15 Steps to Master SELF-MOTIVATION

Hello, Alexers! It feels amazing to finally get to do this video. Those of you who have been subscribed to this channel for a while have been requesting it, and as we promised last week, here it finally is. Life is hard, right? Most of the time, you're going against it alone. It's you, your goals, your objectives, and more often than not, this sense of "why do I even bother?"

In every one of us, there's a secret switch that, once flipped, can get you to do things you know you should do but don't feel like doing. By the end of this Sunday motivational video, we are going to find that switch together so you can leverage it to advance your life in the direction you choose.

Self-motivation is, by far, one of the most valuable skills one needs to master if you want to be successful in life. Because who in their right mind would put up with all the hard, boring, and terrible things that get thrown at you along the way? If you master self-motivation, any feasible dream you have becomes an objective that is separated from you only by time because you're able to put in the work.

Self-motivation will have you keep going when other people quit, when normally you would have quit yourself. So pay attention today, for this one could literally change the way you go through life from this point forward. This will be one of the most valuable resources you will use for school, work, business, and life in general. It all depends on where you choose to deploy it.

Welcome to Alex.com—the place where future billionaires come to get inspired! If you're not subscribed yet, you're missing out. Before we start, make sure to grab a notebook, as we strongly recommend you write some of these things down and any thoughts that come to mind.

With that said, here are 15 steps to master self-motivation.

Step 1: Accept you're not motivated and that needs to change. We're going to start strong right off the bat. Most people feel unmotivated to do anything because they're confused about how motivation and progress work. Most of you are waiting for some magical wind of motivation to blow your way for everything to fall at your feet, so you can waltz right through.

Be honest with yourself; you wish things came to you instead of having to hunt them down, huh? But this doesn't make you lazy or a procrastinator. For some reason, during a Sunday of all days, you happen to be here. A lazy person would never take the time to invest in themselves and overcome their situation. Everything that happened to you in your life before has led you to watching this right now. You're actually hungry for this—the hunger is there. You want more; you're just unsure what needs to happen for you to get there.

What we're about to tell you now is a shocking truth—99% of the people watching this are not aware of: motivation doesn't come to you; you create it internally. Yep, the world will never motivate you to work, to study, to start the business, to get the to-do list done. Motivation is the result of you doing the work successfully, and nobody has ever told you this until this point.

Motivation comes after starting. Think about the last time you were motivated to do anything. It was fun; you actually enjoyed doing what for others seemed like work. It wasn't work for you! Even better, motivation is driven by willpower, and willpower is like a muscle that you can train. The more you use this muscle, the stronger it becomes, and the easier it is for you to make use of it.

If you want to master self-motivation, you'll have to flex the willpower muscle consistently until the point where every time you have to get something done that you don't normally feel like doing, you just flip the willpower and motivation switch and get it done. Maybe you're scared to get started on something new because you don't have everything set in place or it'll take a long time. Time will go by anyway; you might as well have it go by in your favor. So let's get started, shall we?

Step 2: Why are you doing this? What is your purpose? Break it down. Here's a really hard question to ask yourself: what do you really want? Not what others expect from you, not what society has taught you to consider success, but when you're alone with yourself and can be completely honest, what is it that your goal is from all of this? What is one goal that if you achieved it, everything in your life immediately changed for the better?

What is that goal? Just by picturing it right now, your blood flows quicker, hair is sticking up on your arms, and your mind gets excited as you feel this sensation going through your body. We want you to be aware of it. How amazing would it be for you to achieve this goal?

The most important reason for having a clear understanding of what your objective is is because when things get hard—and we both know they eventually will—this feeling that you're currently bottling up will be your secret fuel tank. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. You've heard them say it: when an underdog emerges victorious from a battle, he simply wanted it more.

If the goal you choose in life is changing in the best possible way, why wouldn't you spend all of your energy and effort to make sure it becomes a reality? There's another person inside of you that all they want to do is eat junk food, drink beer, watch TV, jerk off, smoke, get fat, and be miserable every day. You're going to war with that person; you need to overpower this person through force or sheer willpower if you have to.

