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.

Tags: george Elliott, model for self motivation, motivation, motivational plan, self motivation

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 28th, 2011 at 2:42 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.