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Many studies have been done to research the effects of motivation and mental health. As the implications of helping those with negative self-esteem, depression and anxiety are immense this is certainly an area of research that deserves a great deal of attention.

Psychology Online reports on a study investigating the differences between INTERNAL and EXTERNAL MOTIVATION. The report states that "Although our society is largely extrinsically-motivated by external rewards such as money, fame and power, research has indicated those who are intrinsically-motivated by inner desires for creativity, fulfillment and inner satisfaction are psychologically healthier and happier."

How can this help you?

The study of health psychology seeks to understand how our ability to cope with stress can help us to prevent illness and promote health. Some of these coping mechanisms are naturally inborn but may be taught to those who lack them. Motivation is one of the tools that researchers are trying to use as a combatant of negative stress reactions.

Motivation is something that we use every day. It's what enables us to survive - to get food because we're hungry, to go to work to pay the bills or to educate ourselves in order to pursue a higher goal in life.

How we respond to life's demands can affect our overall health. How are you classified?

The same report on Psychology Online identified those who respond to life with negativity or anxiety as most likely to deal with the physical affects of anger, guilt, nervousness, frustration and fear. These emotions can cause hypertension and high blood pressure which can lead to heart attack or stroke. Other complications include ulcers, arthritis, asthma and kidney disease.

Some therapists suggest that by using positive self-talk and trying to restructure the WAY we look at events can offset the physical and mental effects of dealing with negative or stressful events in life.

Interestingly, people who tend to focus on themselves as the controller of their fate - in fact 'self-motivated' - are more likely to feel a sense of control when stressors affect them. Instead of blaming something or someone else they have the motivation to deal with a problem and look for a reasonable solution. This positive behavior helps them to achieve goals and find personal contentment.

Therapists try to teach patients how to emulate this positive reaction to stress and use their motivation as a source of empowerment. Learning to manage stress and using motivation to set goals, work through a problem or fix it can in turn promote better mental and physical health.

Why do you want to motivate yourself? Actually, just answering that question fully can be one of the better ways to get your daily motivation. Below are seven more ways that have been provem to work for others. Chances are, some of them will work for you too.

 1. Explain your plans. Usually, by the time I tell my wife about the newsletter I'm going to write, I'm out of my slump and back at the keyboard. Find someone that listens well, and tell them what you want to do. If it is something that you really want, this will almost always get you motivated.

 2. Stimulate desire. Imagine the rewards of your effort clearly. Imagination motivates many to sign up for get-rich-quick plans. Good salesmen can have you living in your imagined dream home in minutes, and you'll feel motivated to do anything to make it real. Just learn to be your own salesman.

 3. Use pain. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) teaches you to link pain with not acting. If you imagine a scene of your kids sitting in jail for drug use - that might motivate you to have that talk you've been avoiding. Linking pleasure and rewards to acting is only half of the formula. Remember to link pain to not acting.

 4. Develop a true interest. If you have no interest at all, it might mean you need to do something else, but if it's just a task you dislike, relate it clearly in your mind to the greater goal. I don't like to drive, but when I remember those mountains I'm going to, I get motivated to drive.

 5. Create energy. Coffee can help for a while, but one way or another, you need to have some energy to have motivate yourself. Exercise, sleep well, and watch out for sugary foods - the "sugar blues" will kill your motivation.

 6. Have the proper mental state. It's rare to be depressed and motivated. Resolve some of your negative feelings, and you'll have more motivation. Another way is to do your important work when you are in a better mood.

 7. Make any small step. Commit to raking up one bag of leaves, and soon you'll want to finish the yard. Any small step towards your goals creates momentum.

You have seven ways now, but you have to actually  use them, so how do you get motivated to do that? You have to figure that one out yourself. Humor, by the way, can be a good motivator. Laughing often breaks up the feeling of being overwhelmed. There's your eighth way to motivate yourself.

The Law – Everything is energy.  Choose to believe this law. You must accept it.

Your thoughts, your feelings, what you focus on are all energy.  Do you understand that you have created the person you have become and created the quality of life you have.

Take a good look at what you have created.  You, and only you, are responsible for your present level of success in life.

Right now, reflect on ways to make a positive difference in the quality of your life.  

First, choose the area of life you want to focus. It can be your relationship, your career, your health; your finances just to mention a few.  The most important thing to remember is to focus on just one area to start.

As you conquer the first obstacle, then go to the next.  Keep moving forward until your goals are reached.

Know your purpose.  Increase your awareness of your inner wisdom by regularly reflecting in silence.  Breathe deeply to quiet your distracted mind.  Identify your life purpose and stop wandering through life with little or no direction.

