Archive for the ‘Motivation’ Category

Sustaining Motivation With The Burning Rock Method

Holding to a commitment is like holding a very hot rock, the chances that you will continue to hold it is nearing zero. But with time, it will get easier since the rock will become colder.

Now the above example is a very nice way to describe motivation, but what on earth are you going to say to yourself in order to avoid dropping the rock at every single seconds. Remember, it is a very hot rock.

How to sustain your motivation 24/7. That is one of the biggest secret of motivation. Believe me, you can easily motivate a person. Some people are doing this everyday to their employees. Sure, they will be motivated, but after 1 hour or so, their motivation level will start to deteriorate and before you know it, you will have to give the exact same speech to them. And what worse is that it may not work this time.

Enough about other people, how do YOU sustain your motivation through out the day?

The Method

I don’t know about you but this is what I did. I will imagine that the things that I do have a very direct impact to my loved ones. Let’s look at that burning rock for example. Just imagine that your 1 year old daughter is sleeping in front of you, and if you let go of the burning rock, the rock will fall onto your beloved daughter. Will you let go of the rock now?

I don’t know about you, but I will definitely hold the rock firmly even though I will lose my hand in the process. I’d rather die than letting it hurt my daughter.

Applying It In Real Life

How to apply this in real life? Hm.. one example would be convincing yourself that if you cannot finish that pile of work in front of you, you will have to surrender your food and your children will be hungry for the night. Imagine the look on their face when you go home with no dinner for them. Imagine them crying themselves to sleep.

I better finish off my pile of work now.

Photo Credit – Image Editor

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Keep Your Motivation High With This Simple Technique

Summary – E & E Via 25% Technique

I once heard a saying, that staying committed to something is harder that holding a burning rock. You will most likely to let it go all the time.

Take exercising for example, one day you were watching a documentary on how overweight people exercise their way to fitness and suddenly you got that extra boost of motivation to start exercising. You ran for 1 hour immediately after work. This went on for about a week until one day you started skipping the routine. It is now thrice a week. In a month or so you find yourself not exercising at all. You are then frustrated and blame it all on your weak willpower.

Does this look very familiar to you? No worry, every person on this planet has experienced the same thing. Like I said, staying committed to something is always difficult.

I however have learnt a technique to keep the motivation high everyday. Trust me this technique is very effective and if you practise it today, you will be seeing the effect of your continuously high level of motivation tomorrow.

This is what I do.

Excitement & Embarassment via 25% Technique

Instead of running for 1 hour daily, I run for 15 minutes. Yes, only 15 minutes. Even though I know that my body can withstand running for 1 hour, I stop running after 15 minutes. I will usually end up enjoying every seconds of that 15 minutes and getting excited for the next 15 minutes session tomorrow.

One of the most reliable way to stay motivated is to keep the excitement level high. This is what I do when I run at about 25% of what I am capable of. I know deep down that I can always do more, so everyday I will challenge myself by saying “If I can’t even run for 15 minutes, I will be very embarassed with myself.”

I don’t know about you, but it works for me.

Why This Technique Works?

1) You know you can do it anytime anywhere. It is only about 25% of your limit.

2) You will feel embarassed if you cannot finish it.

3) If for some reason you skip a day, you can redo the two day exercise by exercising at 50% your limit the next day.

4) After a while your body will begin to adapt to the 25% limit you set. You will notice that running for 15 minutes is not making you sweat anymore. This is a sign that you need to change your limit. Maybe start running for 30 minutes.

In other words, you are actually seeing yourself getting stronger. Who wouldn’t want that?

Other application

  • Cleaning the house – Even if you can clean the whole house, try only vacuuming the floor every day.
  • Blogging – Instead of posting one entry everyday, why not make it once every 4 days. Even if you already prepared 2 entries, publish it only after 4 days.
  • Finishing an assignment – You can choose to work on your assignment all day long or you can set 2 hours everyday and finish it within a week.

Important Note

If you were to run only 15 minutes everyday your entire life, it will contradict with the whole idea of self improvement since you are not improving. This technique is meant only to help keep the motivation high every day. Once you are able to turn the exercise into a habit (action that comes naturally to you), you are free to stretch the limits accordingly.

– I Wonder –
How do you sustain your motivation? Any tips?

———- Personal Note ————
It is one of my resolution this year to reduce my weight to about 65 kg. Now that I have made this public, I will have to work even harder to achieve it. 🙂

Photo Credit – Eneas

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Get Back On Track After A Failure With These 10 Scripts

Summary – 10 lines you can say to yourself after a failure

I am not perfect. Even though I write a personal development blog, it doesn’t mean that I am the most developed person on the planet. We will always be in the process to be slightly better everyday. That’s exactly what this blog is all about

Personal development is just like life. It doesn’t matter whether you will end up a prime minister or a clerk, what matter is how you get there. And along this journey, some mistakes are bound to happen.

I confess that I procrastinate once in a while (Ok, maybe a lot), I sometimes manage my finance poorly (bought an external drive when I don’t actually need it). My point is, despite my articles that describe how to combat procrastinate and good financial tips, I can still make mistake and I can sometimes fail to follow my own advice.

This is where it becomes a problem. For the average guy like us, each failure can have some effect like depression, stress etc. How then can we effectively come back from a failure. For example, how can I remanage my finance after an out of control shopping spree? Should I start back from zero? Or is there any other way?