You've probably heard this before, but it's the truth: a dream written down becomes a goal; a goal broken down becomes a plan; a plan backed by action becomes reality. Break down your goal into smaller pieces. Find the one thing that if you do every single day for the next 100 days, your life will change. When you do make it to the 100 milestone and you're done with the easy part, shoot for 365, then 1000. By that point, it just becomes your life.

There's a reality-bending realization that happens when we as individuals realize we are responsible for everything happening in our lives. No matter the external circumstances, you may not be able to control everything that's happening to you, but you sure as hell can control what you do from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed.

So ask yourself these two questions: 1. What's the one thing that if I achieve my life will radically change for the better? and 2. What's one thing that if I do every single day, I am most certain this goal will become reality? Write down your answers. For the first time in this life, you have a direction and a way to get there. All you need to do now is work, and we're going to teach you how to hack it.

Step 3: Make the goal visible so you can't miss it. We forget about our goals and dreams because they get buried in the noise and misery of everyday life. One day, you wake up, and you're 50 years old, unhappy and unaware just how fast time flew by. You once had dreams; you wanted to do things. But, as they say, life happened, and here you are today living with regrets.

The truth is we are constantly getting these windows of opportunity to close in on the previously determined life goal, but we put it off for later or tomorrow, and sadly, tomorrow never comes. It gets easier and easier to trade the important for the urgent, until eventually, you forget about what's actually important. So set reminders for yourself. You want to graduate? Print a graduation photo and put it above your study desk. You want to get that promotion at work? Start organizing your workspace accordingly. Print your future title and put it under the mirror.

You want to be a millionaire? Print a one million dollar check and keep it with you in your wallet. The more reminders you set for yourself, the more you'll be able to regain focus and not lose it along the way. This isn't the law of attraction or any other [ __ ] like that; it's a clear and straightforward reminder that, hey, instead of watching another episode, why don't I try getting in some actual work that I'm going to be proud of?

Look at the way miserable people live. What about their lives do you think motivates them? Nothing! Be the opposite of what they are. Set reminders that you need to be more and put them in places that you frequent often.

Step 4: Visualize the entire process of achieving your goal. Another brutal truth about life is that people set goals that they know deep down they'll never achieve, and then they don't even try. What's the point of even saying you want to be rich if there's no number, plan, or strategy behind it? Don't waste your time wishing things were different if there's no way or interest for you to make it be different.

Visualization isn't just some [ __ ] approach of attracting things into your life; it's a form of planning. Pause the video right now and force your mind to walk yourselves through the steps it would take to get to your goal. Visualize yourself putting in the work, making progress, putting brick over brick until you build the castle you've proclaimed yourself king of. Visualization allows you to see into the future, make adjustments based on the simulated outcomes.

If you're not finding ways to win in your mind, there's no way you're going to win in real life. Build confidence; know that this is possible. Other people have done it, so can you! They're not more special than you; they just put in the work, and so will you. You have to be confident that you're destined to do this. Believe in yourself, god damn it! Some of y'all believed in Santa Claus until you were 12, so take a couple of minutes and believe in yourself so you can get this done.

Anything that is within the realm of reality can be achieved, so why would you risk living with regret when reality is so much more satisfying? You've seen it happen in your mind; now it's just a matter of time and effort to get your reality to catch up to your expectations. If the pain of rejection is now and acute, the pain of regret is chronic and forever. Don't be afraid to take the chance. Talk to the girl; shoot for number one. Even if she rejects you—and that rejection will hurt—what if she says yes? What if your goal does become reality? What if this is the moment your entire life changes because you took the small chance on yourself? The moral of the story: don't go through life with regret asking yourself, "What if I did try?"

Step 5: Find the first two steps you need to take and complete them. You have the goal. You know from the bottom of your heart that this is what needs to happen in your life. You've even visualized and simulated ways of getting there, but the road seems long and daunting. So where do you start? Well, put one foot in front of the other. Take the first step, and after you do that, take another one.

Ask yourself right now, "What is the first step I can take in my journey?" and then take it. People tell others that they're busy all the time, but what do they really do? They work for the sake of work. They spin in circles. At the end of the day, their lives are no better than they were before.

