The ground realities of everyday life pull us away from pursuing our dreams and goals. We certainly need the motivation to get up and get going every day to achieve our goals and dreams.

Motivation can come from an external source, or it can also be self-generated(internal). When we depend on someone else (our teacher, coach, parents or even a YouTube video) to motivate us, and we get fired up to put in the efforts, it is known as external motivation.

When we are self-driven to achieve our goals and dreams it is known as being internally motivated. There are two ways we can motivate ourselves:

  1. Towards-goals motivation 
  2. Away-from-goals motivation

Towards-goal motivation is when we imagine ourselves securing our dream job and enjoying an upgraded lifestyle. And, as we imagine these uplifting pictures of our super-successful future self, we are inspired to act immediately. We are motivated to put in the extra hours of study. Another example of towards-goal motivation is when we imagine ourselves looking fit and in perfect shape. As we imagine ourselves wearing the trendiest fitting clothes, we feel inspired and energetic enough to exercise.

And finally, there is the away from goals motivation in which we imagine the consequences of not achieving our goals or the dreadful feeling of our dreams not turning into realities. This is a very effective way to motivate ourselves. When we do not feel like waking up early to study, we can remind ourselves of how mediocre our career will be if we are unable to secure admission to a reputable college. We can remind ourselves of how we will have to settle down for an ordinary life if we are unable to get our dream job. When we do not feel energetic and wish to skip exercising, we can imagine how unfit and unattractive we will look if we skip exercising. We can imagine how we would feel not being able to fit into the trendiest clothes and not being able to attract people around us with our charming personalities. By thinking about the negative consequences of not achieving our goals, we remind ourselves about the consequences of postponing our journey towards our goals. And, most of the time, it gets us into action mode.

Any form of motivation is a welcome motivation as long as it inspires us to act and move forward towards our goals and dreams.