Motivation Is What Gets You Started, Habit Is What Keeps You Going

The world is filled with dreamers and lightly – very lightly – scattered with doers. Everyone (and everyone's grandmother) has big dreams and high hopes for the future. We want money, fame, love, excitement, success and combinations thereof.

Nearly all of these dreamers believe that they can one day attain their hearts' desire, but as history has continually proven, most of them never come close. Most dreamers never make it past the dreaming stage. Even those who do make progress mostly end up falling short in the end.

Almost every dream has a possibility of becoming reality. However, that does not mean every dream will become a reality.

Most dreams die as dreams, like snowflakes melting the second they hit the ground – never amounting to anything more than unfulfilled wishes. I won’t say that this is entirely because of the dreamers’ refusal to take action, as there are always outside forces acting upon us and all the things that make up our lives.

Yet, the fault does primarily lie with the dreamer. It’s the dreamer who fails to find sufficient reason for making his or her dreams a reality. It’s the dreamer who decides to focus on other things and leave the pursuit of his or her dreams for another day.

It’s the dreamer who either can’t manage to do what needs to be done in the manner it needs to be done or gives up prematurely on his or her journey.

The world and life rarely make things easy for us, but that doesn’t mean that we should allow ourselves to be overpowered – to simply give up on our dreams, trading them in for comfort.

If you can’t find reasons to do what you yourself believe you need to do, then there isn’t much I can do for you. If you can’t motivate yourself to transform your life, to let go of all those unnecessary and unpleasant pieces of your life, and become better, then there is no one in the world who can help you.

Motivation is the first and most important step of the process – more important than the dream itself. Dreams are easy to come by, but motivation to get things started and to keep them going is entirely different. If you can’t find enough motivation to even start the process then you aren’t ready to make changes in your life.

There is only one way to become successful in life and that is to want nothing more. When the only reason you have for getting up in the morning is to become a better version of yourself, to push yourself further, to learn, create and live the life you dream of, then failing becomes more difficult than succeeding.

When you realize that what you know you need to do is the most important thing in your life – even if only the most important thing at that point in your life – then you will find motivation. You’ll find motivation because you will tear up at the thought of continuing to live the life you are living now.

Hate the life you are living to the point that it makes you swell up with emotion and you will need no other reason to pursue your dreams and do so with a fervor unlike you’ve ever experienced.

I find that the best motivator for man or woman is anger. When you are angry with the way you are living your life, when you are angry with the person you’ve allowed yourself to become or turn into, when you are angry with the decisions you make, when you are angry with the thought of living the life you are living now for the rest of your life, that is when you’ll never run out of motivation.

The anger you feel for all that you are will be more than sufficient motivation. You’ll just need to learn to tap into that state of mind whenever you’re feeling lazier than usual.

Just close your eyes and run through your life and all the little details and aspects that make you want to scream out at the top of your lungs. If that feeling won’t motivate you then I’m afraid there is no hope for you.

Now, there is one more entirely necessary process that you will have to adopt in order to get from where you are to where you want to be: You’ll need to rewrite your lifestyle. Starting and ending with your habits.

Motivation will get you started, but you’re going to need to change your habits in order to keep yourself going. Your life, at the moment, has too much friction. Most, if not all, of the habits you have now won’t be compatible with the person you want to become. This is often even more difficult to realize than it is to accept.

The habits you have are the reason you are who you are. The decisions you make every day, every week, every month, every year are what brought you to the point you’re at right now.

It should be obvious that you will have to make significant changes. However, don’t attempt to make them all at once because you’ll fail. You’ll crash and burn and revert to the person you started as, losing any progress that you made.

To change your life by changing your habits, you’re going to need to tackle one habit at a time – two at the most, but only if you feel sure you’ll manage.

Changing one habit at a time instead of tackling all your habits at once has several benefits. For starters, it’s easier. You only have one thing to focus on, making your chances of succeeding much higher.

You’ll suffer less and you’ll have minimal urges. The urges we have stress us out if left unattended; ignore all of your urges at once and you’ll be overwhelmed; you’ll falter and break.

With each habit you change, you’ll lessen the friction in your life, making it easier to continue moving forward. You’ll take each step in the right direction as a win, as a success and use that to continue motivating yourself.

The more habits you change, the better you will feel about yourself, the easier it will become to make further changes, and the more confident you will be to take on larger tasks.

Changing your habits will be the fuel that motivates you all the way to the finish line. It will take time. It will take patience. But remember that you are capable of bringing just about all of your dreams to fruition.

Don’t rush or try to jump ahead. Make progress, no matter how little, but make it every single day of your life.

You don’t succeed with a bang, but with a low grumble that slowly (but surely) reshapes your existence.

Photo Courtesy: Day 19

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