Motivation to keep on track, its all in the head

So many people wilt under competition.  So I don’t want to
propose that you use as an important source of motivation a
mental activity that makes you perform worse in whatever
area you’d like to improve.

What you find difficult today, though, with even a little
“private” competition, you’ll find to be easy.

What we’re discussing is a way to give yourself a passion
that can give you such drive to reach your objective, that
it will not only get you there, but you’ll actually love
the process.

 You can’t pick someone, even in secret,
that there’s no way you’d ever measure up to.  You at least
have to be able to win occasionally.  And someone you beat
constantly won’t stretch you.

You have to be able to imagine victory or else you won’t
try, long term.  You’ll get demoralized too easily.

Pick someone in a magazine, someone you used to know, who
you work with.  It doesn’t matter.  Pick someone that
motivates you that you can reach.

If you want to lose weight, find someone who’s a little
slimmer than you.  Make that an intermediary goal.  Then,
go for someone who’s just a little further beyond when you
arrive at your first guidepost.

Sure, aim for total success…

But don’t swing for the fence every day.  Little victories
add up.  Allow yourself to feel incredible satisfaction
when you achieve your little benchmarks.

Those moments so revved me up that it completely
redirected my life.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I was due for many more
challenges in life… most of which I would not win for a
long time.

But it was this process and those victories that gave me a
taste of success that took a sustained effort to achieve.

I can’t stress enough that the little victories along the
way are every bit as important as the end goal.  They keep
you going when you have a setback. 

If you want to quit smoking and you’ve quit for a week,
don’t let one slip up ruin all you’ve built.  Every hour
you go without a cigarette, where you didn’t bite someone’s
head off, give yourself permission to feel an incredible
sense of accomplishment… because it is.  Call someone up
on the phone.  Go out to dinner.  Celebrate in whatever
appropriate way you can.  Put a mark on the wall. Give
yourself credit.  Smile.  You did it.

You must do this…
…because setbacks will come.  And if you built up a
series of successes AND RECOGNIZED THEM, you’ll treat the
setback as just a slight delay, a little detour.  Without
your private victory parties, setbacks can be made to look
like a sheer rock cliff.