Find the Strength

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that whispers, I'll try again tomorrow."
~Mary Anne Radmacher

I love this quote.

Many people would have to read this quote many times to find a deep meaning, while others look at it once, nod their head, and say, "what a great saying." But the people who really appreciate quotes like these are the ones that take action. Take action on what they know they can be better at. When I look at this quote, I see something that I have been struggling with for the past couple years. Something that I know that I have resolved many times to become better at, but never actually fully accomplished. The thing I'm talking about is self motivation.

It takes courage to motivate yourself to do something. It takes courage to say, "Yes. That is what I am going to do." Without anybody telling you it is required. Many times it will be required, and that alone takes much self-motivation. But it is when you aspire to do something on your own that people admire you. We call this setting goals. I know that I've set many goals this far in life, only to come short on a few of them. I was always angry at myself for not giving it my best effort. When you complete your goals is when you can say to yourself, "I've done it. I am the master of my fate."

I heard about an interesting study not too long ago. It was about students who went to Harvard University. A certain researcher went around and asked a few of the students there what they hoped to accomplish in life, or in other words, what their goals were. 84% of the students had no goals. 13% of the students had made goals, but hadn't written them down. Only 3% of the students that went to Harvard had made goals, and had written them down. About 10 years later the same researcher went back and found all of the students he surveyed. The results were astonishing. The 13% of the students that had goals and had written them down doubled the annual salary of the 84% of students that had no goals. Doubled. But here was the amazing part. The 3% of students that had written their goals down were making approximately ten times the annual salary of the 84% of students who had no goals. Ten times! Here is the reason that I think these students were the most successful ones.

When you make goals, you obviously try to accomplish them. But often you make too many goals that you are able to remember with all of the things happening in your life. If you write all of your goals down and put them somewhere where you see them often, you are reminded constantly of what you are trying to achieve.

So you may be asking yourself, "Well this is great about goals and everything, but what does this have to do with self-motivation?" Let me tell you by asking you a question. Why do you motivate yourself? What do you do it for? That's right. You motivate yourself to complete the personal goals you have set. Without your personal goals, what do you have to work for? What do you hope to achieve? Exactly. Nothing. So the point of this post is just to say, find the strength. Find the strength to 1) make your goals, 2) write them down and 3) achieve them. Achieve them through self-motivation. Find the strength. We can all do it. And I know that I need to work at it also. We will be so much more successful in life if we have something to work for, and we put in the effort to work for it. And if you don't finish one day, keep working at it.

"Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that whispers, I'll try again tomorrow."