Most of us are lucky enough to have a bank of memories of things we have achieved. Many of us pretend they don’t exist or that they are of no consequence. This is hogwash because they do matter and they can be used as a motivation tool so please don’t pretend you haven’t achieved anything!

Can you walk, speak, listen, dance, touch your nose, touch your toes, can you tie your shoelaces, can you whistle, have you driven a car, can you skip?

Yes?

To any of these?

Well then.

You have achieved!

You have done something which you couldn’t do before and you can now! It doesn’t matter how small you perceive these achievements to be. That’s not the point. The point is that you HAVE achieved and you can again.

Using your memory to remind yourself of a time when you have done something you thought impossible gives your brain permission to think you can achieve in the future. It says, if you let it, I did that therefore I can do this. I completed that so I can complete this. Finished that so I can finish this. As a writer its often quite difficult to remain motivated to write even though you love it! No money is promised and no rewards are tangible other than the feeling of completion. So, when I feel myself ‘’wandering’ in my head I refocus and remember how good it feels when I have finished a chapter, an article or a poem. Finishing feels good…. for me! Alternatively, we can use a rubbish memory to motivate us too. Can you remember how you felt the last time you managed to NOT finish something…felt like crap right? Do you remember that pit-of-your-stomach-deeply-YUK feeling when you had to admit to yourself or others that you simply didn’t do it? For me it reiterates my particular feelings of not being good enough and I use these memories to motivate myself at times so that I can look in the mirror or the eyes of another and say ‘YEP, did that!’. So, if you work better in defiance of a bad memory then think of that yukky feeling and act in the opposite way to achieve your goal.