Waking up in the morning for the first time in your life, do something in order to get [ __ ] done. This part of your journey is a lot more focused on having the right plan, the right breakdown so that once you take the first step and then the second step, you build momentum. Once you have the ball rolling down the hill, it only picks up more speed from there.

Every successful person out there has got to where they are through two things: one, by mastering self-motivation and self-discipline required to push you through the steps, and two, by knowing how to plan correctly so they know which steps to take. This video is focused on self-motivation; the one on self-discipline is already out. Watch these two together until you're confident you've taken every ounce of value out of them.

For the second part, the one on goal setting and planning—that's what we've been working on for over a year now with Goal Mastery, the premium experience, which will be made available at Alux.com/goals. It's all the strategies, shortcuts, and techniques we've personally used after analyzing billionaires, companies, athletes, and more that helped us to build our multi-million dollar company and so many other businesses in the process. Go to Alux.com/goals to make sure you're on the waiting list for that.

The reality is the first part is more important than the second one. It doesn't matter how good the plan is; if you're unmotivated and not disciplined enough to put in the work, you just won't get anywhere. Everyone knows how to lose weight and get a six-pack, but putting in the work is the hard part, and that's where our free videos will get you years ahead of everyone else.

Step 6: Fix energy levels within your body. Here's another brutal piece of truth: your body runs on fuel. If you put shitty fuel in your body, it will run poorly. You want to be motivated and get things done? Fix the chemistry in your body; build health and strength so your mind can function properly. Life is a competitive game, and the winner is the one who's got a bigger edge.

If you're competing with someone who's healthy, whose mind can make better decisions quicker than you can, it's just a matter of time before results are in, and you lose. Sugar, alcohol, fats, drugs are all keeping you lazy. They're giving you energy spikes, and then the crash comes in. You know damn well what we're talking about.

Now, we're not saying you should cut out every single one of these things from your life, but we urge you to become more aware of the kind of fuel you put into your body. You can't put these low-quality fuels in a Ferrari and expect it to function at peak performance. Speaking of, we both know your body isn't a Ferrari, but it can be improved. You need a stronger body to house that mind of yours; you need strong organs that allow you to crush it in life.

Yet even today, people get it wrong, so we're going to say it to you once more: to get it through your head, exercise is a celebration of what you can do, not a punishment for what you ate. The moment you understand this change in perspective, that you're exercising so you can do more of what brings you value instead of punishing yourself for eating a donut, reality changes, and the way you look at working out will shift forever.

You can't run the full race if you crash only after a few minutes, so fix your energy levels by eating healthier, exercising for a stronger body, and making sure your body gets the rest it needs.

Step 7: Force your body to put in the work even if it's [ __ ]. We've been doing this for years, and in our experience, almost everyone who's a high achiever does the same. There's a setting in your body called work mode. We simply put our bodies on work mode and turn on autopilot. Basically, for the next couple of hours, it turns the entire world off, and all we do is force our body to create output.

Sometimes it's really good; sometimes, not so much. But even the not-so-much is more valuable than nothing. This is the secret of getting work done. Good enough now will always be better than perfect—never! Yet most of y'all don't want to do anything because you might be embarrassed by the result.

But here's what we want you to remember: embarrassment is the cost of entry as a beginner. If you're not willing to pay the price of embarrassment, you'll never do anything worthwhile in life. Be brave enough to suck at something new, Alexers, and life will open up for you.

Everyone's first version of whatever sucked hard. Our first articles were lame; our first videos weren't this good or valuable, but we got it done anyway. Getting it done allows you to move further through the maze; it brings in data you didn't know you needed. Not to mention, as you go along, a distinct part of motivation called inspiration might strike.

Inspiration will find you eventually, but it has to find you working to take effect. This is where mastering discipline becomes more important than motivation; for motivation can be fleeting, but discipline gets the job done no matter how you feel. You can self-motivate to begin work when you don't feel like it; discipline will keep this process going long enough until inspiration hits and you eventually become a master.

This is the most effective way to think about it. Rewind and listen again if you have to until this just becomes part of your mental way of thinking.

