I write a lot about setting goals, living with a constant drive, creating habits that improve and support your life situation, trying to become better each day and aligning your life with your inner purpose.
This is the stuff I would call “positive” motivation. You push yourself towards something you want and desire and this powerful drag usually helps you to achieve everything you set out for.
But there is also the flip side to this kind of motivation. I would call it “negative” motivation. And you can use it in your favor too.
This kind of motivation is based on your personal standards. I basically means that you define for yourself rules you commit to and anything less than living by these standards is just pathetic to you!
Whenever you violate these standards you feel this immense guilt in your body, because you know that you did less than you were capable off.
It usually feels like you betrayed yourself.
When you set specific standards for yourself you will find out that the quality of these standards heavily determine the quality of your life.
Guess what, when you have no personal standard about your working ambition and you are just lazy sitting around watching TV, guess how this will influence your overall success in life?
When you don’t make a healthy diet an important standard for yourself, guess what, you will eat basically garbage (aka “food”) because it “tastes so good” and you don’t want to miss it. You will get fat, your body will become weak, your willpower fades into nothing and your mental functionality gets greatly reduced.
Guess how making daily exercise and sport a personal standard for you could improve your life? Do you think working your body could boost your energy levels? Do you think that a trained body would also support your mental activities?
Really think about this for a moment.
How about the decision to commit yourself FULLY to your day-job? Do you think somebody would see and feel the difference if you come up with that idea of really trying to make a difference at your workspace? Do you believe they would appreciate the fact that you try to come up with solutions for problems you weren’t really responsible for? Do you believe this kind of behavior would affect your career?
It all comes down to your personal standards in your life.
Set big, high-quality standards and you have a high quality life.
Set poor and short-term focused standards and you will feel the consequences.