The topic of Self Motivation has come up quite a bit around me lately. Not only swirling around my own mind, given my recent challenges, but also from external sources.

Just the other day a friend said to me, “I don’t think I could work from home like you do. It requires a lot of self motivation and self discipline.” That’s true. It does.

As I write this, the month of June is coming to an end. We are halfway through the year, and about to head into the second half of 2012.

This is a good time to take stock of your goals for the year. How are things going in your business, are you where you expected to be by now, and what would you like to achieve before year-end? That’s exactly what I’m analyzing this week myself…

The Source of Serious Self Motivation

In the photo above I was sitting in Orlando Florida, in the back of a conference room, with my head down – just working away. And yes, sometimes my level of Focus and Self Motivation amazes even me, LOL.

Though I do struggle with it sometimes, just like anyone else. Often it’s when I don’t feel well, when there are major life distractions, or when I don’t really have a specific goal or vision to work toward.

That’s been on my mind quite a bit lately: the source of self motivation. I would venture to say it’s not the same for all of us, or even that it’s different for each of us at various phases of our life and business.

That said, there are some core elements at the source of ALL motivations:

• It starts with a want or need.
• You brainstorm (or daydream) potential solutions.
• Those solutions transform into workable ideas.
• You churn them around, discard the bad, but one stands out as a possibility.
• Possibility turns into potential reality (a vision of the outcome).
• The vision inspires you, the more you imagine it as a reality.
• Inspiration sets in and sparks motivation.
• Motivation encourages specific actions that take you toward your vision.

It boils down to:
Want/Need > Idea > Vision > Inspiration > Motivation > Action

Of course, often we get lost somewhere in the process. Usually knee deep in the “specific actions”, or the mundane tasks over a set amount of time as we’re working toward that end result. Particularly when it’s a long-term goal.

To maintain your Self Motivation, set short term goals along the way. Create a mind map with specific milestones to keep you on the right track. Each of these milestones should be celebrated, or at least acknowledged, as a means of keeping you on the right track toward your desired end result.

It helps to look over the list above as well from time to time, and consider where you lost your motivation. Perhaps you lost sight of your vision, or your wants & needs have changed. Or maybe you’re feeling impatient and simply want the solution NOW without putting in the time & energy to get there.

Shortcuts never work, by the way. Looking back over my 15+ years in business, it was the short term goals and the consistent daily tasks that got me where I ultimately wanted to be…

And once I got there? I created a new vision. A new “where do I want to be next?” to work toward. The vision is particularly important. You should know exactly where you want to be, how you want to spend your time, what your lifestyle is like, etc. That vision may be 6 months from now, one year from now or ten years from now. But it’s that vision that will inspire you to continue moving forward, and fuel your motivation to work through the tasks it takes to get there.

Just wanting or wishing alone doesn’t work.

Everyone wants and wishes, but not everyone takes action – or has the Self Motivation to go after what they wish for or want. You have to nail it down.

You have to get a very clear vision of what it would look and feel like to HAVE what you most want. Clear enough that you can imagine experiencing it, and getting a true taste of what that would feel like. THAT is what fuels us.

It’s the very thing that will keep you inspired and motivated even when your trudging through the “yuck work” it takes to make it happen…

I encourage you to spend some time brainstorming, or creating a “vision board” if you work best with visuals, as we go into this second half of the year. At the very least, get a clear vision of what you want to achieve by year end!

Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Best,

I’ve been checking out LeadLife’s new lead generation Funnel Fixer™ tool.

This is a tool specifically for Lead Generation type business models, which gives you Visitor Intelligence data to work with to help close leads and turn them into sales.

The Funnel Fixer™ is a complimentary tool, and you can see a video overview and sign up at that link to try it out on your own website.

I don’t have a site set up purely for lead generation, but the results were interesting nonetheless. This type of tool would be ideal for speakers, authors, coaches, real estate agents, and other retail sales / lead gen type websites…

This complimentary tool is very easy to install. You simply copy a snippet of code they send you via email after you sign up, and paste that in the footer of your web pages. On most sites this is fairly easy to do with copy & paste to the footer file. If each of your web pages have an independent footer, you’ll want to add the code to the footer of each page.

Once you paste in the code sent to you, you’ll begin receiving email updates with your Visitor Insights and Prospect Interests. You can also log in to your account to see these details. It will show you who is visiting your site, where they came from, how many pages they viewed (and which pages, specifically), how long they stayed on each of those pages – and who they are. You’ll even get access to their LinkedIn profile if you want to follow up with them.

The Prospect Interests show you who filled out which form on your site, and on what page they expressed that interest. You can then follow up with them based on their very specific interests, versus using a general follow-up response. It gives you the opportunity to micro-target your prospects with tailored follow up.

To give you a working example, let’s say that you’re an author / speaker / coach with a website and blog – and you offer a newsletter to build a relationship with your target market. You likely have the opt-in forms on each page of your website coded so that you know why a visitor signed up and which aspect of your business they are most interested in.

But what about on your blog? Sure, you know they signed up through a post or page on your blog – versus a specific page of your website – but what are they most interested in, exactly? With the LeadLife Funnel Fixer™ you could see exactly which articles they viewed, for how long, which gives you a very good idea what their specific interests are.

What would you do with this information? Since they’re already opted in to your mailing list, you could email them a very personalized follow-up email. You could also locate them on social media networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook and engage with them personally there.

If Lead Generation is your business model, you need to be monitoring and tracking your website visitors very closely. Otherwise you are missing tons of opportunities to engage, and to “close the sale.”

See:

• B2B Companies Can Increase Leads 296% By Analyzing Web Traffic
• Funnel Fixer Case Study: Global Speaker David Nour Closes $48K Deal in One Week, Improves Sales from Inbound Leads

Best,

This post was sponsored by LeadLife. If you are interested in sponsoring a post on ClickNewz about your website or product, contact me for details.