Everyone needs to be inspired to keep their motivation as high as possible, especially when the exam is getting closer. It’s almost as if it needs to be topped up from time to time like the oil in a car.

Motivation is a process of moving from what you have to what you want to have, powered by a force that is partly created by the strength of your beliefs. Inspiration is more to do with something that arouses feelings to do well. It is generally created by a person you relate to, who demonstrates attributes that you admire and, to a certain extent, may be envious of. It doesn’t have to be an actual person; it could in fact be a story about a fictional person.

One of the best ways to create feelings to do well, and a technique used by motivational trainers, is to tell stories of people’s achievements, often against great odds. The story then acts as a metaphor for you. The more you relate and associate with the characters the more inspired you become.

Stories can be from many years ago or, in fact, taken from the modern world. Sir Steve Redgrave, five times gold medallist, is an inspiration in many ways, but what I find most impressive is that he remained motivated for twenty years and that, after every Olympics, he had to wait another four years before he could achieve his ambition!

Sir Steve Redgrave
Quintuple Olympic Gold Medalist Rower Sir Steve Redgrave has proved himself the greatest Olympian Britain has ever produced. His Olympic successes began in 1984, when he won the gold medal in the coxed fours and ended in Sydney in 2000. He became the only UK athlete ever to have won Gold Medals at five consecutive Olympic Games. Sir Steve was 38 when he won that final gold and he managed to motivate himself to stay at the top for all that time but what is his secret?

In the many talks that Sir Steve delivers in his capacity as a sports personality, we can get an insight into his thoughts on motivation.

“Sometimes your dreams and goals may seem impossible and so it may prove necessary to break them down into small manageable chunks.”

Sir Steve tells the story of a swimmer, who realised that, if he was to have a chance of winning the 100 metre back-stroke event at the Olympic Games in four years’ time, he would need to cut 4 seconds off his time. A tough task at this level. But the swimmer then broke that into smaller goals: cutting the time back by 1 second per year, or 1/12 second per month, and the goal started to look achievable – and the swimmer won his medal.

However, “You can have your dreams, your goals and your strategy but it’s all for nothing without the hard work. And that discipline isn’t just setting the alarm clock for your early morning training session – but also getting up when it goes off!”

Learnings
From this we can gain some very useful tips. Firstly, when setting goals, make them challenging but achievable. Make them inspirational, but not so big that they appear daunting. This is achieved by setting small goals that can be achieved, each one a stepping stone towards your ultimate objective or dream.

Secondly, there are dreams, probably powerful images and future events that you have created in your imagination. Then there are goals which are the short-term smaller targets that you set yourself.

And finally there is your strategy, which is the plan of how your goals when achieved will contribute to your dreams.

But they all mean nothing without the hard work. The day-to-day practice and repetition may be both painful and boring, but is essential if you are to be ultimately successful.

And if you need more inpsiration check this out……Steve Jobs wow

This is an extract from my book the E word, all you need to know about passing exams, which should I am very pleased to say be available in the next few weeks!