, Caroline Myss, Barbara Sher, Tom
Peters, Nathaniel Branden, Earl Nightingale, Alan Watts, and Anthony Robbins
are just a few motivators whose audiobooks have changed my life. You’ll find
your own favorites. You don’t have to find time to get to the library. Forget the
library. You are driving one.

13. Definitely plan your work

Some of us may think we’re too depressed, angry, or upset about certain
problems right now to start on a new course of personal motivation. But
Napoleon Hill insisted that that’s the perfect time to learn one of life’s most
unusual rules: “There is one unbeatable rule for the mastery of sorrows and
disappointments, and that is the transmutation of those emotional frustrations
through definitely planned work. It is a rule which has no equal.”

Once we get the picture of who we want to be, “definitely planned work” is
the next step on the path. Definitely planned work inspires the energy of
purpose. Without it, we suffer from a weird kind of intention deficit disorder.
We’re short on intention. We don’t know where we’re going or what we’re up
to.

When I was a training instructor at a time-management company many years
ago, we taught businesspeople how to maximize time spent on the job. The
primary idea was this: one hour of planning saves three hours of execution.

However, most of us don’t feel we have time for that hour of planning.

We’re too busy cleaning up yesterday’s problems (that were caused by lack of
planning). We don’t yet see that planning would be the most productive hour we
spend. Instead, we wander unconsciously into the workplace and react to crises.
(Again, most of which result from a failure to plan.) A carefully planned meeting
can take a third of the time that an unplanned free-for-all takes.

My friend Kirk Nelson managed a large sales staff at a major radio station.
His success in life was moderate until he discovered the principle of definitely