Five Unusual Ways to Motivate Yourself (Guest Blog)

Yanik Silver is mentor of mine not on fitness, but on informational marketing on the internet. I'd like to share a post from his blog that you can apply to help you reach and attain your fitness goals.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re stuck in a rut or simply not hitting your goals fast enough here are 5 unusual and slightly unorthodox things I do to motivate myself.

Unusual Motivator #1 - Go Public

I like the pressure the happens when you tell people, who’s opinion you care about, what you want to get done. For instance, maybe your sister’s opinion of you really matters to you. You’d feel incredibly stupid if you told her something and then you let her down. Perfect. That’s exactly who you want to share your next idea with and make them hold you to the completion. But don’t tell someone who is a negative person - they’ll only try to talk you out of anything you’ve got planned or rain on your parade.

Unusual Motivator #2 - Make a bet - Or even better make an embarrassing bet

Every notice how you’ll do more to win a silly bet than you would in other situations? You bet!
Why not make a silly and possibly embarrassing bet (back to #1) with a friend of yours for something you want to get done. Maybe it’s taking off 10 lbs. Both of you agree that you’ll lose 10 lbs within 6 weeks or the person who doesn’t needs to strut around town in the lime-green, thong bathing suit Borat wore (pics below). Get creative and make sure you really don’t want to be the loser of the bet.

Unusual Motivator #3 - Create a Big Enough Reason Why

If you have a big enough reason to get something done there’s almost no way you can fail. It’s the people with the biggest reasons (or the most reasons) who seem to pull through anytime the deck is stacked against them. My friend, Frank McKinney, recently completed the grueling Badwater Ultra Marathon. It’s a 135-mile run in Death Valley where the temperature frequently tops 100 degrees. Frank does it to raise funds for his Caring House Foundation Project and that’s his ‘why’. For my family and other immigrant families the biggest reason why was simply because there wasn’t really another alternative. My Father came over from Russia with $256 in his pocket for me, my Mom and her Mom. He barely spoke English but he still managed to build a nice 7-figure business. What’s your reason why and it’s got to be bigger than simply “I want to be rich”?

Unusual Motivator #4 - Make a must-hit deadline

I like this one a lot. The rule is the more unbreakable the deadline - the greater the chance you’ll get your task done. Ever notice how the day before you leave for your vacation you miraculously get everything completed? That’s right - you’ve got a deadline (and a reason why). I’ve seen this work time and time again. Set your deadline. Sometimes it takes a big leap of faith but events, people, situations conspire will conspire to make sure you get your deadline met once you really make it a permanent deadline.

Quick example is when I sold my very first information product to doctors. I ran an ad and got 10 leads and 1 doc bought on the deadline from the sales letter (lesson in itself about deadlines for customers). So after peeling myself off the ceiling from being so excited someone actually bought - I realized I had no product ready. I wrote the doctor back and told him we would not charge his card since we were “republishing” the material and it would be ready in 30 days. Boom! A deadline! You can bet I worked my butt off til 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning many of those 30 days after my regular job to get this manual out there and done.

Unusual Motivator #5 - Document it and profit from it

Here’s one you might not hear anywhere else. One of my favorite motivators for getting off my butt is knowing I can document a certain process and others might be interested in it. That can take many different forms - anything from you having to have blogging material to actually turning what you do into some sort of information marketing product for sale.

==============

Val here talking to you...you may look at that last motivator and question how it applies to your fitness? Well, just by documenting how many times you have gone to the gym, your workouts, a food journal, will shed some light weather or not your working your program. Put an X on the days your compliant and put an O for the days your not. You want more X's of course. Also your body and health will profit from it!

-VF