You can download a ZIP version here.
Table of Contents:
Warm up
Review of key ideas from the last issue
Why we lose motivation
What a background you have!
Switch classes
"$10,000 solution"
Motivation notebook
My Future History
Remember Roger Banister?
Review of key ideas
From the Publisher
Warm up
Well, hello, hello, my friend! It's good to be with you
again!
I hope you have begun to enjoy a life of strong positive
motivation every day!
By now you have learned the power of taking charge of
developing your own mental habits, starting with the habit of
reinforcing your motivation EVERY DAY in the early morning
hours. The most effective time of day? Within a few minutes
after you get out of bed, before your mind has time to focus
on any negative thoughts out of a bad habit.
This is the fastest way to get permanent high motivation.
Waking in the morning will have its temporary feeling of a
fog - which comes from the chemicals left in your blood from
sleeping.
But within a few minutes, if you are in good health and have
had adequate sleep, you should be feeling the joy of life
again, eager to start your day.
If this does not happen to you, you may be missing something.
Don't blame it on Life. Instead start looking for a better
way to start your days.
Review of last issue
Let's review some of the key ideas we have discussed in the
last issue.
In the morning, after you are physically dressed, take a few
moments to 'dress up your body and mind' too. Start with
straightening your spine. Lift your shoulders and your chin
up! Take a nice deep breath and get that chest up high!
You will see that how we feel about ourselves first
determines our attitude towards others. When you have a
better attitude about yourself and others, success will come
more easily.
As we seek our goals, it is helpful to remember the Simplest
Formula for Success, which is:
Follow Winners, Avoid Losers!
That applies to our thoughts also. Follow winning and
positive thoughts -- and avoid losing and negative thoughts.
Repeat to yourself every day:
I win every day!
It's not over...till I get what I want!
We must focus at the start of each day on getting into a
highly resourceFULL mental state, because those of us who are
in more resourceFULL state:
THINK BETTER, ...ACT BETTER, ...FEEL BETTER.
Whenever you want to upgrade your mood, whenever you want to
charge yourself up, remember the trigger phrase and say to
yourself
I remember the time when ....
I'm reexperiencing those wonderful feelings RIGHT NOW!
I'm turning myself ON!
Make that your 'trigger' to bring your body and your mind up
to that highly resourceFULL state.
The door to your cage is open. All you have to do is walk out....if you dare.
- George Lucas
Why we lose motivation
If motivation is such a wonderful thing, and is so important,
why don't we stay motivated once we get there?
Wouldn't it be nice if we could get ourselves up and be able
to STAY up permanently?
Well, the good news is -- we can !
But in order to do so, we need to examine why we have lost
motivation before. We need to learn what we have to be on
guard against to protect our highly motivated state.
The single biggest enemy of high motivation is the negative
environment we all live in.
Studies have shown that we are exposed to about 140,000
personal negative messages directed at us by the time we
leave high school. And during all that time, if we are
average, we have received less than 20,000 personal positive
messages.
Is it any wonder why we may have lacked high self esteem in
high school?
Another major cause of our loss of motivation is lack of
education. And I don't mean just the formal education we
experience in schools. I mean the total amount of knowledge
we acquire and use about the world around us and ourselves.
If you lack sufficient education, you are trying to make
things work without knowing how! That is bound to produce
mistakes and unpleasant results.
Let me ask you an insightful question.
Imagine that you could turn the clock back on your body, to a
time when your body was younger, and you could pick just how
far back you'd like to go. BUT -- all that you have learned
about the world and yourself since then would also be lost.
Would you make the change?
Answer that question right now, for yourself.
Unfortunately I can't hear your answer.
So far, 98 percent of the people whom I have asked this
question, have responded with a strong: NO! They would not
make the switch!
What powerful and important lesson is this telling us? We
cherish the hard lessons we have learned about ourselves,
don't we?
We don't want to have to go back and reexperience the pain of
learning those lessons again!
So -- if you are still experiencing more pain and grief in
life than you would like, your lesson is clear: pay attention
to what you are learning now. Pay attention to what works and
doesn't work, so you don't have to experience any more pain
than necessary.
Remember: Follow winning thoughts, avoid losing thoughts.
Focus your attention on three important goals:
Goal No. 1 - instead of complaining about the world around
you, focus instead on getting No. 1's act together better!
That's YOU.
As an important part of that, make sure you learn how to
permanently motivate yourself! Don't depend on events outside
of you to provide the happiness in your life. That's your
responsibility.
And goal No. 2 is this: become a Giver and give up being a
Taker. Give to the world around you. Be a source of joy in
other people's lives and you will find that they appreciate
you more, and will gladly help you in return.
And goal No. 3 focuses on your relationships. You've got to
make sure that you have people in your life who will
encourage you to grow.
