Niels Gouman stated in my ebook Nine ways to get motivated for college that watching a video can be a great way to get motivated. He posted one youtube clip with it, which is simply fantastic. I’ve found 6 others. Watch them and get to work. Just do it!

Warhawk Matt Scott: ‘No excuses’

Take it to the next level

I’m not an athlete?

My better is better than your better

Awake

Michael Jordan: Failure

Chris Bryant

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

• Alex: @VraagAlex: Focus on your goal and stay focused, celebrate every success! That’s how I stay motivated!
• @Paul_Arnhem: Follow your heart. Lot of contacts with friends. Visit inspiring cities. As an entrepreneur: Feel, do, think.
• @Skipski: Music! I’ve got an ‘energylist’ in iTunes with songs that inspire and motivate me!
• Martin: Daunting is exciting. Everyone should be a bit afraid and out of their comfort zone no matter how prepared. Don’t be put off by the new, embrace it!
• Niels Gouman: Depending on what I need to be motivated for one of these usually does the trick: YouTube1, Youtube2 and YouTube3.
• Sandra Müller: I don’t like to be tired in college, so I make sure I have enough sleep. Without the right amount of sleep, I just feel tired and it is hard to concentrate. So get enough sleep, or get some coffee!
• @vtamethodman: Go learn a new language; here is a great guide to get you started: http://su.pr/AQMkjL
• Scott H Young: Set yourself a habit. Most people overestimate how much work their motivation can do, and underestimate the power of routine. Keeping a consistent study schedule or approach usually beats marathon cram sessions.
• Nate Desmond: Have a fun task planned that you cannot do until you complete the less enjoyable project.
• Ibrahim Husain: Know your goal, and the reason you chose it, and you’ll find your greatest source of motivation.
• David Pierce: Do no more that you have to than you have to, and do everything you want to. The balance is easier to find than you think.
• Ajay Shrikanth: Learn to love what you do. If you enjoy the process of doing, there is never going to be a problem with motivation as you will enjoy the work!
• Thom Bongaerts: Listing music also gets you motivated. This is actually one of my own favorites: YouTube. Make sure you understand the lyrics; it’s a lesson for live!!
• Bianca Grimmius: Lecture is second priority, the first priority is of course seeing your friends and getting that awesome book out of the library!

Do you have an interesting way to get motivated? Would you like to be included in ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college‘? I’ll put your way in the ebook and everybody who downloads the ebook from that point will see your way to get motivated for college! Post them here in the comments or send me an email!

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

When you need to finish a paper, but you don’t do it, you are procrastinating. With this procrastination you build up a guilty feeling. ‘Shit, I didn’t work on my paper, I need to finish it right now, because I wasted a lot of time, I feel so guilty.’ This seems like a good motivator for a lot of people, they claim that they can work good with a guilty feeling.

Why I don’t think guilt is a good motivator
Ask yourself a question, is guilt an intrinsic or an extrinsic motivator? Does it come from the outside in the form of reward/punishment or comes it from the inside; do you really want to finish your paper deep inside? At first, you would say that guilt is an intrinsic motivator. You are feeling guilty, so you want to finish your paper now. I can’t agree with this. I think guilt is an extrinsic factor. Guilt is a punishment for not doing your task. So now you have to fix that guilty feeling by finishing a paper. In that way, you aren’t punished. So guilt is punishment before you did anything.

What will happen on the long term?
On the long term, you can’t keep guilt as a motivator to finish tasks. Because you aren’t changing from an extrinsic to an intrinsic motivator. If you want to succeed on the long term, you need to get away from rewards/punishments, you need to stand completely behind your goal. You need to find an intrinsic motivator to keep pushing yourself more close to your end-goal.

So, when you are feeling guilty about not-doing something, stop feeling guilty. You just didn’t do it, accept it. Finish it now and do your task on time next time. Don’t let yourself feeling guilty, because it doesn’t work. Good luck.

The anouncement

I have written my first ebook about motivation. It will be called ’9 ways to get motivated for college’, it contains 8 tips to get motivated for college. Not the ordinary way, but ways you may not have thought about before! By the reactions I already had, I can tell that the ebook is going to be pretty awesome.

But I want more awesomeness. I want you to get involved. What is your tip to get motivated? Please share it in the comments or on Twitter or just send me an email. Just write down your way to get motivated in about 25 words (not more than a twitter text) and I will put your tip in my ebook! I’ll mention your tip with a link back to your Twitter/site/orwhatever. Interaction all over the place! Please share your tips!

