The problem is that motivation doesn’t last. Motivation is like utilizing sugar in your body. It’s good for a short burst but it’s not sustainable energy.

Motivation is defined in the dictionary as provided with a motive for action. Why would you need to provide yourself with a motive for action? You only provide yourself with a motive for action when you don’t want to do what it is that you are doing. I don’t recommend relating to your goals and your dreams in this way.

I have coached thousands of people who tried to motivate themselves to take the actions that they felt would cause them to accomplish their goals and dreams. Most people did not have thick enough skin to continuously take actions that they didn’t want to take. Most people would start fast and furious and then they would back down and fall apart because they couldn’t sustain the discomfort of these new actions. Ultimately, they didn’t want to take these new actions, and their motivation did not last.

My coaches and I use a process called Inspired Action Coaching. It’s based on the idea that when you are inspired you naturally take action. Inspired action is that feeling inside of you that pulls you forward. Inspiration is defined as imbued with the spirit to do something. You’ve experienced this kind of feeling before -this draw, this pull, this energy from within you that has you taking actions you wouldn’t normally take to achieve something that you are interested in.

I’ve found that when you change the context of your goals from “have to” to “I’m excited to” you are inspired and in action. When you get honest about what you really want to do, what really turns you on, what makes you feel good, when you get clear about your purpose, why your are here on earth, you are naturally inspired and in action. When you are imbued with the spirit to do something, action is automatic. No motivation necessary.

If you are not inspired you will have to force yourself to take action. Forced action will create a stop/start action or the feeling of peaks and valleys. You will get frustrated and probably give up on your goals.

Inspired Action feels like something that has taken over your body. You take actions in a way that is more effective and more powerful because it comes from a place of joy versus a place of fear. You want to do it versus you need to do it. When you want to do something, it gives you a feeling of delight and energy and enthusiasm.

To achieve inspired action you must eliminate the goals and dreams that are about escaping your current life. You must let go of the childhood dreams that were actually ways to prove to your parents that you were good enough for their love. You must stop taking actions out of guilt and obligation. I hate to break the new but most people are trying to achieve a particular life style so that they can prove to the world that they are respectable human beings that fit in. These kinds of pursuits rarely lead to inspired action. To achieve Inspired Action you must be operating from your life’s purpose.

As a creator of business, music, relationships and many other things myself, I totally disagree. Picasso would definitely create masterful works in jail. Could he create the same way? No. Can you create income, operate your life or move your projects forward in the same way during this economy? No. So what if you did what Picasso would do if he were in jail?

Picasso would be struck with an idea, a flash or a vision. He would have a pull inside of him to manifest this idea into reality. Yet, if he was like most people today, he might think to himself, “Oh well, I’m in jail, I don’t have any paint, I can’t create it… ho hum… poor me” Thankfully, Picasso and other creative people are not like most people today. There is no room for the victim mentality in creation. Creative people always find a way.

As a creator, Picasso simply assesses his situation. He seeks to understand the truth of his situation. He studies his environment very carefully, trying not to miss any of the details. He wants to identify what he can create with in this particular environment. He doesn’t complain he seeks to fully understand the truth of his situation so that he can create his vision from there. He doesn’t need the situation to change in order to manifest his vision. He accepts the situation as it is and makes it work for him.

For example he might notice that there are three different colored soils in the yard, a pencil, a blue pen, various red, yellow and green leaves and the background of gray paint on his cell wall. Everything is examined for its usefulness in creating the vision. He may not possess the pink he envisions so he waits, he observes and he allows the pink to reveal itself in the environment. He doesn’t get upset about a lack of pink because he keeps looking for solutions.

Ultimately his vision manifests in the form best suited for the environment. He doesn’t judge it or make it worse then a painting he created with canvas and paint. In fact, he marvels at how interesting it was to have to create it within the limitations he was presented with. That sparks another idea and off he goes creating again.

Now I ask you, “Can you create your dreams given your current set of circumstances?” If you approach your life the same way Picasso approaches his art, then the answer is absolutely “Yes!” Read this article again and look for clues or mosey on over to my website for more powerful lessons.

Matthew Ferry is an author, inspiring speaker and life coach. For 15 ways to kick the recession blues and get inspired to make positive changes head on over to www.15strategies.com for a free 15 day e-course sure to lift your spirits and get you in action.

To move past the pain and frustration of personal growth and achieve the desired changes in your life, I recommend two simultaneous approaches.

1. Create structure. Personal growth is not easy to do. Everything in your life resists the changes you want to make. In order to deal with the pain of personal growth, you must set up systems that pull you forward regardless of your resistance.

Setting up accountability is a powerful structure that provides you with the power to choose your behaviors versus getting pulled into the habitual path of least resistance. When you set benchmarks for yourself that are beyond your current capabilities and then create accountability with someone, you create a situation conducive to change. What you monitor you can improve. As you see the improvement you get encouraged which creates the energy of inspiration within you and pulls you forward into action in spite of the pain growth creates. As an Inspired Action life coach this is one of my primary tools to move you past the pain of personal growth.

2. Surrender. The biggest element that stops you from developing better habits is the pain and the suffering that occurs when we are doing this growing. I teach my clients to surrender to the pain of this growth. It’s similar to a bodybuilder who is using the mantra, “No Pain, No Gain”. You must begin to look at the pain of growth in an entirely new way.

Begin to see the frustration, doubt and uncertainty in this way.
Breakdown is the beginning breakthrough. In the Indian culture, they have a saying that destruction and creation are two sides of the same coin. You cannot create your new life without destroying your old life. So, you must begin to embrace this destruction. You must begin to disengage from your drunk monkey’s natural tendency to move away from the destruction and the pain that you create as you are achieving your new goals. You must begin to look at it like this is part of the process.

Breakdown is the beginning of breakthrough. I like to say it in this way; Success is nothing more than a series of well-managed breakdowns. You must be able to skip from breakdown to breakdown to breakdown to breakdown without losing your enthusiasm, which means you have to begin to think about your breakdowns, the destruction and the chaos that your goals create in your life in a completely new and different way. You must begin to celebrate the breakdown, get excited when the breakdown happens. This is not easy to do. That’s why most people use a coach to go through that process. If left to our own devices, we have a tendency to go into fear, get scared, retract, pull back, and go right back to normal again.

2. What we do in the life coaching process is begin to measure and monitor the level of satisfaction in each of the areas of their life. By measuring and monitoring their level of satisfaction we can improve it. What you monitor, you can improve.

3. We monitor the following categories to maintain a balanced lifestyle:

a. Your physical body

b. Your mindset

c. Your spiritual practices

d. Your primary relationship

e. Your family

f. Your business

g. Your personal finances

g. The contributions you make

h. Your social life

i. Your recreational activities

4. In the Inspired Action Coaching process, we spend one call every quarter determining how satisfied you are in each of these areas on a scale from 1-10; 1 being unsatisfied, 10 being completely satisfied. Then once you identify the number of how satisfied you are, then we ask as your coach, what would make it a 10? The key is to identify specific measurable results, intentions, experiences, feelings that you want to have, ways of being that you could be putting forward in that particular category.

5. Then you monitor what is going on with this new list, this new balanced list. By doing that, everything works in your favor.