Everybody wants to know how to stay motivated.  Whether you’re currently focused on getting out of debt, saving for a home, self-financing a business, or guiding your company through recessions and downturns – All of us sometimes need to find some new ideas on how to stay motivated.

Here is a quicklist on how to stay motivated:

1. Motivate someone else
   When you give openly and freely you are letting the Universe know that you have in abundance what you are giving away.  The Universe responds in kind by providing you with more of what you give a away.  This theme of reciprocity is seen in religious, business, and self-help teaching repeatedly.  It works for all things – money, time, love, and – as applied here – motivation.  On Friday night, before leaving work for the weekend, talk to some of your coworkers about finances.  They may not want to talk about specifics, but bring up the topic of savings, paychecks, and secondary incomes.  Find out what they do to build their nest-egg, and how they budget time and money.  Tell them about the steps YOU take to balance time and money, to build for the future, and to encourage them to do all they can during their time off to increase their income.  You will immediately feel charged up yourself, and when the 5 o’clock bell rings, you’ll feel like you’re heading TO work instead of coming HOME FROM WORK.
   
2. Tell somebody else where you’re going to be in 36 months
   The power in this lies in the binding social contract.  No money is exchanged, no services.  The only thing at stake is your reputation – you don’t want to go against your word.  And even though you haven’t promised anything – the motivation is provided by knowing that they are watching to see how you do.  They may not know whether to believe you or not – but it is now up to you to do what you said you would.
3. Remember what you’re reasons for success are
   The idea here is to replace “how to stay motivated” with “why to stay motivated”. All of your goals need to be in line with your values.  What are your REAL motivations?  not what get’s you up in the morning, but what is the motivation that will propel you for years, and a lifetime.  Do you want to have a list of people that you’ve inspired?  Do you want to build an empire to pass on to your children?  A foundation which helps thousands? If you have not yet written down your values, or you haven’t REALLY taken the time to evaluate them, work with the 7 habits of highly effective people to get started.
4. Internally focus on your power to achieve your goals (Meditate, pray, and intone)
   Say a quick prayer – or meditate briefly – on harnessing the power to motivate.  Don’t so much “ask” for strength or motivation as “believe” that you are movement incarnate.  You are a firestorm of industry.  You are Lance Armstrong.  Internally focus and harness your own energy.  Feel yourself “inhale” motivation, let it compress into a ball of energy in your lungs, and then “exhale” – ready to push forward
5. Build a vision board
   Take some time this weekend to go window shopping in the Universe.  Cut out pictures from magazines, or print off pictures from the Internet – of luxurious landscapes, homes, cars, love interests, family outings, children, pets, happiness, money.  Everything you want.  Everything.  Be greedy.  Say what you want.  Give in to your heart.  Build it.  Once you have your pictures in front of you, make a collage on a posterboard.  Hang the vision board in your office and stare at it every day – to get the feeling of having those things you desire.  Thought precedes life.
6. Outline tasks with a Seven-Board
   Don’t let planning overtake execution.  Stay on top of tasks by not spending all day thinking about all you’ve got to do.  Use the seven-board technique to QUICKLY outline several tasks that need to be done, and knock some out.  If you want to know how to stay motivated, you need simple steps to accomplish that contribute to your goals.
7. Incur an expense that you have to work to pay for
   A trick from Donald Trump.  He suggests not just saying “this is something that I want to do someday” – but actually, as he put it “sign on the dotted line” – something that will hold your feet to the fire and force you to act.  This is the ultimate motivator.  Forcing action on your part to either sink or swim.  It removes you from procrastinating on actually getting started, and moves you into “action”.  What could be more motivating than that?