If you find yourself in relationships that are NOT AFFIRMING
YOU - change the relationship or get rid of it.
Life is too precious to spend with those who are still takers
or controllers and who cannot give in return.
People who can't see it for themselves can't see it for you!
My friend, you are just too wonderful to waste!
"You tend to become like the people and ideas you hang around with."
- Victory Crayne
Let's hang around together in these pages on your screen --
and have a great time on our journey through life.
A short story
Let me tell you a short story.
I remember when my second father died of cancer. Just before
his death, I was talking to him by his bedside. He had been a
"man's man", competing in the business world to the exclusion
of his own home life. He thought that to bring a paycheck
home was all he needed to do to prove that he loved his
family. The words "I love you" never came out of his lips in
twenty years.
And of course, he never volunteered a hug. Not even to his
children. He would accept yours but he wouldn't start a hug.
I asked him, on his deathbed, if he could change anything he
had done in his life, and to live a different kind of life,
what would he change.
He replied, his voice very raspy, since he had throat cancer,
"I would spend less time on work and more time on my family.
They are what life is really all about. Not business or work.
"I can't take my money with me. I can't take our house with
me. I'll take only my memories with me. I did not create
enough memories of my family -- and those I've loved and
enjoyed."
Since he looked thirsty from so much talking, I held a straw
and a glass of water to his lips. He took a long sip and
continued: "I wish I had spent more time with Mom and you.
There never seemed enough time."
He could not get out of bed to give me a hug, nor lift his
arms to embrace me. So he squeezed my hand and said, as best
the could through his dry and parched lips, "You know -- I
love you!".
I have to admit -- my vision got a little blurry right then.
You see, my father had let his life get out of balance.
Thank God he finally figured out what life is all about!
In a similar way, if you fail to maintain the other important
aspects of your life, like your health, your body weight,
your level of exercise, your use of alcohol or smoking, how
much affection you share with your family, and how much time
you spend just playing -- you will find it very hard to be
highly motivated indeed.
I hope you do not let that happen to you.
It is important to you to take good care of yourself. Life is
about sharing and growing ...and not about focusing on pain
and troubles ...and work.
We've all read that millions of people are dying because of
what they are eating. Millions more people are dying because
of what's eating them!
What a background you have!
Next time you're feeling rather unimportant, remember that it
took two people, your parents, to get you here. Each of your
parents had two parents, so back then there were four people
whose pairing off and sharing love contributed to your
existence.
You are the product of eight great-grandparents, 16
great-great-grandparents, and so forth. Keep on multiplying
the number by two. If you figure an average of about 25 years
between each generation, you'll discover something amazing!
A scant 500 years ago, back in the time of Christopher
Columbus, there were 1,048,000 people on this planet
beginning the loving production of you.
You are a million-product person! Their hopes and love are in
you!
Switch classes
I now ask you an interesting question.
Think for a moment of the most important course you ever had
in kindergarten through the high school, and even college.
Which course was the most valuable to you?
Now image that you had 'mind wipe' and all knowledge in that
course was erased totally from your mind. You can't remember
a darn thing about it!
And in it's place was put mastery of how to motivate yourself
by the best techniques, every day of your life.
Imagine how useful that would be when you were depressed, or
bored, or were facing a difficult task, or you wished you had
more courage to tackle a big goal.
Here's the question: Would you make the switch and gain the
knowledge?
If you are like nearly everybody I have presented this
question to, you will answer: yes!
If so, it means that you have yet to take the single most
important course of your life!
That's why we are here right now, sharing time together.
Learning the best techniques for motivating yourself is very
important to everyone. As a matter of fact, it is more
important than any other course you have ever taken.
Things seem hard only because of our ignorance. At one time,
walking was hard for us to do until we learned how. Now we
have mastered it and think it is easy.
Once we try a lot of things and learn a lot of things, we
will be able to do ANYTHING we have chosen to do. And it
won't be hard at all! We will enjoy the ride to success!
Things only seem hard because of our ignorance. The trick
then is to not complain but to focus on fixing our ignorance!
So don't stumble around with trial and error methods of
learning anymore.
And I'm not talking about a momentary 'hype up' either. I am
talking about motivating yourself every day. I'm talking
about 'permanent motivation'.
Here is an example of 'temporary' motivation.
$10,000 solution to any problem
When we encounter something that appears very hard to do,
what we really face is the problem of figuring out how to do
it. That's what makes it appear so very difficult. But once
we believe we have a method of achieving that goal, it
becomes noticeably easier.
Now, I want you to pick a problem you are facing right now.
Something very difficult.
Maybe it's in your career.
Maybe it's in your personal life.
Maybe it's about money.
Maybe it's about finding someone to love.
