100 Ways to Motivate Yourself : Change Your Life Forever
1. The first chapter, Get on Your Deathbed, certainly captures the reader's attention. What is your meaning?
This was an experience I had with my great consultant and coach Devers Branden, wife of author Nathaniel Branden, who took me through an exercise where I lay on my own imaginary death bed and said goodbye to everyone in my life one at a time. It was powerfully emotional, and it illustrated how shallow and petty life can become when we put everything off till tomorrow. The Samurai call this dying before you go into battle. Death gives us a great surge of life. It is not to be feared.
2. People do tend to make their lives chaotic. What price do they pay?
They swirl in the illusion of busyness, when it's really a combination of laziness and fear. The most productive lives are bold and simple; they are lives in which it is possible to live by one's own highest priorities and not by trying to please others. Most people waste their lives trying to 'win people over' never realizing that the chaos and misery created by that vain pursuit will end in the chaos you refer to.
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3. What is the master key? Truth. Truth is on your side, and as the poet Keats said 'Truth is beauty.' But dysfunctional people are dysfunctional precisely because they lie to themselves. They tell themselves negative things that just aren't true. I wrote the 17 Lies book...to call people out on that. That book was based on years of listening to my clients lies about how helpless they were in the face of circumstance and other people. There are 17 lies that people tell themselves about how difficult life is, and once those lies are identified and dismantled, people achieve whatever they choose to achieve. |
4. Where do people fail most often when they try to motivate themselves?
They fail the moment they focus on winning other people's appreciation. Right in that moment, they surrender all hope of a beautiful, graceful, powerful life. Ironically, when you focus on yourself, and your own highest purpose (in alignment with spirit and grace) you can now serve. . .really serve. . .like never before.
5. Does it matter who you spend time with?
I prefer the company of people who inspire me. When I spend a lot of time with people who complain about life, it is harder to hold focus on my own higher purpose.
6. How does motivation and brain chemistry work together?
A brain inspired with a compelling vision is operating in bicameral and whole-brain harmony, firing on all cylinders so to speak. A brain that is fraught with worry and fear is only operating in a partial capacity. The brain is like a bio-computer. It feeds on vision, enthusiasm, action and oxygen. A person who is full of fear and worry will shut down. And when you are shut down, problems tend to grow. Problems don't age well.
7. What does television do to a person's life?
It depends on how it is used. When used wisely for carefully-selected entertainment and information, it is wonderful. When it's used mindlessly, as a way to tune out of life for long periods of time, it is like electronic heroin. It is a way to avoid life. It gives you the feeling you are 'engaged' in something, but it is false and unfulfilling engagement and leaves the viewer feeling he or she has wasted life.
8. How does someone get their brain to play?
Goals and measurements! They are the most fun ways to introduce play into the workplace. Most people are intimidated by numbers, measurements, milestones and keeping score. But if you really get into it, it's fun and it introduces the game element. Watch two couples playing tennis on two different courts. One couple, the one keeping score, is having fun and moving with great energy and excitement. The other couple, the one just volleying, is getting less exercise, having less fun and spending most of the time cursing and chasing those annoying balls that get away.
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9. Motivating oneself can be fun, right? That's the hidden secret, yes. Most people imagine that it's a real chore. So they don't practice it. And by not practicing it, it gets less and less fun to do. It's soon a negative feedback loop you are in. That's why I wanted to go through all the inspiring people I'd ever worked with and learned from and distill the 100 ways that work best for me. I also had a good subject to work with. There was a long period in my own life wherein I was the least motivated person I ever knew. My road out of those woods is what my books are about. If the methods work for me, they can work for ANYBODY. My experience with my clients proves that to be true. |
10. Is there anything else that you would like to share with readers of this website?
Yes I would. If readers have an interest in this subject and would like a CD that goes into it more deeply, I will be happy to send it to them. Just go to my own website at www.stevechandler.com and ask for the CD and I'll send it out at no charge. Why do I do this? Because I found out long ago that I cannot give anything away without enjoying life more. And every time I share these concepts and thinking methods with others life gets better in that moment.