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Today's daily dose: Can you motivate a lazy person?        
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In my honest opinion, you cannot motivate someone who doesn't want to be motivated. That includes those people we term "lazy". So, the quick answer to my own question is NO.

Now before you get all grumpy with me, consider this. I am like the energizer bunny - on the go ALL THE TIME. Compared to me, most people would appear lazy. So it is important to check your own levels of activity and decide whether or not you need to slow down a little or whether you need to advise said "lazy" person they really should pull their weight just a little bit more.

Take a good look at what you are doing, this is especially true for households. Are you constantly picking up after your younger people? Then don't. If they can't be bothered to put their dirty clothes into the laundry, then that's their hard luck when they run out of clothes.

Advise the people you share a house with (except very little people of course) they are to share in duties and if they are not done then there will be ramifications.

Take dinners and dishes as a good example. If your household consists of adults and teenage children, then there is nothing stopping you dividing up the days of the week with everyone taking their turn at cooking. Similarly those who are cooking, don't get to do dishes. If this breaks down, then no-one gets to eat.

With very little people, you can give them small tasks to do and they can "help" you prepare dinner. If you also stand a chair in front of the sink, they can be supervised whilst washing the dishes.

There are all sorts of ways you can get people to share the workload, but it generally has to come from them. Just like you can lead a horse to water, it is entirely up to the horse whether he/she takes a drink or not. So it is with motivation. If they don't want to be motivated - even when they know there will be serious ramifications if they don't do something, then that's up to them.

Take diet and exercise as a very good example. We all know that if we eat and eat and eat and take no form of exercise, we will end up like that gentleman who died of heart failure weighing half a tonne last week.

But I could go on and on and on....but that's the energizer bunny in me. So I shall leave you with one final thought:

Beware the self reference criteria.

We all have different things that motivate us. And what motivates us today may not motivate us tomorrow.


With many thoughts
Elle

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Today's daily dose: Growth Curves        
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When you begin something new - anything where you are unsure, you start off at the bottom of the scale. If you imagine a graph you are on the bottom left hand point - zero knowledge, zero ability. And then as you start to learn whatever it is, you start to climb the growth scale. Now depending on how fast you pick up new things, and how much effort you are willing to put into your new venture will depend on the shape of the growth curve. What you will find happens with all things, is you may find yourself plateauing out and you may even feel like you are going backwards at some point. But that is normal. Every time you go back to that particular "problem" or learning, you start again from a much higher starting point on the scale.

And as you know by now, everything impacts on everything else. So it gets easier to learn new things, because your mind is ready for the next set of challenges. Just as your muscles need variety, so does your mind. So stretch yourself a little today - who knows how far your growth will go if you don't try.

With many thoughts
Elle

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Today's blog post: Motivate me to exercise: Mix it up a little
This morning a couple of friends and I did something I've never done before, and believe me I am "suffering" as a result. Suffering in a good way though, because I used muscles that haven't been used in quite that way before. Read more at -
http://www.motivateme.info/motivate-me-to-exercise/2008/10/11/motivate-me-to-exercise-mix-it-up-a-little.html

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Today's daily dose: Friends and acquaintances
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There is yet another aspect of cleaning the clutter we haven't considered yet - those people we see on a regular or semi-regular basis. Those people we call friends and acquaintances. We won't look at "families" and other people we live with at this point, just those people with whom we associate occasionally.

What do you talk about when you get together? Is it positive, negative or you can't remember what the conversation was about because it was a whole load of bland?

Remember what we said about everything impacting on everything else, and the second major point - what goes into your mind you will a) focus on and b) will find it coming out of your mouth at some point in the future. Conversations may seem harmless, but the subtle tones and words used can make a huge difference to how much you can and do achieve.

Say for instance you have a goal to exercise more in a bid to get fit and maybe lose a bit of weight. What would your friends do if they heard that statement? Would they buy you the biggest piece of cake, with the words like - well you tried that before, so just eat already, or would they strap on their shoes and go with you?

We all need friends like - if you ever get stuck in a Mexican jail I'll come and bail you out...type of friends. We also need friends who can buoy us up when times are bad, and friends who are great listeners - but these are not (or shouldn't be) whinge sessions - despite the economic woes at the moment. And you need to be the same for your friends too.

Next time you get together, listen to what is being said and who is saying it. Then you have to make a decision - are these helping you to achieve your goals or not? And if they're not, well as hard as it is for me to say this, but maybe you need to limit your association with these kinds of people.

As always - just a thought or two.

With many thoughts
Elle

MotivateMe!
Providing Strategies to Overcome the Procrastination Habit with a Daily Dose of Motivational Medicine
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In This Issue:
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* Today's daily dose: 8th October 2008
* Latest Blog Post: Intense, insane workloads
* Share this e-zine
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Today's daily dose: Does visualisation really work?
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One thing for sure - if you can "see" it in your minds eye, you are more likely to achieve it. That's almost a given. We know it, we do it - but usually on an ad-hoc basis.

And one of the reasons is simple - life and other people's issues get in the way of what you want to see, be and achieve.

We say we want something - we write out affirmations - "I am so happy and grateful now that I have ....." and then we carry on living our lives as we have always done. Then we wonder why things don't change. One of the reasons is because of the negative chatter that runs through our minds like static on a radio. "this stuff doesn't really work" "I don't deserve it" or whatever is your personal negative chatter. But those people who really know what they want, will go out of their way to focus on the end result, and every minute of every day they are finding ways to ensure they reach it. Case in point - recently of course - the Olympics. These athletes have spent the last 4 years (and sometimes longer) preparing for their shot at gold. Their lives revolved around this particular goal. Every thing they ate and drank. Every training session they undertook - was in preparation for this one shot at gold. Sure - lots of people didn't get to the gold medal position on the podium - but shooting for the moon and reaching the stars is not a bad effort if you think about it.

Are your dreams "real"? Can you truly visualise these things coming to you? If you can you stand far more chance of these things coming to you than if your vision for what you want is a little blurred around the edges.

Now you may or may not have seen "the secret" - remember the - visualise it and it will come, of course they missed one rather large component - remember you still have to do something.

For instance, Olympic athletes become Olympic athletes because they wanted it, and they worked hard at it. It was their reason for being, their entire focus for at least 4 years of their lives. They still had to turn up to every training session, and more importantly they had to go to Beijing and compete with every one else who had laser focus on becoming the gold medallist.

So yes visualisation does work, when you work at it.

Live your life in glorious technicolor detail - but don't forget to act on those "dreams" otherwise that's all they will ever be.


With many thoughts
Elle

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Latest Blog Post: Intense, insane workloads
http://www.motivateme.info/through-the-barrier/2008/10/8/intense-workloads.html
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