You must stop and smell the roses.  Try this experiment and take note of reactions of different types of people.
1. Go to your local park
2. Find a bed of flowers or some magnificent location.
3. Carefully watch people passing this location.

Some will stop and enjoy the flowers.  They will take time to smell and touch and enjoy them.  Some will walk by and offer no more than a quick glance.  Others will pass by and never see them at all.  If you stop them and ask, they will reply “what flowers?”

Meditation is like stopping and smelling the flowers.  It is an intensely personal and spiritual experience.  There are many forms of meditation however they all use concentration techniques that helps us become aware of all of our inner thoughts.

Meditation is the key to finding your secret force that can overcome these obstacles and change your way of life.
You must first take action to face your current fears, honor your strengths and live from the inside out.

Live your life on purpose, not by accident.

The Past – It’s gone and should be no more than a fading memory.
The Future – It has not happened yet.  Things you do today are likely to impact your future.

Don’t compare your present situation to anything else.  Accept it for what it is and make the best of it or decide to Take Action now if it is not the present that you are happy with.

The time is here to decide that there is no such thing as failure.  It is time to take the opportunity to learn from the experience and move forward.  Learn from your mistakes and grow wiser and stronger and you will grow to accomplish more.

Are you stuck in a rut and unsure how to make changes in your life?
Do you need some support in helping motivate you to move forward in achieving the life you deserve?

It’s your life.  Don’t complain if you are not willing to Take Action.
With clear goals and constructive support, you will be surprised how fast progress will be made.

Though one could be infinitely happy by just enjoying the nature and family and all the human-made things, there are still millions of people who are unhappy.  In the developed countries there is very fortunate circumstance of having both God-given and man-made things.  Still majority of people there are unhappy.  In the developing countries, where for millions there is a real scarcity of even basic needs, people seem to be happy.  There are some people who are engaged in difficult tasks and in warfare, and even incarcerated in prisons, and are still happy!  We have just discussed the factors of happiness.  Millions of people have them, still they are unhappy.  There are millions of others who don’t have them, yet they are happy!

You would realize that the mere availability and abundance of God given and human-made things is not enough.  There is something else which should be right to be happy.   Of course, it is our mind that must have right attitude towards and capacity to be happy.

Milton in Paradise Lost says,

'The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.'

One can give various examples of how mind can influence our body::

• Pavlov’s dog starts salivating at the sound of the bell without any food in sight.
• If we are tense we often get headache, backache, and spondylitis, etc.
• Heart attacks are directly linked to worry and tension.
• Right mental attitude helps in curing many bodily maladies.
• By self-talk, motivation, and positive attitude we can become happy and successful.
• Through hypnosis one can have command over another person’s mind and body.
• Through meditation one can have a healthy body and extra sensory abilities.

Mind has extra-ordinary powers and as far as happiness is concerned it has the ultimate power.  We should, therefore, have a positive attitude towards life.  Instead of concentrating on bad things in life and people, we should concentrate on redeeming features in them.  We should not keep on thinking about past failures and bad experiences but be encouraged by our past success and good experiences.  Similarly, we should not be unduly anxious about future as our anxiety is not going to have a positive effect, but we should plan and work hard for the future.

In whatever circumstances you are, you can never have total lack of God-given and man-made happiness.  You cannot completely take away nature from somebody; you cannot take away all man-made things from somebody.  Even if everything is taken, one’s family and friends are there.  One’s precious body is there.  And, even if you chain somebody securely in a dungeon, one’s mind is free.  One is free to be happy in one’s mind!  Mind is difficult to be mastered by oneself, but it is impossible to be vanquished by anybody, any authority, or whatever conditions or situations.

Abraham Lincoln has beautifully expressed it: “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

BE HAPPY!

The human self is a temple of the Divine.

Life goes on. You can choose to let life flow or get stuck and just keep spinning your wheels. Each day offers a chance to look at the brighterside of life and enjoy it. Each day is a chance to be connected with your divinity. Each day heralds a new beginning. You have to be part of it.

The world never stands still. Time comes when battles that were  once critical no longer top the list of priorities. That is if you learn to reconcile yourself with the past, sort out the precious lessons and move on.

Take control of your life, validate yourself, honor and respect  your being and most of all, love yourself. This is not about being aggressive, domineering and always in control and confrontational. It is not about becoming self-absorbed.

Far from it. It is about offering a more compatible YOU in a relationship. There are inevitable bumps in any relationship, unavoidable falls and pitfalls.No problem lasts forever. There has to be a way to adjust your sails and enjoy the breeze, not get lost in the storm.

Take stock of your life. What are your illusions?What is your reality? How do you  deal with failure, with disappointments and the other elements thatfuel stress? Are you just coping, mostly in a crisis management mode? What can you do?

