Many of the people that I know are familiar with my interest in the concept of self motivation. The work that I do to help people find their life purpose whether through my workshops or with my life coaching clients is directly targeted to ignite the self motivation engine within us.

If life purpose is the fuel for self motivation, the sense of achievement is the oil that keeps us going forward. If a prolonged period of time passes and we don't have that sense of achievement our enthusiasm slows and we start feeling tired. We need to realize the fruits of our efforts or have a sense of advancement.

The objective of this article is to present tools to make sure that achievements happen in our path. We will also present a plan on how to use these tools. We have called these tools the two pillars of achievement because the way we see it is that a sustained level of achievement depends heavily on them.

The first tool is "Writing": Many people whether in my iDecode workshops or as life coaching clients think that having things planned in their heads is enough. In most cases this proved to be an ineffective way of planning.

When we only depend on planning in our heads, what might happen is that the brain does one of two things depending whether the person is a pessimist or an optimist:

1- The optimist brain will normally jump over difficult phases, possible challenges or obstacles. When the plan is at work this person will then face the overlooked challenges and might be discouraged to continue.

2- The pessimist brain will normally pick only the difficult phases, possible challenges and obstacles. This will discourage the person from initiating any plan.

Without writing the person will also miss the chance to plan the short term achievements that will lead to the final destination. Now these small achievements are what we trying to keep. The final destination is essential and detrimental to our self motivation, but as we said before, the boosts of the small achievements along the way are the ones that keep us moving in the direction that we set.

The second tool is "Visualization": Writing down the final destination or the detailed plan is an amazing tool. Still they are only words on paper. They have no soul or life in them. The way we make the words live is through our powerful skill of imagination. 

One of the most important factors that a book is much better than a movie of the same story, is that when we read the book we use our imagination to visualize what is happening. When we see the movie in many cases that perfect image is distorted and we don't like how the director presented the story. The director dictated his/her own vision over our own.

Once we visualize every step of the plan and how we would be feeling, thinking and acting when we achieve every step of the plan as well as when we reach our final destination, the idea comes to life.

It is within the act of visualization that the magic begins and you start realizing how things are starting to head your way rather than you running after them. Achievements become much more easier and our self motivation engine is in top gear.

The pillars of achievement and accordingly the path our heightened sense of self esteem and high sense of self motivation are writing and visualization. Keep using these tools and I can promise you that you will eventually feel that you can do anything.