The problem with goals is that even if they’re something you want with all your heart, your motivation can, and most frequently does, wane. Like a new log that is lit with fire, the flame is burning hot and bright at first. But all too soon, we have burning embers that slowly begin to die. What can you do to keep your fire burning hot? What can you do to stay motivated?

Let’s look at five ways you can keep your fire of motivation burning even when the going gets so tough that all you want to do is quit.

5 steps to stay motivated when you really want to quit

1. Visualize yourself succeeding

Too often, we stop ourselves from reaching our goals because we can’t quite picture ourselves achieving them. We feed ourselves self-defeating phrases like, “you’re never going to be successful, so why even try?” On the flip side, if you can actually see yourself doing whatever it is you want to do, your brain will automatically work toward it. In fact, some of the world’s top sportspersons use visualisation to help them do their absolute best in their individual sports. To do this yourself, find a quiet, comfortable place and sit with your eyes closed as you envision yourself not only achieving, but maybe even surpassing your goal. Engage all of your senses so you can feel, hear, taste, smell, and touch what true victory feels like. Do this every day for 5-10 minutes. The more your mind can “see” your goal as a reality, the higher the chances of it manifesting for you.

2. Walk the walk

There’s no way around it. If you want to reach your goals, you’re going to have to put in some work. The question is: are you doing this or are you just talking about it? For instance, if your goal is to lose weight, are you eating healthier foods or do you just talk about the fact that you should eat more salads and less fast food? If your goal is to get a promotion at work, are you going the extra mile to show that you deserve a higher-paying slot or are you just talking about it? The definition of walking the walk is “to actually do something rather than just talking about it, so that people can see you are really good at it.” Thus, living by this motto can help you stay motivated because you become known as a doer versus a dreamer.

3. Find a mentor who keeps you motivated

There are those who have already walked the path you wish to take. Find such people and ask them for their guidance and mentorship.They can handhold you on your journey and help you navigate challenges and pitfalls so that you don’t get discouraged when things don’t go your way.

4. Associate with the right individuals and groups

Motivation is contagious. When you associate with those who are themselves highly motivated and inspired, their enthusiasm rubs on to you. The opposite is also true: Those are who are mostly cynical or indifferent tend to dampen your enthusiasm and motivation. Never share your ideas and dreams with such people; if possible, stay away from them or at least minimise your association. Mark Twain said, “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

If you spend any time on social media, one way to keep yourself motivated to reach your goals is to follow people who motivate you to want to be your best. Let their words of inspiration continue to push you forward, even when you’d love nothing more that to just give up.

5. Make it enjoyable

It is fair to assume that you will spend considerable time and effort to reach your goals and achieve whatever it is that you have set your heart on. Imagine spending all that time feeling weary and dull. Obviously you can’t stay motivated and inspired if you find routine cumbersome or boring. Therefore it is imperative that whatever you do, you make it enjoyable. Find ways to make your work fun and exciting. Also ensure that you take frequent breaks (it boosts creativity) and avoid multitasking (enemy of productivity). Lastly, keep your work stress under control. Too much stress and anxiety tends to deteriorate your overall health and wellbeing, making all your efforts ultimately worthless and counter-productive.

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Whatever time you do practise, make these happiness habits a ritual. And then be ready to experience a beautiful transformation in life.

5 essential daily happiness habits in just 5 minutes

Minute 1: Just breathe

It’s important because: Breathing connects us in to these wonderful bodies of ours. It grounds us. It releases tension. It relaxes body and mind. It keeps us alive! As you inhale, try visualising breathing in peaceful energy; as you exhale, imagine breathing out love. Really feel it. [Also read Breathe in—Stress out]

Minute 2: Give thanks

It’s important because: We spend most of our lives in haste, mostly unaware of all the wonder and beauty around us. When we become grateful, the universe responds in kind and we only receive more gifts. Gratitude is an essential daily happiness practice. [Also read It’s time to thank…]

Minute 3: Visualise tomorrow

It’s important because: It’s so easy to get caught up in your head. Worrying about tomorrow, and often about things you have no control over. This exercise creates the positive intention for your next day, and tells your mind ‘all is well’. It’s especially beneficial if you find it difficult to switch off from whirling thoughts.

