Encourage Yourself

This morning, as I was on my usual ten mile excursion, I was thinking about how important motivation is to succeeding in life.  It has been my experience that someone can motivate you to get started, but at some point during the journey, self-motvation has to kick in to cause you to finish.  One of the reasons why so many never finish what they started is because of either a lack of or a loss of motivation.  We see loss of motivation in every aspect of life:  from diet and exercise to breaking free from bad habits, staying in abusive relationships, remaining in crippling debt and so on.  Lack of motivation can be a contributing factor to a lot of negative things in life. 

Where does motivation come from?  It can come from someone like a parent, teacher, or mentor encouraging you to give something a try.  You may be even encouraged to keep going and finish by someone other than yourself, but self-motivation must kick in to prevent stalling out.  In order to succeed, a person has to be able to motivate himself.  In the words of the Bible concerning David at a low point in his life, the Bible says that David encouraged himself.  How do you do that?  I think that you have to tell yourself that despite popular opinion, I can do this.  Inspite of how you feel, what you say to yourself can become stronger than what you feel in your emotions. 

I had a distinct, God-given opportunity to build my own home with my own hands.  It was an enormous undertaking.  Like anything else, you don't fully know what's going to happen even after sitting down and counting up the cost.  You don't know what setbacks are going to be encountered along the way.  This endeavor took two years, but by the grace of God I was able to complete it.  Whenever you are compelled to start something in life, it is a fact that before the job is finished you are going to need motivation to overcome obstacles along the way.

I find it to be true that anytime you are endeavoring to accomplish anything in life motivation is going to be needed to finish it.  Having a good idea is not enough.  We must have the determination to take this idea and see it through.