A detractor is anything that robs you of your motivation. In other words, it’s a demotivator. One very powerful detractor is the feeling that it is too late for you to accomplish a particular dream.

But as George Elliott is quoted as saying, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.”

The first time I heard that this quote I could have sworn his advice was written for me. Do you feel the same way about it?

The reasoning behind the feeling, the feeling that it’s too late for you to make your dream come true, can take many forms. You might feel you are too old. You might feel that it was something you needed to do before the children were born. You might feel that the right time had passed.

Whatever form it takes, this way of looking at your dreams is sure to cause you distress. You might end up kicking yourself for wasting your youth.  You might become a bit resentful of the kids, for the time and energy they take from your life. You might develop the unproductive habit of procrastinating.

But, whatever form it takes, you need to look hard and see if it’s not just an excuse, an excuse you have created to hide your fear of going after your dream, or a fear that maybe the dream you are seeking isn’t really good for you, or maybe not practical for your life situation. (Feel free to insert your own reason here; heaven knows we are able to come up with so many things to fear.)

So how do you deal with this fear? What you need to do is make your “What you might have been,” into your vision, the first factor of the model for self motivation. The vision in the model is that important change you want to make in your life.

You can’t argue with the fact that maybe if you had started working on your vision five years ago you would have accomplished it by now. So don’t argue with it; instead, accept it. Accept it and move on.

Because as true as it may be that had you started on your vision five years ago it would now be true in your life, just as true is the fact that if you start working on your vision today, in five years you will be able to look back, with gratitude, that you hadn’t delayed another five years. But if instead you give up on your dream, because “it is too late”, I guarantee in five years you will look back and complain, once again, “It’s too late.”

As George Elliott said, it’s never too late.

When you study the model for self motivation, you will learn about detractors. A detractor is something that robs you of your motivation, or sidetracks you on your path to achieving your dream. You will also learn about strategies to deal with these detractors. There are strategies to defeat all the detractors we may face.

One strategy for dealing with detractors is to identify your own motivators. This is a very personal strategy, because you know better than anyone else what things motivate you.

While I was working on my book, iMotivateMe: Take Control of Your Motivation to Reach Your Goals and Achieve Your Dreams, I turned what could have been a detractor into a motivator.  My brother had moved into town with his 1200 cc Harley Davidson Sportster.  Though I hadn’t ridden a motorcycle since I was in my 20’s, after riding his, I took the motorcycle safety foundation course and decided to buy my own.  Had I bought one while I was working on my book, it would definitely have the power to sidetrack me on my path to my dream, maybe even worse than TV does.

So, instead of allowing it to become a detractor, I made the decision to make it into a motivator; I decided to not buy one until after I have finished the book. I put a picture of the motorcycle I wanted over my desk so I would be continually reminded of what would occur when the book is completed.

It’s working!  The book is almost done, and I have one more reason to spend time in the evenings to complete it; once it is done, I will have my bike.

You too will find things in your life that can serve as motivators.  It can be a big thing like buying a motorcycle after you finish your book, or a little thing, such as going to a movie after you write out your vision.  The important thing in this, as in everything else in self motivation, is to be an intentional person, be the one to pull your own strings, rather than having another person, or another thing pull them.

What are your motivators? How have you intentionally used them to make your dreams come true?  Why not share them with your fellow readers by leaving a comment below.

Mario Andretti said, “Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal – a commitment to excellence – that will enable you to attain the success you seek.”

By saying this, he first off acknowledges the importance of the first factor in the model for self motivation, the vision.

The vision is what you desire, that important change you want to make in your life. It can be simple like losing 10 pounds or starting an exercise program, or it can be complex, like starting a new business or getting into a healthy relationship.

What Andretti makes clear, however, is that vision, your desires, are merely the first step, the first step to motivation and the success that motivation can bring. You need to back up that desire with the movement that motivation implies. That movement is sustained by commitment to your goals and to addressing the reality that success in any worthwhile endeavor will require work, sometimes lots of hard work.

And that is why you need a motivation plan, a written plan of how you will keep your motivation, and how you yourself moving toward your goals and dreams, how you will keep the fire burning.

Sometimes it seems to me that life is a series of occurrences and things that exist merely to knock me off my path to achieving my dreams. There are so many fascinating distractions and time wasters, hundreds of channels on wide screen, high definition televisions, so many video games, some many places to go, and recreation to partake of. And those are just the time wasters and distractions. Even more difficult to deal with are the bumps and road blocks that you will face as you go after virtually anything worthwhile. All these things seem to be working hard to sabotage your best efforts in making your dreams come true.

To overcome these things that all too often keep us from achieving our desires, you need all the help you can get. Your own unique motivation plan can be a powerful force in opposition to these time wasters and road blocks.