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

Where do you get all your good ideas? And where do you lose them? If you are the same as me, in the shower. Not always though. I shower in the morning most of the times, right after I wake up. So I’m not wake enough to think. But when I’m awake for 20/30 minutes or so, the shower is my ultimate creativity spot. Like all your creative borders are washed away. Everything is possible, like you see a naked idea and you just have to dry it and dress it. In the shower, the impossible is possible, solutions are unlimited and opportunities are everywhere. The power of a shower. That is why I am going to change the way I take showers.

What I (and a lot of people with me) do now

I wake up, press snooze a couple of times, decide to get out of bed and jump in the shower. Shower, dry, get dressed, make myself look good enough to face daylight and I get out of my bedroom and get some breakfast. After breakfast the day finally starts. And that is finally the moment I need creativity, a long time after the shower. So I don’t need to ‘feel awake’ until I had breakfast. I don’t use anything of the power of the shower.

How I am going to use the shower (and how you should use it!)

When I wake up, the first thing I’ll do won’t be taking a shower. I will get breakfast first, drink a cup of coffee, read my email and go through my RSS feed. Then, when I’m going to need my creativity (or motivation) for college or a blog post, I’ll start thinking about the task. Brainstorm for a blog post, read through a draft of my paper, something like that. Then, I will take a shower. I’ll bring a notebook in the bathroom, so I can write down the ideas I get. I will make full use of the power of the shower. Think, think without limits, and write down every idea I get (a water-resistable notepad would be nice). After the shower, I will feel enthusiastic, motivated and eager to start writing the blog post or I will even be motivated for college.

The power of the shower is real people, who is going to take the experiment with me? Tell me about your findings, I will do the same!

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

Where does motivation come from? Business’s think you can motivate your employees with rewards, or punishments. The big CEO’s get bonuses when they do their job well, and in that way, they get motivated to do their best. Is that true? I’ve covered motivation before, but I have something to add now.

Where real motivation comes from

Real motivation comes from inside. Not from the rewards we get for doing what we do, not from the fear we have for failing. When we actually want to do something really good, we need ‘intrinsic motivation’. I’ve based this post on a TED Talk I saw after reading Cal’s post Beyond Passion: The Science of Loving what you do. After seeing that talk, I look different at the phenomenon ‘motivation’.

• We have to change our view on motivation. How we think about motivation now is only about short-term motivation. We’ve procrastinated, so we have to do a lot of studying in the last couple of weeks and we need to stay motivated. Consider your goal again, reward yourself for studying. Those things work, but only on the short term. In the long term, we need other solutions. Other ways to get motivated.
• Common sense isn’t always true. The public opinion is that when you reward yourself, you will do your task better. But that works only with tasks you’ve already mastered, easy tasks. Things like cleaning your house, doing the laundry, will go faster, will go better. But when you need to get creative, rewarding yourself won’t work. This is because you are getting some sort of tunnel vision, you can only focus on the reward. And when you need to get creative, you need to have a broad view, everything should be possible.

How can we be motivated in the long term than?

Dan Pink gave us three components of motivation we need to understand if we want to get motivated on the long term: autonomy, mastery and purpose. I will explain those three with the example of Sid, the guy with the business major.

• Autonomy. Be the master of your own time. You are in charge of what you do when. In college, this isn’t completely possible, you can’t always schedule your lectures yourself and you might have other obligations. But you are the master of your school work. Sid can postpone his homework, procrastinate and have a lot of stress in the last couple of weeks before the test, but he can also choose to get on schedule, finish homework early and be in charge of his own time, also in the last weeks before the tests. We tend to forget that, you don’t NEED to postpone, you don’t need to cram everything in the last week. You can also choose to have a good schedule you stick to.
• Mastery. Want to learn something. Make sure whatever your major is, it is something you want to master. Sid wants to become a good businessman and wants to earn that suit he’ll wear later. He needs to master everything that comes with the business major. Master a skill, and feel awesome.
• Purpose. The most important. Sid doesn’t do his major because he wants to work for microsoft and earn a lot of money. Sid wants to set up a non-profit organization which helps other people to build schools in Africa. Sid wants to have a company which can supply the building material and the advice on how to build a school. He needs a good business model for this, because Sid isn’t something who thinks small. Sid does his major because he has a purpose. He feels the greater cause of studying on his shoulders, he goes to college for a reason.