Step 8: Clean up your environment and remove distractions. You're not going to get any work done if you have 20 tabs of distractions open. The same way a child won't stop itself from eating the chocolate you put in front of them, the same way you check your phone, watch the cat video, talk to a friend, put on a new episode, and so on.

In all honesty, you're addicted to junk content consumption because these platforms made sure that you are hooked. Notifications, endorphins, likes, recommended content—it's all designed in the same way casinos and drugs do it, so you get hooked on them and go for the next dose. If you want to get real work done, you need to shut these down.

As an interesting experiment, try to catch your mind going, "Maybe I should check Instagram or Facebook real quick." Whenever it happens, you know their system has you hooked and addicted. In the same approach to your body, you need to remove distractions from around you, especially when the goal is getting work done.

No extra tabs, your phone on silent, out of reach, and face down. If your room is clear and orderly, you won't get the urge to find the missing sock while you should be working. Clear your real environment and then your virtual one as well. Unfollow Instagram models and influencers and begin following people who inspire you to be more than who you are. Start following creatives, designers, art, beauty, and reminders of what your goals really are, and your entire outlook will shift.

Step 9: Create a sense of internal urgency. Set a deadline with real repercussions. You live with the illusion that you have time until you realize today is November 1st. This year is already gone; December will go by in a blink of an eye. And how much did you really achieve this year? As long as you're not where you want to be, you can't kick back.

You need to be scared that life will go by unless you change. The sense of urgency will go away after you get to where you want to be. The athlete rests after the race is over, not in the middle of it. Set deadlines for your milestone. Remember when you had to deliver the project before midnight, so somehow you found a secret fuel source to get things done? Why did that work for you? How can you utilize that for your other goals?

Artificially create this sense of urgency and deadlines to trick your body into focusing toward results. Even better, we respond well when real repercussions are at stake. If you miss a deadline at work, you get fired. But nobody is firing you from your life.

People take their work life more seriously than their real life, and it's a shame. A big thing you can do to aid in your process is to spend less time with lazy and unmotivated people. Their energy is contagious. You like spending time with losers because it makes you feel better about yourself, doesn't it? But it doesn't make you grow.

Just because you're the least dead flower in a garden that's withered completely doesn't mean that you're thriving. If you want to win, you can't let the slow runners dictate your rhythm. Also, don't believe everything you see on social media or print. You're seeing people posing on their makeshift podiums saying how smooth and easy their success was—it's a trap! Social media is a [ __ ] that way.

Remember, nobody is posting their failures. Nobody is posting the hard parts.

Step 10: Schedule for tomorrow. Start early. The biggest reason you're failing to get things done isn't because you're failing to self-motivate, but you're lacking direction. It's super easy to self-motivate when everything is waiting for you to just sit down and get the work done.

A big factor in how effective you'll be in life is by structuring your day ahead of time. Every evening, successful people go through a list of things they want to achieve the next day and get things in order. Remember when you were a kid going on a class trip the next day? Do this with everything you need to get done.

The beginning of the day is when you need to be the most productive. We don't care how much you hate mornings or how you think of yourself as a night owl. You're not here hunting rats; your goal is to crush it among humans. There's even a term for this called "eating the frog," which says if you put the most difficult task of the day as your first priority, you have the highest probability of getting it done, and everything else will follow that big win—momentum!

There's an entire book about it by Brian Tracy. We'll leave the link to it on Amazon in the description so you can find it, or if you don't want to spend the 20 bucks for it, you can go to Alux.com/freebook. If it's your first time signing up, you can get the audiobook for free, thanks to our friends at Audible.

Step 11: Think of the people that doubted you that you need to prove wrong. Think of your father, your colleagues, your so-called friends, your teachers, your boss. They said you wouldn't be able to do it; they doubted you. They don't want you to be happy; they don't want you to make more money than them. Why would you get the recognition instead of them? They called you names, didn't they? They laughed in your face.

How did you feel then? You bottled it up somewhere inside of you, and you know exactly where it is because you feel it to this day. We want you to use that as fuel. Whenever you feel like things are getting hard, remember their faces and how great it will feel when you prove them wrong. The best of the best always love competition. They love to prove their haters wrong because nothing feels as great as taking a bath in the tears of your enemies.

