100-ways-to-motivate-yourself
- By Steve Chandler, 2012
Motivation Requires Fire
- We know when someone like an artist talks about inner fire, but have we ever felt something so intense?
- My own life changed when I discovered that I could light a fire like that inside me.
- The funniest thing is that fire requires fire to light.
- This book has had great success since its first printing in 1996.
1. Get on your deathbed
- It is an exercise that consists of imagining yourself on your deathbed and expressing out loud conversations with people who come to visit you.
- It can be a very emotional experience.
- Afterwards, you have more clarity about the things that really matter to you.
- After the experience, I decided not to leave things undone or words unsaid.
- I was able to say thank you to my mother. I was able to write letters and poems to my father.
- Pretending there is no ending doesn't help. It's like pretending a game won't end. It is assuming that it will end that helps us do our best.
2. Stay hungry
- I was commissioned to spend a day with Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1976, when after his successful career as a bodybuilder he began to act in Hollywood.
- During the meal, he calmly answered me that his plan was to become the number-one box-office star in all of Hollywood.
- It didn't seem to me that he had the conditions for it and I asked him how he would do it.
- He answered me that in the same way that he had succeeded as a bodybuilder: "What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into that picture as if it were already true." I thought it was important to write it down.
"What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into that picture as if it were already true."
- Years later, I remember the moment when I heard that his second Terminator made him the highest-grossing star in Hollywood.
- See how staying hungry to live your vision keeps you motivated.