To get anything done and to be successful at anything you need to take action.  In fact you need to take massive action.

One of the most common ways of thinking for many people is to have an idea to do something and then think about it too much, eventually talking themselves out of it.

They will probably have an idea, do some research, get a bit excited, do some more research, discover that what they want to do is quite difficult.  Maybe think about it some more and then decide to do it another day or not do it at all because it looks quite difficult.

People who are successful don’t think like this.  They will have an idea,  they’ll do some research, some due diligence, and then they will take action.  Quite often they’ll take massive action.

What’s massive action?

Massive action is just going for it.  Taking some action towards your goal or idea is better than no action and taking massive action is better than a little bit of action.

Massive action is committing to your goal, promising yourself that you’ll achieve something, taking responsibility for your success and doing everything you possibly can to get there.

One you commit to reaching your goals you will find yourself so motivated that you won’t believe you didn’t think like that before.

When you have no other option but to be successful you will find that there is actually no other option and by default you will be successful.

How can I get motivated to take massive action?

You have to set your goal and have a clear goal in mind.  That goal has to be something you really want to achieve though.

There is absolutely no point setting out on a journey to achieve something if you don’t really want it yourself.

Some people aren’t motivated because they are trying to do things that other people want for them, or other people think will be good for them, or that they’ve grown up believing will be good for them.

Take a step back and think if you really want to do what you’ve set out to do.  If not, then reassess your goals and find one that you really want.

Find a goal that gives you a burning desire.  You will find that you will then be naturally motivated..

Commit

Once you have that goal you really want in your mind then you have to commit.  This is often an overlooked step but a vitally important one.

If you 100% commit to achieving your goal you will more than likely get there.  You almost need to burn all your bridges and don’t look back.  Your intention is to achieve what you want to, no excuses.

Taking action is very motivating.  It’s like the start of a snowball.  As it moves down the hill it picks up pace and more snow.  One you take action and massive action you will see your motivation increasing.

One of the tricks to getting and staying motivated is to develop and maintain focus.

Not everyone knows what they want and until you decide and define what you want, you won’t be motivated to do anything.

You have to know what you want

You have to know what you want but you don’t necessarily have to know exactly how you’re going to get there.

If you start getting caught up in the “how’s” rather than the actual doing you won’t be motivated.

You’ll see all the problems in front of you and you’ll feel like there’s no point beginning because you can’t see a way around all the potential problems that are out there.

If you think about this rationally this is crazy thinking.  If everyone thought like that about everything no-one would ever get anything done.

Focus on the result you want

If you focus on the first hurdle that might not even be there anyway you’re going to fall and maybe not get back up again.

If you focus on your goal, yes, you might still fall at the first hurdle but you’ll get back up again and keep going because you are so focused on achieving your goal that nothing will get in your way.

There is not one successful business person or successful person in any field who hasn’t failed or fallen at a hurdle.

The reason why they are successful is because they knew what they wanted and the carried on going until they got there.

The successful people’s motivation was having that goal that they wanted so badly, and going for it.

Desire to achieve your goal

If you have strong desire to achieve your goal then motivation isn’t a problem.  Strong desire comes from focusing on a goal that you really, truly want.

If you do that you will be motivated to do anything, nothing will be able to stand in your way.

It’s not possible to have an all encompassing burning desire to do lots of different things all at the same time.

An all encompassing desire and focus is exactly what it says it is, all encompassing.  With this kind of focus and desire you will be motivated beyond belief.

One of the keys to being motivated is to not get caught up in the day to day problems and distractions that come with trying to achieve anything worthwhile.

The key is to have and hold your focus on what you want, your goal, your target, the thing that you so badly want to achieve and to cultivate this passion.  That is the key to motivation.

If you don’t think you can do it then you won’t be able to do it.  This one thing could be holding you back from achieving what you want.

If you think of all the reasons why you can’t do something you’re never going to be motivated to actually do it.

So how do you develop the confidence to believe in yourself?

You need to look at how successful you already are.  It doesn’t have to be anything big.  Just think of all the things that you have succeeded at, anything from cooking a nice dinner to learning to drive.

You were successful at all those things.  Why not keep a record of all the things you’ve been successful at.  You could call it a Success Book.  This works wonders for some people.

Often when people start doing this they realize that they actually have quite successful lives and they get the confidence to go on and do bigger and better things.

It comes down to what you focus on.  If you focus on everything that’s good in your life and everything that you’ve done well you’ll start to do more things well and your life will get better and better.

If you focus on all the things that have gone badly in your life and all the things that have gone wrong things will get worse and keep going wrong for you.

You get more of what you focus on.

Gratitude

Be grateful for everything you already have.  The more you’re grateful, the more confident you will feel.

This is because you will realize that you have so much to be thankful for and you can only motivate yourself to achieve your goals if you’re feeling good about yourself in the first place.