Sometimes, one's world, one's hopes and dreams come crashing with a big bang, a major shaking up of life. This is a chance to take a great leap of faith, to grow and strengthen your self-trust that is eroding. Move on without fear. Fear can be paralyzing. Move on instead with self-confidence. Have faith in yourself. Faith is enduring.

Grab the chance to harness the power from the river of knowledge already flowing through your being, to take that first step to get up and move on to the next phase. Time to let go and really let go. Hanging on to personal loss builds up powerful negative blocks; these fuel anger, grief, bitterness, vindictiveness, distrust, confrontation, erodes self-confidence- all negative but very powerful energies. Over time, accumulation of these take its toll on your health.

Why allow a negative influence to knock on the door? Hurtful issues tend to get remote and forgotten.over time.Why dwell on these, the negative energy gets very powerful and takes on a life of its own. What purpose does it serve? NOTHING.

Take peace over misery any day, any time. In a world of turmoil, deception, hypocrisy and insensitivity, not to mention fighting with inner demons, peace can be elusive. Believe in the power of love and peace. Loving yourself
first enhances your capability to share that love with others.

Strengthen your personal power. Nurture your spirit,let it bring forth deep insight, thus, perspective. Search deep within, bring out the glitter from within your soul, let it radiate joy and peace. Help make this a better world.

Have you ever thought who you are? Are you the body you see every day in a mirror? Of course you are not. Your body is constantly changing. It is different now than ten or twenty years ago. According to some scientists cells in our bodies are constantly replaced by the new ones. Although the scientists differ in their opinions, most of them agree that every seven years we have a completely new body. Not even one cell is the same.

Anyway, most people intuitionally feel that they are not their bodies. When someone dies they say he has left. So, what has left? The body it’s still there.

Are you your mind? You can observe your own mind. You can notice what you are thinking about now. Maybe you are reading this article now, but you are thinking about something else? Doesn’t it happen often? You can observe how your mind works, so you are not your mind.

But most of the time we don’t observe it. It’s just the opposite, our minds constantly play different films in front of us, and it is not easy to stop them doing it.

Have you ever tried to control your mind? Try for five minutes to concentrate on something. Let’s say visualize a yellow triangle. Do not think about anything else. Just concentrate on the yellow triangle. Can you do it? Notice how many times you have thought about something else than the yellow triangle. It’s very difficult to control a mind. Usually our minds control us.

What do you mostly think about every day? If you are like most people you think about your past or your future.

Our past reminiscences can be happy or sad, but past is the past. It’s gone. Future is unknown, but we are creating our future now. Whatever we are thinking about now will manifest in the future. So if we think about our problems, lack of money, difficult situations, our future will be like this. If we think how make ends meet, it will happen. We will just make ends meet.

What if you started to live now? What if you stopped thinking about your past and stopped worrying about your future. You could think now that your life is happy. You could think that NOW you and your family have everything that you want and desire. Try it. Try to really visualize your perfect life. Don’t think about future. Think that it’s now and be grateful for it. If your visualization is good, you will feel happy and excited. You will feel good, but most important is that you have just started making it really happen in the future.

Of course, you need to train your mind to do it every day. You need to learn the science of manifestation and practice. Great things don’t come easily. That’s why so many people don’t live the lives of their dreams. They don’t control their lives. They live their lives automatically. But you can change it. You can be happy, healthy and wealthy. You just need to make some effort.

Gratitude or appreciation of what we already have is necessary to attract things we want. Every day when you wake up try to be thankful. Think about the good things in your live you should be thankful for. Appreciate your job (even if you don’t like it).

Feel gratitude for a place to live. If you have some food, some friends or anything else you can find to appreciate, appreciate it. A lot of people don’t have enough even basic things like food, water and their own place to live. It’s natural that you want more, that you want to improve your standard of life, but first you need to feel gratitude for what you already have.

If you start your day with feelings of gratitude you will feel good and you can keep that feeling all day.

But you should also write down something like this: “I am so happy and grateful that…” and then write what you would like to have. For example: “I am very happy and grateful that I make $1 million per year; that I have wonderful and loving wife…etc.” Use the present tense, visualize the things you want, be grateful for them, and think about them as already yours. When you achieve them, you can add new things to your list. When you write about money, start first with amount you believe is possible and then increase the amount when you got the amount you’d written down. Be specific.

When you start doing as described above, at first you might feel strange that you are using present tense for the things you want to have in the future, but it’s important to train your mind and force your mind to think about them in present tense. After some time of playing such “mental ping pong” your mind will obey and will help you to achieve the things you want.