No man can walk down two paths

Successability, the second factor of self motivation, means confidence in your competence. The model for self motivation tells us that the more confident you are in your abilities, the more motivated you will be. There are two ways you can use this information to increase your motivation. The first is by doing things that will increase your confidence. The second is by not doing those things that decrease your confidence.

A great way for you to increase your confidence is by simply being successful, experiencing success. The expectancy value theory tells us a person will be motivated to undertake activities for which the person has a positive expectancy for success.

One thing that most people agree on is that if you spread yourself too thin, if you get involved in too many projects, you may have trouble being successful in any of them. This has been a lesson I have had to learn over and over again. Some might say I am easily distracted, but I prefer to see myself as simply curious, extremely curious. I am fascinated by so many different things. I actually pursue relatively few of them, but when I do pursue one, I take my pursuit seriously. My most recent pursuit was teaching myself options trading. Options trading is complicated. It’s also a dangerous pursuit if you haven’t educated yourself thoroughly. The most dangerous thing about it for me, however, was that I found teaching myself options trading took time away from what I knew I wanted as my primary pursuit, becoming the expert on self motivation.

Knowing what my primary pursuit is keeps me from squandering my time on other pursuits, and makes me more successful in my primary one. Guess how I know what my primary pursuit is? You’re right if you said it's my vision. My vision is what is most important to me. I very carefully and critically look at how I am spending my time. If I am spending time on pursuits that I need to spend on my vision, I need to get back on track.

I don’t mean to suggest that we all need to have one-track lives. My life should not be just about becoming the expert on self motivation. But becoming that expert has to be a priority in order for it to happen. So I spend some time on my photography, but I’ve stopped teaching myself options trading, I no longer study classical guitar, and no longer build stained glass windows.

I know myself well enough to know I will fall off the wagon again, and start on yet another fascinating pursuit. It’s who I am. But as intentional man, I also know I will eventually see the pursuit is taking up time that I need to spend on my vision. I worked hard to find my vision, and because it is my vision, I know it will motivate me to get back up on the wagon and start spending my time on my true path.

Do you find there are just too many fascinating things going on all the time? How do you keep focused on your true path? Please share with me and the other readers what you do to keep going on your path, by leaving a comment.