Your motivation plan will identify the things that motivate you so you can use them to your advantage to keep you moving forward.  Your motivation plan will also warn you about the things that will try to rob you of your motivation so you can take proactive steps to block them.

Henry David Thoreau said, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

I urge you to create a motivation plan and use it to guide you and guard you as you build those foundations.

To find out more about motivation plans and how to create them, please visit me at my home page, www.BobAPrentiss.com.   See you there!

Prior to creating my model for self motivation, I studied the research on motivation in education, employment and athletics. All three of these fields involve tons of money, so there is no dearth of research available. One model involving motivation in athletics that I particularly enjoyed was a model involving high performing athletes, the Resonance Performance Model used by high performing athletes.  RPM was developed by Dr. Doug Newburg at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, after interviews with hundreds of high performing athletes.  The model he developed can be used by coaches to help athletes achieve their best performances.

There are three elements of RPM:

•            the dream,

•            extensive preparation,

•            a strategy to overcome obstacles.

The dream refers to one idea, one concept, that captures a person so totally that he makes a commitment to making the expression of this one idea his life’s work.  The person has a dream, and he wants to express that dream in his life, express meaning to send out.  That’s what resonance refers to; his physical world, the outer world or environment, is in accord with his inner world.

In RPM, the dream is not a goal you set.   A goal is specific, quantifiable.  It is external to the person.  Goals may help you measure your improvement in your performance, but they are not the dream.  The dream is something inside of you, something you live every day.

Extensive preparation is the second element in resonance.  Preparation involves all the activities you engage in to make the dream happen.  But for a high performing athlete who is in resonance, this preparation is not drudgery, it is not something the athlete is compelled to do.  Instead it is something he wants to do, something that has real meaning to him, something that is indeed a integral part of the dream.  The incredible amounts of time the high performing athlete spends in preparation makes the dream a part of his every day existence.  The preparation becomes part of the resonance, that merging of the internal with the external. Newburg asserts that striving for the goal may be more resonating than achieving the goal

The third element of RPM is the strategy to overcome obstacles used by the athlete in resonance. Newburg uses the term obstacles very broadly.  There are external obstacles, such as rejection, losses, and injuries; and internal obstacles, such as fear and self doubt.  Newburg found that the way the high performing athlete deals with obstacles is different than how we lesser performing athletes deal with them.  Instead of just returning to the preparation stage, and increasing the duration or intensity of the practice, or modifying it in some other way, the high performing athletes first revisits the dream.  Instead of going back to the second stage, the preparation, the high performing athlete returns to the first stage, the dream.  The high performing athletes interviewed by Newburg explained that when they revisit their dream, they are reconnecting, in a reflective posture, to the feelings that motivate them to do the activities they do.  Revisiting the dream can include watching videos of performances, reading journals the athlete has kept, listening or just thinking about what is important to them.  It may include redefining the dream.

This contemplative, internal activity allows the high performing athletes to reconnect to the internal, which allows them to start once again on the integration of the external to the internal, in other words, resonance.

Not too long ago I took the course you need to take to get a motorcycle endorsement on your drivers license. I already had the endorsement, having gotten it when I turned 16 and started driving my brother’s 50cc Honda scooter, but, as I was considering getting a motorcycle, I decided I could use a “refresher.” I can’t really say it was a refresher since that implies I was being refreshed on knowledge I already had learned. The reality is that in my 20’s I was riding a very quick bike with absolutely no knowledge. I walked into the dealer with a credit card and walked out with a machine that could have been the end of me. Lucky for me, I am lucky and survived.

So I learned a lot in the course; everything was new to me. But the one piece of information I want to discuss today is that on a motorcycle you need to look where you want to go. If you look at an object that is in the direction you want to go, the bike will magically turn in that direction. I say magically, because it seems like magic. Look at the cone on your right and you will turn right. Look to the cone on your left and you will turn to the left. But just try turning right while looking left. It doesn’t work. It’s the same if you are looking right and trying to turn left. You can’t.

It’s a lot like life. In life, you need to look in the direction you want to go, in the direction of the positive change you want to make. If you want to lose 20 pounds, don’t look at yourself as a hopeless overeater, look at yourself as a slimmer person. If you want to be in a healthy relationship, don’t look at your mate as a lazy good for nothing; look at him as a loving provider. If you want to be in a better job, don’t always be looking at a job as working for a mean boss with a bunch of stupid fellow employees; look at a job as a place of fulfillment and joy.

You can even take this to the next step.  Actively visualize your change being completed. Have an image in your mind that the change you want in your life has already come true. Visualize yourself as a slimmer person, your mate as a loving provider, your boss as an intelligent mentor and your fellow employees as supportive team players.

Les Brown, one of the foremost motivational speakers said it well, “”You must see your goals clearly and specifically before you can set out for them. Hold them in your mind until they become second nature.”

What change would you like to make in your life? Keep facing in that direction and it will come to pass.