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Even when employing the first two keys for motivating yourself, of detailing your vision and beginning to take action to realize it, you may occasionally feel frightened: especially when reaching your goals requires stretching yourself and encountering new territory. This is when the third key becomes critical. Don’t buy any excuses or limitations you impose on yourself. If you or others are hard on you, objectively think of these criticisms as positive feedback for your sustained growth. Do not internalize them allowing a false barrier to occur that will hold you back. The following habits will allow you to respond to, own, and address your fears.

1) Alternative Perspectives

Oftentimes, overcoming our fears leads to our greatest strengths. So, it is useful to reflect on what the opportunity or inspired action could be in the circumstances that are causing us anxiety. Think about the ways that you are conceptualizing the issue. In each case, examine them for truth and other possible ways of thinking about the experience. Are you anticipating or inflating problems? What would be a more useful, positive, and purposeful way to think about it? How can you make change work for you and direct yourself? Another way to address your fears is by taking a moment to own your anxieties and find the benefit or upside is a great way to keep on track. Identifying the value in what you are doing, even when you don’t want to do it, provides additional reasons to engage. It supports your decision to be great. Developing this type of honest contemplation also brings rewards of self-encouragement and self-compassion.

Once you have identified the things that will bring you closer to your dream, be sure to take action on them and get something done. To make your vision truly part of your life you have to build it step by step so it doesn’t remain just a magnificent elaborate blueprint.

The first key to motivating yourself is the clarity of purpose and certainty around exactly what you want to get done.

The second key is doing something about it.

1) Timetable it

Reverse engineer from the expansive vision you have generated to identify all the steps needed to manifest it. List each action that you must take along with a matching optimally desired outcome. Give your plan a schedule and follow it. By calendaring each identified action step you have committed time and space to getting something done. Since you are just using your best judgment to estimate the resources that you will need, you will have to adjust your schedule and deadlines to reflect any additional requirements. Embrace these necessary changes as part of the process. By making an appointment with yourself you are holding yourself accountable to work on creating your masterpiece each day.

Many times we can identify rewards that will keep us moving forward. This external outcome provides a useful carrot, but the ultimate reward is the completion of your goals. What you really want is the internal drive. When you get really clear on what you are going for, you naturally become motivated from within to take the necessary steps as well as less impacted by the ups and downs of the processes required to get there. In other words, know what you want.

One way to connect with this internal motivation is by setting aside time to get really comprehensive and shine the light on any fuzzy or cloudy areas in your aspirations. Some people do this by journaling or creating a vision board or mind map, some by talking it out, and some just spend time reflecting. Choose a method that works for you and bring clarity to your vision. Knowing exactly what you want and, conversely, precisely what you do not want makes the path for achievement much clearer and can make a big difference to your goal accomplishment.

1) Build Your Vision

What is the mental picture you hold for your future? Add as much detail to this visualization of your experiences five or ten years from now as you can. Take your time and create an audio, visual, or written record of all the details you reveal. Keep adding to it until nothing else comes to mind.

If you have trouble getting started, use cues from your daily experiences such as movies, magazines, or books that demonstrate the quality of life that inspires you. Imagine how it will feel to be there. Fill in what your relationships and community experience will be like. What qualities do they have? Outline your health and physical condition in this image. Include your daily experience – how you spend your time and have fun. What is your financial outlook? Describe your living environment. All these different areas are connected and provide you with a full panoramic view so that you know precisely what you want in your future life.

What is the distinction between ‘Doing your best’ and ‘Being your best’? The ‘Doing your best’ perspective suggests that we should go all out to squeeze more out of ourselves. This means continually attempting to give 100% in everything we do. But, there is a high risk of burn out if we do not equally give 100% to recharging our energy!

Is it really practical to ‘Do our best’ at everything, or even necessary? If we try to ‘do our best’ in every detail of what we do, we fall prey to perfectionism, which makes it really hard to bring something to completion. For example, when chopping vegetables to cook, some unevenness will not affect the flavor. In many cases, more is lost by going for perfection than settling for good enough.

Striving to ‘do your best’ also increases comparison with others and brings greater judgment of our own presentation.

What happens though, if ‘Doing your best’ is rephrased to ‘Being your best’? This shifts our perspective from the outcome to the level of engagement and good enough becomes perfect. Check out these three ways to shift from ‘doing your best’ to ‘being your best’.