Minute 4: Let go

It’s important because: If we’re not spending our time worrying about tomorrow, then we are usually fretting about yesterday. All the things that went wrong, the people that annoyed us, the things we wished we’d done differently. Honestly, it does you no good and only distracts you from being happy right now. [Also read 4 powerful tools for letting go, moving on and releasing regrets]

Minute 5: Give love

It’s important because: So often, the person who most needs our love and kindness is the one we most easily forget: ourselves. Give yourself love every single day and you will notice a true difference in how you feel inside. Then comes the magical part: as within, so without – you’ll naturally start to experience more love from others too. And love and happiness go hand-in-hand.

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How silent prayer works

When we pray or meditate in silence, we will find that we establish a link with positive, healing forces, and feel a wonderful sense of relaxation. You establish a link with the intrinsic intelligence that flows through all life, which we call God and you even secrete hormones that make you live longer.

During silent prayer, the mind is filled with positive, beautiful thoughts which trigger beneficial hormones in the body. In silence, you find the treasures of hope, faith and optimism. Without these, no illness can be cured. If you could visualise your own wellbeing during your moments of silence, you will be well on your way towards becoming healthy and energetic. Experts call this “creative imaging” and it is one of the most underrated techniques in modern healthcare.

Silent prayer in practice

Author and retired surgeon Dr. Bernie Siegel encourages his patients to mull over the question: why do I need this disease? Once the patient recognises the dynamics of his own life situation, he can enter readily into the healing process, making it quicker and more effective.

Dr. Gerald Epstein, who passed away last year, was another physician who used “mental imaging” in the healing process rather effectively. Dr Epstein would prescribe exercises in imagery for his patients. For example, a patient with immunity disorder was asked to focus on white knights—which could symbolise our white blood cells—guarding a fortress and pushing out intruders and hostile warriors.

Are you throwing away the pebbles?

The practice of silence can enrich your life with a sense of the divine presence. I often narrate the story of the man who stood alone on the sea-shore, gazing absentmindedly at the pebbles strewn all around. In a listless and dull frame of mind, he began to pick up the pebbles one by one and threw them into the water. When all the pebbles had been tossed away and the last one was in his hand, he took a good look at it and realised with horror that it was a priceless pearl!

He had thrown away scores of pearls without even realising their value.

Each hour, each minute of the day is a pearl of priceless value. The time that you spend in silence is especially valuable for it can lead you to physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

Enter the haven of silence

The constant stress and agitation of modern life creates an emotionally polluted environment. People often tell me that they are so stressed and tense that they long to run away from it all, fly to a quiet and beautiful place far away. Just as people who live in the cities turn to parks, woods, and green zones to refresh themselves, you too must make it a habit to enter the haven of silence regularly.

Communing with God—cultivating the presence of the divine intelligence in the still depths of silence—will not only refresh and rejuvenate you but also unleash the intrinsic healing powers of your body. The practice of silence can be like your personal jet which will enable you to reach those sublime spaces of your own soul!

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The golden rule they forget to highlight

The most important secret to making all of this work is: Consistency. No matter what the obstacle, it takes complete dedication and commitment to making visualisation work for you. So after you write the goal, be absolutely sure to read it every night, until the goal is achieved. It is imperative that you do not stop mid way; I cannot emphasise this enough. Without you following through every single day, the universe will not conspire to make it happen.

My first experience with visualisation

I experienced the power of visualisation firsthand, when I was working as a young executive in a large multinational company. My son who was very young at the time, was admitted to the hospital for a week as a result of some infection. There he watched a programme on TV, featuring Disneyland and made me promise him that we would go to Orlando for the summer vacations. With my meagre salary at that time, it would have been impossible for me to fulfil his dream. But I promised him and visualised every night that I am with my son in Disneyland. A few months later, out of the blue, my boss walked up to me and said I was to be deputed to USA for a while—and could take my family with me. Suddenly, my dream became a reality. That was my first brush with visualisation.