These three things combined equals motivation on the long term. Motivation to change the world, to make great things happen. To conclude: The current view on motivation is wrong, people don’t get motivated to do great things by rewards and punishments, that’s only short term motivation, which won’t work on creative tasks. When you want to get motivated on the long term and want to make great things happen, you need to have autonomy, have a hunger for mastery and you need a purpose. Watch the TED talk, get motivated, change the world. What is your purpose?

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

I am going to try a new thing here. I am not going to try it alone. I have Archan with me. Archan wrote a poem. Not just a romantic poem, it’s a motivational poem. That is why I am going to post him here! Hope you like it.

‘Move Forward
Take it one step at a time
It will provide momentum
And you will feel sublime.

Move Forward
Hey, what can go wrong?
Try to sing a song
Aim for a journey which is long.

Move Forward
De-clutter your life
What do you want to achieve?
Nothing is out of your reach.

Move Forward
Never let fear hold you back
You don’t lack
So get back on track.

Move Forward
Stop rushing around
By running helter-skelter
Instead, mail that employment letter.

Move Forward
Why be a slave from 9 to5?
Start your own business
And don’t be shy.

Move Forward
Take an evening class
And earn an MBA
To keep the cobwebs at bay.

Move Forward
What have you got to lose?
Go swimming every day
And look like Tom Cruise.

Move Forward
It’s okay if you fail
Pick yourself up
Don’t ever feel like you’re stuck.

Move Forward
It’s okay not to arrive
Take a detour and find
Values you left behind.

Move Forward
Instead of aping others
Follow your gut
and stay away from the rut.’

Archan Mehta is a freelance writer and can be contacted at archanm@hotmail.com. Archan is going to write more for StudySuccessful, would you like to write for StudySuccessful also sometimes? Contact me, via the contact page.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

Those kids are always the bullied kids. The kids who wanted more, wanted to study more and want to excellerate in their field. They still are. The geeks. The stupid kids who are in the library all the time. But are they that stupid? I want to get more out of my life, but am I really doing that? Perhaps. I don’t study as much as I could do, but I have fun a lot of times instead of studying. That is also worth a lot, right? Still I think I can do a lot more and have as much fun as I’m having now. The only problem is motivation.

I’ve written a few post about motivation, but still I find it hard to motivate myself. I use a lot of my free time watching Friends first, now I finished all 10 seasons and now with watching How I Met Your Mother. You already know I love that show. When I have a spare hour, I will watch a couple of episodes, while I should be doing other things. In a week those hours add up pretty fast.

What now?

Ok, I have analyzed the problem and I’ve acknowledged it. One of the biggest steps is taken. So what do I have to do now?

• Stop watching shows before sleep. I love watching shows, but I shouldn’t before I go to sleep. If I want to get a good night sleep, I have to read before I go to sleep. I’ll fall asleep faster and don’t have a zooming laptop all night long next to me.
• Stop going back to my room every free hour. It isn’t a shame to use the library every once in a while.
• I am going to work 12 hours a week. This will give me a more tight schedule. This means 12 hours less for me to do nothing, because I need to do a lot more in less time.
• Be an active blogger again. I admit, I didn’t do much about my blog last couple of weeks. I am going to post at least 2 blogs a week again and comment on other blogs and be a writer for GearFire.net!

Yeah, I set a couple of goals for myself in these last months of 2009. And I am going to make sure 2009 was a great year, it was already, but these last two months are going to make it even better! It will be pretty busy, so I need to make a couple of concessions. I am going to be the stupid kid again. I am going to be more in the library. Who is with me on this trip? Let’s make these last months cool, let’s make them worth it, let’s make them AWESOME.

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

Of course we need to be motivated, but what is even better to do (and really motivating) is motivating others. See other people getting motivated because of your talk is really motivating! I always have the ‘Yeah-I-did-it’-feeling. And I feel excited to go on with what I have to do.

But I have to admit, motivating others is one of the hardest things to do, when you are not that motivated yourself. Anyway, give it a try!

Motivating others in a positive way

When you are a leader, boss or above others in any way, it is hard to motivate in a positive way. The easiest way to motivate is punishment. ‘If you aren’t finished within an hour, you will get paid less’ is something I heard pretty often when I worked in a supermarket. I was motivated, but not in a good way. This motivated me only on the short term, the next time, when the leader didn’t say that, I didn’t work as hard and I hated that leader for saying these words!

