One tip to remaining motivated is to let go of your past. Before you all get angry, please let me explain. There are a few ways you can let go of the past, but I am not suggesting that you let go and FORGET the past. The key here is to not DWELL on the past.
History (the "past") provides many great lessons for us, but if continued to dwell on what happened in the past, you will never be able to more forward. It is very important that we learn from both our past mistakes and our past failures. How many people have you encountered that seem to live in the past? They tell you how great things USED to be, and how much better their life was. Or they may tell you about the time they made that mistake and nothing has ever gone right for them since? It is that kind of thought processes that you need to get rid of.
If you continue to re-live the past, you will never find the motivation to make changes and improve your present. I learned one very important piece of advice many, many years ago that has stuck with me...you cannot change the past, you can only change YOUR ATTITUDE towards the past. This is extremely important if you want to keep your motivation for the future.
You need to acknowledge that the past occurred. If you made mistakes, you need to accept that you made those mistakes and learn from what you did wrong. By making mistakes, you are forcing yourself to learn. If you didn't make any mistakes, you probably would not be where you are now. Heck, the sticky note (that little yellow post-it note that 3M makes?) was actually a mistake by one of 3M's developers. They were trying to make a type of glue, only to make a glue that didn't stick very well. You all now probably know how successful the 'sticky note' is for many of us, especially those of us in an office.
Making mistakes opens up new avenues for us to try new things. Now that you know this doesn't work, you can try a different path. But, if you constantly lived that same mistake, you will never have the desire or motivation to try anything new.
How many people have you talked to that constantly relived their greatest successes? This is almost as bad, if not worse than reliving your mistakes. Constantly reliving your success could prevent you from going out and becoming even more successful. Like the mistakes of the past, if you learn from your successes, then you can become even more successful in the future. Also, realistically, how many of you want to hear for the 100th time how Joe made that one awesome sale and brought home a six-digit paycheck the next month? Wouldn't you rather hear about how Joe made that sale, and then has continued to make better sales up through today? Then, you can learn from Joe's successes and possibly apply his techniques to your business.
So, in a nutshell, if you want to build a successful future and maintain your motivation, let go of the past, both the pain and the successes. Use the past as a building block and a tool to motivate you to do even better in the future.
Have a wonderful Motivational Monday. Until this Wednesday...
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