Today, I take this exercise many steps further by making the audience in my show take some random decisions on the stage. Using visualisation, I predict who will come on the stage and the exact decisions they will make. It leaves the audience spellbound to witness visualisation materialise, right in front of their eyes.

Using visualisation for weight loss

Let us take a simple example and say we want to lose 10kg in the next two months. We write that down as a goal and keep it next to our pillow. Chances are we will read it every night for a couple of nights, stand on a weighing scale, and when we don’t see any real change, we will quit—that’s exactly the mistake that leads to the failure of the exercise.

Now let’s assume a second scenario. You write down your goal to lose weight and you read it every single night—and do not stop reading it for at least a week. What happens is, over the week you slowly began to internalise that goal. You slowly begin to eat better and exercise. Soon you see the result of your effort. All this backed by the positive reminder every night that you are going to lose weight.

And voila, in time, your visualisation helps you lose weight.

Visualisation for professional growth

Visualisation can be used for anything, from the pettiest to the most lofty goal. Want your income to increase or to receive a promotion at your workplace? Write out the goal and read it every day. Internalise it and slowly you begin to work harder and more efficiently, read more about your industry, reach out to influencers to learn from their experiences and so on. And in time, you begin to see the growth you want in the world around you.

Thought into words and words into actions leads to results

So after a show, when I tell people this, they usually walk away dejected. Took me a while to realise why. In the world where everything happens in the flick of a button, we are hoping visualisation would also work that way. Change, however, takes time. You have to keep visualizing without losing faith but you also have to work towards your goal.

Also, remember to set realistic timelines. But, most importantly don’t quit half way. It is a process and it will work for you, like it has for the millions who have benefited from it over the generations.

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There is a joke about a man who dreamed day and night about winning the lottery. At first he used to pray to God but it didn’t work. Then he learned about the law of attraction and he started visualising, affirming and imagining—so much that eventually the Angels felt sorry for him and approached the almighty with a request: “Lord, please let this man win the lottery, he’s doing our head in with his non-stop praying, we can’t take it anymore.” “And you think I don’t want to?” replied God, “He’s driving me crazy with all his affirmations—but someone please tell him that to win, he first needs to buy a lottery ticket!”

This is one of the many ways the law of attraction [LoA] was misconstrued. It painted the universe as a giant vending machine that will send you whatever you desire; all you need to do is insert the appropriate ‘tokens’ in the form of gratitude, affirmations and visualisations. Millions of people fell for this trap and thought that they had finally found the magic wand that will alleviate all their problems. But they also sensed that it seemed too good to be true. Not unexpectedly, disillusionment and cynicism followed.

If you google the phrase today, you will find a number of articles and posts rubbishing it as some unscientific, unverifiable mumbo jumbo. But there are still thousands who believe in the phenomenon, claiming that it has changed their lives for the better. So what exactly is the truth behind LoA? Is it really a big hoax or has it simply been misunderstood?

In this month’s cover story I have tried to answer this question. While writing it, I have resisted the temptation of glorifying LoA. Instead, what I present is the most plausible explanation of why and how it actually works in real life. I have learnt that experience triumphs over theory. My own experience supports the key premise of LoA: our thoughts create our reality. But, as you will observe when you read this month’s story, I don’t depend on some mystical explanation to build my case; nor do I use proletarian science. I prefer simple logic—and that is why I think the paradigm I offer is watertight. I have tried to take both the sceptics and the believers along with me—especially while introducing the missing link, without which LoA is unusable. I hope I have succeeded in my attempt.

I now invite you to read the story and reflect upon it; then write back to me with your views—even if they are critical. I also urge you to share your experiences with the law of attraction, if any.

Read the full story here.

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