Motivation: why not me?
If something great is going to happen, why can’t it happen to you?
Someone fumbles the football in the Super Bowl. There are 22 players on the field. The ball isn’t going to just sit there as a golden opportunity gathering dust. Somebody is going to pounce on it and make that opportunity their own. It will be the person who takes action, is well prepared, focused, determined to succeed and was waiting to seize an opportunity - like the one that was presented to him.
Whenever an opportunity reveals itself someone is going to take advantage of it. Whether that person is you or someone else depends on your actions, how quickly you gain the knowledge to exploit the opportunity, how focused and prepared you are, how much effort you put into achieving it, and how much you believe you can and will do it.
If you prepared yourself – by understanding and applying yourself to the process to take full advantage of an opportunity – then belief in yourself comes naturally. That confidence comes from your experience and the experience you have taken from others missed opportunities. You have to create or gather your internal motivation to keep you moving in the right direction, like a built-in mental and emotional compass pointed toward ultimate success. When you know that you have the proper tools needed to achieve whatever you set out to do then it is easy to visualize yourself already there in the winner’s circle. In order to recognize those tools you have to learn what not to do first.
If they say you can’t, show them you can.
If people around you tell you that you are bound to fail, tell them nothing but show them everything. Successful people use the doubt and negativity of others as motivation to prove they can do it. It’s a way of feeling victorious. Successful people are usually competitive by nature. They don’t like to be told they can’t accomplish something, no matter how daunting or unreachable it may seem.
This is the winning attitude you have to adopt. It doesn’t matter what you have been conditioned to think as you were growing up, now is the time to break those preconceived notions and behaviors and succeed. Use failure and rejection as the impetus to try again. Whenever you’re knocked down get back up and fight harder. When an opportunity presents itself, know that there are going to be people who will tell you that you’re crazy or can’t do it.
They said it to Ben Franklin when he flew a kite, and they were still saying it when the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane. Whenever you are told you cannot achieve something, push harder and use that criticism or discouragement as extra motivation to prove them wrong.
If you get rejected on your screenplay, send them free tickets to the movie premier when it comes out as a blockbuster. If a teacher told you will never amount to anything, send her a photo of your college graduation, an invitation to the grand opening of your business, or an advance copy of your new music CD. Someone says you’re crazy to want to climb a mountain so send them a photo of you on top of Mount Everest. It’s not bragging to show people they were wrong, it’s only reinforcing the belief you have in yourself. It might even get them thinking in a more positive manner and motivate them to achieve their own goals – or at least convince them to stop trying to prevent other people from reaching theirs.
Why not me? Be the One!
If you don’t achieve what you dream, who will? Get in the mindset of thinking you can be the one! Throughout history people have been told they can’t do this or that because of whatever reasons. But every single accomplishment has a person behind it and there is no reason why you cannot be one of those accomplished people. You want to become a billionaire, why not? You want to break a world record, go for it. You want to win a Noble Prize, start working toward it. Remember, if you don’t take advantage of your opportunities then someone else will.
People like Christopher Columbus, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Howard Hughes, Rosa Parks, and Albert Einstein were all told they couldn’t do something or that they were crazy. The girlfriend of one of the young fellows who invented YouTube broke up with him a few months before he became a billionaire because she thought he should abandon his silly YouTube dream and go out and get a real job.
All of these extraordinary people went on to do great things and prove others wrong. They were the first in their fields to do what they set out to do and they took advantage of their opportunities to become international icons by doing what people said they couldn’t and wouldn’t.