Know you can do it

If you develop a knowing feeling that you can succeed then you will, and you’ll be incredibly motivated.

Knowing is almost more than just confidence.  Knowing is where you don’t just believe you will achieve something but you know it.

This is incredibly powerful because when your mind knows that you’re going to achieve something it will go out of it’s way to make sure you achieve that.

It will focus on achieving your goals and do everything it can to make sure you get there, just because you know you’re going to get it.

Your mind filters out anything that will stop you from getting to your goal and just focuses directly on making sure that you get there.  Remember your mind is incredibly powerful, so be careful what you know!

Confidence is a key attribute of people who are motivated and successful.  If you want to have motivation, then develop confidence.

Remember it’s your thoughts that are holding you back.  If your thoughts are rich your life will be too.

To achieve anything in life, you have to be motivated.  It doesn’t matter what it is that you want to achieve.

If you think about it you will realize that you need motivation to do anything.  If you want to set up a successful company of course you need to be motivated, but you also need to have motivation to do the simplest of tasks.

The alcoholic who goes out and buys a bottle of Vodka every day is extremely motivated to do that.  The person who goes out and eats a fast food meal every day is also motivated to do that.

We all have motivation to do certain things, the key is in channelling your motivation into the areas you need it.

Some people are very good at being motivated and productive for constructive tasks and others aren’t.  The main difference between these people is in their thoughts.  Here are some ways that motivated people use their thoughts to get things done.

They Set Goals

I’m sure you’ve had enough of hearing about goals from self-help books and the like so I won’t go into it too much, but people who get things done set themselves the goal of achieving what they set out to do in a certain time frame.

These people set short term goals and long term goals.  The long term goals are big reasons why they have to meet their short term goals.

For example someone’s long term goal might be to earn one million Dollars in 2 years time, and their short term goal might be to get 3 things done towards achieving that goal by the end of the week.

Goals give you focus and the more focused you are the more motivated you will be because you can see where you’re going more clearly.

They Challenge Themselves

Most motivated people will agree that life is boring without a challenge so they challenge themselves to achieve what they want.

Motivated people love setting themselves challenges and might even tell their friends and family about their challenge to motivate themselves even more.

By having other people knowing that you are setting out to achieve something it gives you more motivation because you often don’t want to not achieve what you said you’ll do.

They Set Rewards for Themselves

People who are motivated to get something done set rewards for themselves.  The rewards can be large or small.  Knowing they have a reward waiting for them when they achieve something can really act as a spring board for some people and they will go for their goals with a lot of motivation.

That’s just three tips for you to start motivating yourself like successful people do.

Without knowing where you want to go and having a plan of how you are going to get there without rewards for your effort at the end, you will never be motivated to do anything.

One of the biggest problems people have in trying to motivate themselves is the ability to put things off to the future and to look back at past failures.

Everyone will have had these feelings at one time or another and even the most successful people will have been tempted to put things off until the conditions are right.

Deep down we know that putting things off isn’t the best option but we still do it anyway because it’s the easy way out.

If we were focused on now, right this moment we would understand that the only time to get things done is now.  If you want to achieve something worthwhile you have to do it now in the present moment.  Only until you’ve understood this kind of thinking can you effectively plan for the future because you’ll then be making plans that you know you will carry out, not just procrastinating.

Don’t wait until the perfect time

It’s all too easy to wait until everything is perfect.  The truth is that the time is rarely perfect and you could be waiting a very long time for that perfect moment.

Get out of your comfort zone

Starting when it seems too early or when things don’t seem quite right might means you have to get a little bit uncomfortable.  No-one said achieving your goals was easy and there wouldn’t be painful times.

By just going for it and taking the first step now you’ll break through your comfort zone and what seemed uncomfortable before will get easier and easier.

The time is never right so why wait, just start now.  Before you know it, that difficult first step will be behind you and you’ll have momentum which will keep your motivation going.

Stop the excuses

You probably have a hundred reasons why you haven’t got started now and they are probably all coming to the front of your mind right now.  These excuses are part of why you haven’t got to where you want to be already.

Don’t listen to those excuses, don’t cultivate them in your mind, don’t give them importance, just do it now.

But I might fail

You might fail that’s very true.  But you might succeed too.  Are you scared to fail or scared to succeed, or both?

If you’re either one of those fears, or both, you can see that you’re probably at a place of no action and no motivation and there’s only one sure thing.  You won’t get to where you want to go.  You dreams will stay just that, dreams.

Everyone who has ever been successful has failed at something sometime in their lives.  Successful people will tell you that the key to success is failure.

If you fail enough times you will get there eventually.  If you never try because you’re too scared to fail you can only be sure of one thing and that is that you’ll never achieve what you want.

So stop putting things off and look to the present moment to get your motivation, and just do what you have to do right now.  Take the first step on that exciting journey to success.