Maybe it's overcoming procrastination.
Maybe it's just a goal you want really bad and it seems so big.
Now, in your imagination, I want you to picture this
following scenario as if it were REALLY HAPPENING EXACTLY as
I describe it, right now.
I come up to you and notice you have a very long face. I say
to you "My good friend, you look so worried. What's
bothering you?"
And you reply with something like "Oh, business is lousy. I
don't have enough sales [or money]! I've tried everything,
but I just can't figure out how to get more sales!"
Then I look you straight in the eye and say:
"As you know, my friend, I am a multi-millionaire. And I hate
to see you suffer so much. I am going to make you an offer
you can't refuse!"
I open my briefcase right here and pull out a nice large
stack of $100 bills, with the bank wrapper still on it that
says "$10,000" and I say: "Ben Franklin looks real sweet on
the front of a stack of $100 bills doesn't he? 100 of them in
all!
"I will give you this $10,000 in cash...
"...IF you come up with 5 strong ways to solve your problem.
The only condition is - you have to create those solutions in
the NEXT 5 minutes!
"Furthermore, I will HELP you in coming up with solutions!
"If you don't take my offer, you are stuck with your problem.
"Now, you have only 5 seconds to say YES to this offer. Any
other word out of your mouth will be interpreted as a NO.
"Starting now! What's your answer? YES or NO?
5..4..3...2...1 !"
Now, what would you answer?
I bet it would be YES.
Would we, working together, come up with 5 great solutions?
You betcha!
We would because we are strongly motivated to create the
options you need.
We are motivated to put our minds in full gear, quickly, to
do nothing else but create options -- in order to get that
prize of $10,000 cash in less than five minutes!
We would probably come up with not only 5 great solutions,
but 10 great solutions. And maybe another 10 or more of
lesser solutions.
Now - what is the lesson to be learned from this exercise?
"There is no limit to what our minds could do if we are properly motivated!"
- Victory Crayne
We get 'stuck' in our problems, from time to time, for many
reasons, but the biggest reason is lack of motivation.
When we are UNmotivated, we tend to 'see a problem in every
solution', instead of taking the attitude of winners and 'see
a solution for every problem'.
Now let me ask you - would solving your current problems
bring more than $10,000 in value to you? If so, you have your
reward waiting for you, right now.
Think positive and creative and you can earn that $10,000.
Probably earn even more! Maybe even $1 million. After all:
"The only thing between you and your goals is the quality of your beliefs. Indeed, the only thing between you and your first million dollars is the quality of your beliefs."
- Victory Crayne
When you get into those quality thoughts, and into your
resourceFULL state, you create options and solve problems at
your very best.
You excel! Your intelligence is at its highest, as well as
your intuition.
That state of resourceFULLness will be your ticket to
achieving your highest dreams -- whatever they are.
You need to be that highly motivated in order to outperform
your prior abilities. Enlightened people see the value of
deliberately doing whatever is necessary to get highly
motivated. And that includes giving up old beliefs that are
self-limiting.
"You can do anything you want to, if you just give up your Self Limiting Beliefs!"
- Victory Crayne
"Most of us have far more strength and energy that we normally use or believe we have. It's a scientific fact that most of us have about twice the energy and stamina we think we have."
- Lawrence Galton
Motivation Notebook
That brings up another powerful tool for developing your own
permanent motivation. As many champions have done, I suggest
you create your own 'Motivation Notebook'.
You may wish to use a 3 ring binder or a collection of files
on your computer.
The key is to have one place where you can put your inspiring
thoughts and where you can go whenever you wish to
re-motivate yourself. So that every time you feel you need a
little lift, open your Motivational Notebook and read how you
solved the problem before.
Write in it any ideas you get that are inspirational for you.
You may wish to add some clippings from magazines or
newspapers.
This is also a good place to put your list of personal
affirmations.
Every time I show you a 'tool' you can use for motivating
yourself, place what you've learned in your Motivational
Notebook. That helps cement the ideas into your mind. Don't
trust to your memory alone.
You may also want to put your growing list of Goals in your
notebook.
Every time you feel a motivational problem you have had
before, go to your private Motivational Notebook and see how
you solved it before. See what inspiring thoughts you enjoyed
on that subject.
You see, repeated exposure to inspiring thoughts is needed in
order to program your mind to have a Positive Mental
Attitude. And to have it PERMANENTLY!
As the motivational speaker Les Brown, has said:
If you don't program yourself, 'LIFE' will program you!
My Future History
You may have noticed that I have discussed ideas about my own
future in some of these issues.
Many years ago I did this for a group of businesswomen in
Detroit and they found it to be a wonderful way to envision a
happy future in their common business. I have also used this
technique of writing out a possible 'Future History' for my
own life and found it to be a wonderful and exciting
exercise.