How to motivate positive

• Make clear it is all about reaching the ultimate goal. Tell the others what the goal is and how they and you should reach it. Tell them that everybody is important when it comes to reaching the goal. Everybody needs to give their best to reach not only the goal, but go beyond the goal and get great success!
• Place bets. ‘I bet you can’t finish that within an hour.’ That whould be way more motivating to me when the leader said that to me in the supermarket. I would immediatly say ‘I can’ and work my ass off!
• Be kind. ‘If you finish this part of the project, I will give you something more fun to do later on.’ This shows them they only have to work hard now.
• Be fair. Give everybody the same amount of work. When you see your collegues who don’t have to do that much, how do you feel?
• Put on the karaoke version of Eye of the Tiger and make your own text. In this text you will put a great motivational speech. People will laugh and will be as motivated as a cheeta to catch a zebra! THE EYE OF THE TIIIIIIGEEEER.

Motivating others is an inevitable aspect of life. Do it good. Don’t be a negative motivator, it won’t bring you anywhere. Make the goal clear, be kind and sing Eye of the Tiger and you will motivate others! Do you agree or do you think Eye of the Tiger is way overrated? Let me know!

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

After writing a post on how to motivate for college I decided to make a serie of posts out of this. This serie is not only to motivate for college, but to motivate for anything! Here is part two.

Success stories

Success stories are one of the biggest motivators for me. When I finished Michael Phelps’ ‘Under the surface’ I wanted to have antother swim training immediately!

The idea behind success stories

Success stories show how people can accomplish things which seems unaccomplishable (and no, that isn’t a word). This means human beings are able to accomplish more than they think they can accomplish. So you can too! You can accomplish more than you think you can. You may think you will never run a marathon, but you can! If Team Hoyt is able to accomplish the IronMan triathlon, you can accomplish at least a marathon!

Some examples.

• Leo Bebauta’s ‘How I got 100,000 subscribers in two years.’ A free e-book I can definitly recommend to every blogger. This motivated me to not only write a couple of posts, but write tons of posts! And write quality, check all your posts again and make them better. A must-read for bloggers!
• The autobiography of Muhammad Yunus. The founder of the Grameen Bank, a bank who give microcredit to the poorest in our world. A story from someone who had a plan, which was first laughed at, but he continued. And in 2006, he won the Nobelprize.
• Team Hoyt. This can’t be NOT motivating to you. Here is a short movie of father and son Hoyt, don’t tell me you feel like you can’t do anything after watching this. If that father can accomplish so much, you can do something too!

You are motivated right. Go do something. Do what you should do and change the world!

(I have one more video, it is the last video from the Westwood College campaign. Since I have been posting the other two, I want to share the last one with you also!)

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!

After writing a post on how to motivate for college I decided to make a serie of posts out of this. This serie is not only to motivate for college, but to motivate for anything! Here is part one.

Failures are a good example of how you don’t want to end. This could be anything, watch some hobo’s on the street, read a book about how someone went from everything to nothing or just look in the newspapers how things can go wrong.

What is the idea behind watching failures

When you look at failures, you discover that this is what you really don’t want. This means, you see someone who could be anything, but they didn’t go to college, so they are nothing. You look at them, understand how they got there and you see that you have to do it different, to actually succeed!

Some examples to watch

• 2008′s Tour de France winner Rasmussen. He won the tour the france, but there was something wrong. He is under suspicion of using illegal stuff to make his prestations better. Definitly a failure. This can motivate you to do things in the right way.
• Alfred Nobel. Yes, the guy from the Nobelprize. He made a great invention. Dynamite! A pretty explosive invention. This is a failure towards mankind, and he knew it. In his last will he let the world know he wanted to raise a fund with the money he made with dynamite. This fund would be used to applaud scientists for new discoveries they did. His invention was a failure, the guy himself wasn’t. This could be a great motivation to set things straight, even when you ***ed up.

Last but not least. This video.

This girl is definitly a failure. She is really a cute girl and wanted to become an architect, be she didn’t became it. You don’t want to become like her right? You do want to become what you always wanted to become. Well, do it! Doesn’t this video motivates you? (This video comes from a campaign. Visit the site from the campaign at westwoodhelp.me!)

Do you want to get motivated? Learn from failures and feel the energy to do it better than them!

Have you download the free ebook on motivation already? Download ‘Nine ways to get motivated for college’ from Stefan Knapen now!