These are some suggestion on how to make that come back; a few examples of lines you can say to yourself to reset your life after a failure.


1) Behold! My experiment on making mistakes has completed. Procrastination really takes about half of your life.

2) Nobody was hurt. I am still alive. It is up to me to deal with the problem. I will make sure the external drive I just bought worth every penny I spent.

3)) All the negative feeling I’m having now because of the failure is officially postponed to next week. I will entertain them then. Thank you for understanding.

4) People might not even notice. They are usually too busy with themselves

5) So that’s what happen if (insert mistake here).. HAHAHAHA.

6) My life is short, I’m giving myself 2 minutes to mourn

7) Now where was I?

8] Resetting life… Starting now

9) If I want things to change, I will first need to change

10) Get up and just do something

Conclusion

We all fail ourselves at some point in life. We have two options. Making the come back easier or harder for us. The answer should be obvious – Always aim to make things easier for you.

– I wonder –
What do you say to yourself after a failure?

————– Personal Note ———–
I have a friend who diet. And whenever she failed to follow her diet and ate fatty food, she would literally torture herself by vomitting it all out. She would then be upset and depressed with the failure that even a stranger will be able to see it in her face.

Believe me, nothing good can come from this self torture. So stop it already.

Photo Credit – Hamed Masoumi

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The Great War of Temptation Versus You

Summary – How To Win The War

What is temptation?

  • You are on a diet, and everything you see looks delicious.
  • You just got your paycheck, and somehow there’s a voice in your head telling you to spend some time at the mall.
  • You are exercising in your house and suddenly that same voice in your head is telling you that all the exercise will not make you healthier.

All of that my friend, are temptation at its best. That feeling of wanting something so much when you are trying your best to avoid it. It is a part of you and thus you will never be able to stop it from haunting you your entire life.

However, not being able to remove it doesn’t mean that you have to surrender to it. You will need to declare a war with your temptation. Of course, not to all your temptation. Just the ones that are holding you back. I personally call this the greatest war of our life simply because it’s very hard to win a war when you yourself wanted to lose the war.

You will have to fight with all your might. If you want to make yourself healthier, you will have to fight that temptation to be a couch potato. And if you want to study, you may have to fight that urge to go out with friends clubbing. This war will never be easy. But it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE either. To actually win this great war, you may want to consider applying these tips.

1) Remember Why You Are Doing This


Again with the diet example, if you are on a diet, remind yourself why you are dieting. If you want a better health, print some articles about people dying of heart disease, or how older people are able to run a marathon when they are healthy. Read the articles a few times a day. Or create a blog specifically for your progress to health. You will be researching a lot of health related issues and that itself will kick the temptation of ruining your diet out of the window.

2) Make Use Of Emotion


There’s always “the shame” to help you win that battle with temptation. Publicly announce your diet plan. And if you ever want to break your diet, make it a rule that you will have to do it in front of your friends. This way, that shame will stop temptation from ever winning that round. Other emotion that can be manipulated are of course “Laziness” (Make the process of breaking your diet to be as hard as possible) and “Happiness” (Make every winning day a celebrated day)

3) Never Let Go


I actually got this idea from a tv series about “Black Hole”. According to the show, our body and gravity are in a never ending war. An example is like rock climbing. You are fighting gravity with every step we took. Just imagine halfway up, you decided to let go, you will fall down to where you started. You may get a hold of a rock but you will be terribly injured and there is no way you can climb the rock as efficient as your first time doing it.

Just like the analogy, the fight with temptation is very much the same. If at any point you give in to temptation, you will fall back to our starting point. And most of the time, the journey to return back to our current place will be hundred times harder.

So whenever you are feeling like giving in to temptation, decide whether or not you want to drop back to where you started, and bear in mind that the next time will be so much harder.

4) Don’t Give Debatable Excuse


The worst way to combat temptation is when you are being defensive. Being defensive means that you start giving excuses. You want to diet, after two weeks, you start craving for chocolate cakes. You will then start giving excuses to avoid chocolate cakes. Excuses like “Chocolate cake is bad for you”, or “There are too much calories in that cake”. These are debatable excuses which means that you will be able to argue with the excuse. You may eventually say that “If chocolate cake is bad, people will stop making them” or “It’s true that there are too much calorie, but what harm can a slice do?”

All these excuses are debatable. And when you start entertaining the conflict in you, you are losing the war by the minute. A good script to put an end to inner conflict are “I’m not discussing this” or “Period”.

5) Believe That Temptation Gets Weaker With Every Defeat


What will happen to you if you were in a competition and you were defeated at every round. Your motivation will get weaker no doubt. The same thing happens to temptation. If you keep winning the war, the temptation will eventually be weaker.

Believe in this and you will see the amazing result faster. It is when you are totally in control of your desire and from that time on, only good things will come to you. What ever you strive to do, you will get it done, your focus will be razor sharp. Now, let me be the first to congratulate you on all the success waiting for you your entire life.

– I wonder –
Any other tips on conquering temptation that I may have missed?

————- Personal Note ———-
For my Muslim friends reading, I wish you all the best with Ramadhan (Fasting Month). This is the time when our control on temptation will be tested. I actually wrote a few articles on Things About Ramadhan You May Not Know last year. Hope you will enjoy it.

Photo Credit – Phooey

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