You need a rival, and not in the Naruto vs. Sasuke way, but someone who's going fast in the direction that you want to go. That's your competition. While you take the day off, your rival is putting in the work. When you want to quit halfway, your rival is going all the way. Let that drive you; let it motivate you to push yourself. You don't need to be smarter, better looking, or have a better start than they did. All you need to do is outwork them.

Screw talent; talent is overrated. When you're able to work hard consistently, you build your own talent; you build your own success. Don't let their closed-mindedness be the measure of your ability. You can't change the past, but the future is an empty page. Prove those suckers wrong for doubting you for thinking that you and them are cut from the same cloth.

Step 12: Emulate your heroes and then help yourself. You have people you look up to, don't you? Research them, watch videos about them, hear them talk about their struggles and connect them to yours. How did they do? How did they overcome them? What do they do now? What small things do they do that you can implement in your life?

Act the same way your heroes do, and it won't be long until you stand among them. Everyone wants a mentor—someone to hold their hand, make the choices for them, set the pace, the direction, open doors, and use their own connections for your personal gain. Guess what? You're probably never going to get the mentor you hope for; they have their own races to attend to.

But you can get the next best thing: a hero. A hero is someone you want to be like, that you spend time dissecting and learning how they operate. Whenever faced with a decision like yours, ask yourself, "What would my hero do if they were in my place?" Then do that. You're getting most of the benefits from a mentor just by figuring out their course of action.

You know this truth better than anyone else. If you want help, you first have to help yourself. There's a great story told by comedian Chris Rock that goes like this: "I'd always end up broken down on the highway. When I stood there trying to flag someone down, nobody stopped. But when I pushed my own car, other drivers would get out and push with me." If you want help, help yourself. People like to see that.

Step 13: Move the needle every day. There's not a day that goes by without us doing something, even the littlest of things that help us grow. Some days it's important work; others, it's just reading or resting. The worst thing you can do in life is go through the day and, at the end, realize it didn't mean anything for you. The day didn't make a difference that you missed it.

If you're feeling lost, ask yourself, "What is one thing I can do today that will have a positive effect on my future?" In just a couple of minutes, suggestions will start coming your way. Your mind is amazing like that, because buried inside of it, there's a long to-do list of things you know would make a difference.

It takes less than five minutes to send an email, a resume, to get in touch with someone. It takes less than a minute to put on your running shoes, and once you do, you're ready to get out—and since you're out, you might as well run once around the block. Our favorite thing is to find things that have a long-term positive effect. The best example is finding a good new employee or setting a new software system in place that will save us time and add value every single day forward since it starts.

The more of these you can put into place, the more exponential your growth is. Life is a combination of planning and executing. Some days your job is to think; some days your job is to put in the work. What day is it for you today? Never allow a day to go by that you didn't do something that makes your life better. In the beginning, you'll find it hard because it's meant to be hard. Hard is good; hard means you're growing, that you're doing something outside of your current comfort area, and by a result, your reality is expanding.

In the words of that one chimp guru from Bojack Horseman: "Every day it gets just a little bit easier." But that's the catch—you have to do it every day.

Step 14: Create a reward for after you achieve your goal or milestone. You've heard the notion of "work hard, play hard" before, and there needs to be a reward for working hard. In our society, hard and smart work is rewarded with material success. You get rich, you get the comfortable home, the beautiful kids, etc.

The reward from going to the gym is seeing your body in the mirror and being able to enjoy life more. The reward for doing what you love in a way that's appreciated by others is that you don't have to do work that doesn't fuel your soul. In our opinion, there's no worse way to live than by working for the sake of work just to be able to pay your bills until you eventually die.

The great thing about today is you have options. Just through the fact you're consuming this piece of content right now, you're already rich. You own hardware and internet connection; you speak and understand the language. Value is packed in you. You have access to this kind of information that's being provided to you for free.

