Picture Yourself Walking a Red Carpet Event or at an Awards Ceremony.

Welcome back to the final week of How to Motivate Yourself to Succeed!

Previously, in the first week, we spoke about how the outcome of your goals and dreams is greatly influenced by your motivation as much or even more so then your ability, in many cases. At this time, I would like to introduce another concept to you, which is Self-efficacy. What is self-efficacy?

Self-efficacy is the belief in your ability to accomplish a task. Research tells us that even when the factor of ability is controlled, self-efficacy has an impact in performance.

Self-efficacy is different than self-esteem/confidence. Self-esteem or confidence is how you feel about yourself overall. Whereas, self-efficacy is really about how you think about yourself in one particular area. A person can have low self-efficacy in a sport or particular school subject, but still have high self-esteem.

What does all this talk about Self-Efficacy really mean? 
Even if you’re not strong in one particular area, when having a strong belief in your ability to accomplish the task and improve, along with the commitment, then you can see positive results!

Therefore, you will be more likely to set goals, and accomplish these when self-efficacy is higher or essentially, when you believe in your ability to achieve that goal. Your belief here is the strongest factor! By shifting your belief to seeing yourself accomplishing what you set out to do, then you will move yourself naturally in that direction.

Keep in mind that stress/anxiety and high self-efficacy can’t co-exist together. So the key here is to reduce your stress level, so you will see a boost in self-efficacy. Therefore, you will be more likely to set goals, and accomplish these when self-efficacy is higher or in other words when you believe in your ability to achieve that goal. Your belief here is the strongest factor! By shifting your belief to seeing yourself accomplishing what you set out to do, then you will move yourself naturally in that direction.

So motivation and our beliefs have so much impact over the outcomes in our lives. This drives the action we take or not take as a direct result.

This brings us back to finishing up our discussion on motivational strategies. Here are the final three strategies that I will share with you at this time.

8- Check your self-limiting beliefs at the door!
- It’s a process that you will need to work through.
- Come up with ways to eliminate these self-limiting beliefs.
- Another approach, decide to do nothing about these self-limiting beliefs initially, and focus your energy on the steps towards achieving your goals.
- Then after you accomplish the goal/tasks/dream, re-evaluate it in terms of asking yourself:

1. Does that self-limiting belief really hold true?
2. Was that really just an excuse or something maybe that had to do with your former past self?

Evaluate your belief with someone you trust. Again, it’s essential to find someone like a good friend or a mentor who will be honest with you and only genuinely wants to see you succeed. Even better if this friend or mentor has a good sense of humor and can show you another perspective that may provide insight and allow you to see yourself in a way you have never seen before.

9- Welcome the transition and change that will follow! Embrace the journey.
- Use your Goal Setting Worksheet or something similar that gets you focused, committed, and feeling in control of your destiny/results.
- Remember goals typically occur in steps.

Realize this. Sometimes goals do change. And sometimes it’s not a straight perfect path to achieving goals or dreams. It’s best for us to recognize that setting goals are only half the battle. Then we can focus on really embracing the unknown/ambiguous situations, trusting our intuition, allowing ourselves to feel liberated, and finally letting go of the past. What do I mean by liberated? Well, feeling liberated from our own worst critic – ourselves.

In yoga, the instructors teach us this in our practice. We will hold a yoga position, which seems like an eternity sometimes, and then the instructor tells us to let it go and to release it – release the yoga position and release the thoughts that no longer serve us.

We learn to let go of the thoughts and the past that no longer serve us and that are holding us back. Even today I’m still recognizing that I’m not my younger version of myself and I don’t have to hold on to insecurities or self-limiting beliefs that no longer serve me. It’s a journey, a work in progress, and I’m embracing every step.

I have applied this thought process and self affirmations approach to life outside of yoga and have seen a huge difference. It literally has changed me for the better as a person. It’s so centering, inspiring and empowering!

10- Change your mind-set.
- Ask yourself, are your actions and behavior really in line with your thoughts?
- It’s all about creating that energy you need to get you where you want to go.

Sometimes we inadvertently send out mixed signals of what we desire along with actions/thoughts we allow ourselves to take or have, which could then end up in not seeing results. In these situations, we need to recognize this so we can then simply re-focus on our goals and desires – get clear on these first, then begin the process again. This lack of focus or allowing our thoughts to stop us from moving forward happens to all of us at some time, myself included.

What’s next after today?
- Work towards that goal and deadline, make the commitment.
- Periodically, check on your progress towards the goal. Are you on target with the due dates for each task related to your goal?
- Has anything changed? Recognize your development, besides the accomplishments.

Share with others what you have accomplished and allow yourself to feel that sense of satisfaction from achieving your goals. Try to begin to see steps that maybe did not go according to plan and mistakes as for what they really are - learning opportunities. In the end, you were able to continue on and overcame the obstacles and self-limiting beliefs that tried to intervene with your progress. Finally, celebrate because you did it!

What I want for all of you is to keep pursuing your goals and dreams. Maybe in the past you have been discouraged, or you have made excuses, or maybe you didn’t have the resources to get you there.

However, today is a different day. Today is the day you decide to commit to new approach to allow yourself to get where you once believed you couldn’t achieve! Believe in yourself – you can and will get there!