Overcome Negativity and Past Failures

As you grow in personal leadership, the excitement you experience in achieving new goals is so fulfilling that you will never want to give up the rewards of this way of life. The gratification you receive from exercising personal leadership makes it hard to believe that it would be possible to live any other way. But new habits and attitudes require alert monitoring to ensure their continuity. Old habits and attitudes still lurk in the recesses of your subconscious and will reassert themselves if you are not vigilant. Two motivation blocks that stem the natural tide of creativity are so frequently encountered that it is good to have a plan for dealing with them should they occur.

Negative habit patterns.

Negative habit patterns arising from negative thinking often cause a motivation block. Some children grow up in an atmosphere where every suggestion or request is met with an automatic negative response. As a result, it becomes natural to concentrate on why things cannot be done instead of how they can be done. The result is procrastination or making excuses. Remember that there is always the danger of unconsciously slipping back into the habit of thinking negatively and blaming circumstances for lack of progress. Remain constantly aware of how you respond to suggestions, ideas, and new experiences. If you realize that you are responding negatively, let this awareness strike the emotional chords needed for making the desired personality changes instead of acting as a motivation block. Set up a strong program of affirmation, and you will gradually replace negative habit patterns with substitution. As your new attitudes grow stronger, they dominate your pattern of thinking, and the old negative responses gradually subside. Success is the inevitable result. Associate primarily with people who think and live positively. Read material that feeds your mind with positive ideas. Listen to personal development and self-improvement CDs or webinars. The real key to growth is confidence and belief in your ability to change yourself and your attitudes.

Reliving past failures.

The second serious motivation block often encountered is the practice of reliving past failures. Failure is relatively unimportant. History’s greatest progress has been achieved through trial and error by individuals who dared to fail and try again. Failure is tragic only when it is allowed to create a motivation block to the future effort – when it becomes so emotionally laden with embarrassment, fear, or doubt that it affects the total personality. Mistakes are neither blemishes on your record nor indications of weakness. As you develop personal leadership, you learn to view mistakes as an inevitable part of life, an opportunity for growth, and a part of the process of maturing. You can enjoy analyzing a mistake to find all its potential good. It then becomes a victory and an opportunity for growth. Face life realistically and without fear; refuse to deny life, to shrink or hide from it.

These two motivation blocks to personal leadership are most quickly overcome through the practice of goal setting. If you know where you stand and where you are going, you can quickly destroy the effect of either of these motivation blocks because you have already fashioned the necessary tools in your plan of action. The combination of challenging goals, a vigorous program of affirmation, and the ongoing practice of visualization give you quick mastery over motivation blocks.