We could have easily added a bit more fluff, a few more techniques, and sold this to you as a paid product, but we didn't. We're giving you real value for free. Our entire strategy is to guilt you into supporting our efforts so that more and more people can get this kind of information. If you do value our work, our reward is you subscribing to our channel, liking our videos, and if you have the money, supporting us through our memberships or purchasing our products.

We believe in the idea of giving back. We give you value irrespective of what you give in return because we're confident that those whose lives will be better off because of us will help our business grow. It's a perpetual cycle, and we're so thankful that you chose to be a part of this process, Alexers.

Step 15: Do it for the people you love, and remember to love yourself. If you're not going to do it for yourself, do it for the people who need you. Do it for your partner; do it for the kids; do it for your parents. Find whoever needs your help and do it for them. Keep them in mind when you feel like you want to quit, and they will keep you motivated.

People would do anything for love. They would go to war; they would survive hell; they would travel the world to find it out and get back to it. Many people forget that love is internal; it begins within. Learn to love yourself and care for yourself the same way you would care for an ill puppy or a child. If your child was sick, you would do anything to make sure they got better. Why don't we do the same for ourselves?

Why do we disregard our own well-being? Be strong for yourself and for those you love. Be strong so you can provide security, comfort, and love. Strong means different things to different people, and you probably know what strong means to you.

With the driving force of your loved ones and the skills, discipline, and strategies we've outlined in this video, we believe you're ready to conquer the world—or at least your own world. We believe in you, Alexers! We believe that today you just took the first step to something incredible. Can you feel it? Your goals feel different, don't they? Your mind feels different; it's like a bull waiting to be let out of the cage.

Your life has gotten you to this point. If what you have right now is everything you want from life, then congratulations to you. You have enough—just wait it out until you die. But if you feel in your gut a hunger, a fire burning strong, a desire to prove everyone, including yourself, that there's more to you than your current reality, we can't wait to see what you become.

If you're ready to change, we are issuing a 50-day challenge to every Alexer out there. Make sure that what's left of this year is the best part of 2020. For 50 days, we want you to do one small thing that will add to your goal and write it down.

Make a calendar list in your notebook and place it next to your bed. Every night before going to sleep, write down one thing you did every day that helps you. Before you reach day 50, when you do, send us a photo of your list to our Instagram at Alux, and we'll personally congratulate you on your progress.

The question of today is, do you accept our 50-day self-motivation challenge? If the answer is yes, please write, “I’m in,” in the comments. Although this was a monster of a valuable video, we still reserved an extra bit of gold for you—the true Aluxers who to this day still watch these Sunday motivational videos until the very end.

Reinvent yourself if you have to. Many people feel trapped in their own world, in their current reality, to the point they might not see a way out. If this is the case for you, we want to reach out and assure you that things will get better; even more so that good things are waiting ahead for you if you want them.

Depression is such a big part of our society today, and there's even a toxic association with the advice people give—just man the [ __ ] up, rub some dirt on it, and move on. That doesn't necessarily work for everyone. The thing that worked for us is knowing we can always reinvent ourselves as something else if this doesn't work out for us.

You don't need to end your life when you can end your current reality and jump into a new one. Buy a cheap car, put a bed in the back, and drive through the country. Run to a small town and get a job in a small café. Adopt a puppy, learn to play an instrument, change your apartment, or reach out to a friend from another city. If you feel a big change is needed, change the way you look and the content you consume.

You can kill your current life without dying yourself. This version of you doesn't need to be around if it's not serving you. That's what we mean when we say you need to evolve. It doesn't matter who says what; screw those people. Let them live their own lives; you're going to live yours.

You are more than your current reality. It's time to embrace change and become the new version of you—the 2.0—and it's gonna be amazing! If you made it this far, and at least something in this resonated with you, please accept our 50-day challenge and write "I'm in" in the comments.

We can't wait to see how many of you feel like it's time for a positive change and for your life to go to the next level. Thank you for spending some time with us, Alexers! Make sure to like and subscribe so you never miss another video. We also hand-picked these videos which we recommend you watch next. You can talk to us on all social media or ask a question on our website, Alux.com.

Thank you for being an Alexer, and we'll see you back tomorrow!