Well, I think it would be appropriate for YOU to do this
section today.
If you are sitting at a desk or walking with a notepad, make
a note right now to create a 'Future History of Me' section
of your Motivational Notebook.
I have found one of the best ways is to start with a column
on the left side deliberately left empty. Label the column
'Victory!' at the top. And whenever you accomplish the event
or goal listed on a line, write the word 'Victory!' with an
exclamation point after it on that line.
In the next column put rough dates. You can put some dates
for the next 12 months ahead, followed by some dates for
every 3 months for the next two years, and then a date for
every year for the next 50 years of your life.
In the next column..... put the key event or goal for that
date.
It is amusing to put some events that are outside of your
control too, like little observations of what you expect to
be happening in the world or your family at that time. This
way, you will be better prepared to envision what your world
will look like at that time.
Notice that I suggest using the past tense, as if you are
recording these events from sometime in the future. For
example, in my own 'Future History', I have put some lines
like this:
Victory! Date Key event or goal
-------- ------------ -----------------
Dec 9, 1995 Started announcing my motivational
newsletter at several Internet search
sites Lycos, World Wide Web Worm, etc.
Dec 17, 1995 Called my son to wish him
congratulations on graduating from
college.
Dec 1995 Took time out from my busy schedule to
tell those around me that I loved
them.
Aug 1996 Celebrated 54 years on this planet.
Nov 1996 Voted for the President of the United
States. This time my candidate won!
March 1997 Attended the awards ceremony to accept
the honor of having my newsletter be
selected the "Most Inspiring Source on
the Internet in 1996".
June 2010 Move into my home on Luna (the Moon).
[Hey, it is okay to get a little silly
here. We are playing.]
"One person working toward a dream is worth 99 people just working."
- Lani S. Kraus
I EXPECT to spend the rest of my life in the future, so I want to be reasonably sure of what kind of future it is going to be. That is my reason for planning.
- Charles Kettering
Remember Roger Banister?
Up to 1954, everyone thought it was physically impossible for
a human to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. Roger Banister
was the first. Since he created a belief that it COULD be
done, over 20,000 people have run faster than he did -- even
high school students.
As a matter of fact, I have heard of an irrate husband with a
shotgun who chased a man without any pants. The guy in front
ran a 3 minute mile!
"Think you can, think you can't; either way you'll be right."
- Henry Ford
Review of key ideas
We saw why each day should be filled with boundless energy.
Once again, we covered the idea of the Simplest Formula for
Success:
Follow Winners, Avoid Losers!
We reviewed why so many of us lose our motivation in the
first place from being exposed to 140,000 personal negative
messages and only 20,000 personal positive messages by the
time we leave high school.
When asked if you would turn the clock back on the age of
your body, you probably chose the same answer as 98 percent
of the others - that you would not switch to a younger body
if it meant losing your precious lessons of life.
We learned the value of paying attention to what works and
doesn't work, so you don't have to experience any more pain
than necessary.
We learned the value of getting No.1's act together better,
of becoming a Giver instead of a Taker, and of focusing on
surrounding ourselves with people who affirm us, and avoiding
people who can't see it for themselves because they won't see
it for you.
"You tend to become like the people and ideas you hang around with."
- Victory Crayne
We discussed the importance of maintaining our health and
relationships as a prerequisite to becoming highly motivated.
It may have come as a shock to learn that you are the direct
product of over a million people since 1492, the time of
Christopher Columbus.
We saw that learning how to motivate ourselves is more
important than any other course we have taken in school. And
that our ignorance is what holds us back from achieving so
much of our potential.
With a simple story, we learned why we possess the power to
gain a $10,000 solution to our problems.
To help us in improving our motivation in the future, we
discussed keeping a 'motivation notebook', full of the
exciting ideas that turn us on and meet our individual needs.
Looking toward the future, we now can see the value of
writing our own private 'future history'.
The haves and have nots can often be traced back to the dids and did nots.
- Unknown
Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.
- William James
Conclusion
Now you can picture the effect that being in a highly
motivated state can have on your life every day.
In upcoming issues, we will share dozens of 'mental tools'
that you can use on your own to raise your level of
motivation to the beautifully high level where you can
accomplish whatever you have as your goals.
I look forward to sharing time and ideas with you again in
the next issue.
"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."
- Paul Valery
From the Publisher:
All articles are copyrighted by their authors. It is unlawful to copy or reprint without their permission. This issue is Copyright © 1995, 1996 Victory Crayne, California. All rights reserved.
Please send suggestions and comments to:
You are invited to visit the Victory Page at:
http:///www.crayne.com/
where other motivational materials are available for
downloading.
Please visit this page again at: http://www.crayne.com/vmn-2.html