Getting things done is impossible without the motivation to do so. Most people have enough motivation to pay their bills and keep a roof over their heads. A lucky few seem to have unlimited motivation to create and do awesome things with their lives, taking years off to travel, starting businesses, and creating and participating in meaningful work.

So what gives the lucky few the extra motivation to do so much more?

First off, there is no such thing as “extra motivation” from the people who get more. Take the single mother, about to get evicted from her home. Does she not have more motivation than the guy who’s a millionaire and works three hours a day? Rather than the amount of motivation, successs in life is determined by the type of motivation that drives us.

Let’s look closer at the two different types of motivation, and how we can incorporate the better one into our lives.

First, let’s take the employee’s motivation. They work only when being told what to do, and stop when done. This type of person is motivated primarily by survival, focusing only on immediate needs. How to pay the mortgage, stop feeling so lonely, get over being sick, whatever. This is the wrong way to look at life; this is a “negative” motivation. This viewpoint looks at the world, and says “I have to do (x), because if I don’t I’ll suffer these consequences”. By doing so, they are constantly looking at the world asking where things are going to come from.

On the other hand, there’s the entrepreneur mentality. These type of people are motivated by a desire to create what doesn’t yet exist. These people rarely think of their own survival, and instead focus on what they can create and give back. I call them “positively” motivated people, because their motivation comes from a primary need to help provide what’s needed. This subtle difference in motivation creates huge rewards.

Nothing great is ever created by someone with negative motivation. It’s a viewpoint that does just enough to dodge the negative consequences and then gets distracted. With positive motivation there’s an unlimited amount of focus to create what must be created. Positive motivation has no deadline, only a level of quality and a quantity to the people it helps. Positive motivation is where the world’s greatest books, businesses, architectures, and people come from. Ideas and concepts that span the test of time are only created when we ask what’s missing.

It’s a scary mindset to adapt to, especially if you’ve come from a background of negative motivation. I know I sure did.

For me, the conscious adoption of a positive primary motivation started on the 7th of December (2006). Months of work on my website weren’t producing the amount of visitors I needed, and something needed to change. So I decided to start giving away my web business ideas, write an article a day on what I thought would change somebody’s life for the better. I did this mostly out of frustration.

Within a week traffic to my website doubled, and revenue quadrupled.

I was ecstatic. I started making projections of how much I would be making in a year, two years, and I just got so excited to keep giving back. So I continued doing what I started, and soon my traffic started going back down again. I panicked after a few days and spent two days focused on promoting my website to other people instead of creating what I thought the world needed. My traffic went down further still.Then I had an “Aha!” moment. I realized I was just circling back down into the negative motivation. By focusing primarily on promotion, it’s impossible to create a site anyone would ever want to be loyal to. Ultimately, providing value to the world is how things grow. Not by telling others their worth. This post is my makeup for falling off track.

So how can you apply positive motivation to your life?

First ask yourself, “What would I give to the world if I knew everything else is taken care of?”

Then, take the time to let the power of a fundamentally positive motivation sink in. It took me hundreds of times of hearing it for it to sink in, but you have no reason to be as inattentive as me. Grasp the fact that we can look at the world in two ways: asking where things are going to come from; or asking what we can give. Realize that giving and creating is the only way we’ll ever live in a world we want. (Both for ourselves and the people around us.)

Finally, realize the path of positive motivation is more difficult, at least in the short term. We don’t see instant results like people who are motivated by shallow, negative motivation do. We come from a higher calling, and it’s not necessarily instantly rewarded. Patience is a fundamental part of being positively motivated.

Remember, if you steer off course, don’t beat yourself up. Just notice that you went off course or slipped up, fix it, and move on. Beating yourself up will only cause you to fall back into the negative motivation trap all over again.

So what are you waiting for? Start giving now.

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No matter what you do, learning to write well is fundamental. People who can’t write clearly are destined for disappointment when it comes to a choice between them and someone who can. We are in the living in the information age, and those who communicate clearly will continue to prosper.

Don’t worry; learning to write well is nothing more than hard work and persistence. Anyone can become a great writer; it’s just a matter of putting in the time. That being said, here’s 15 tips outlining how to become a great writer:

Write More Often

Most people are afraid of any amount of writing, and by starting to write in little bits you’ll become comfortable with the feeling of writing. If you haven’t written anything in a while, setting a goal to write one full page every day for 30 days will give you a huge head start. So will keeping a journal.

Write With Complete Focus

It’s impossible to multitask while writing. Shut off the phone, close all browser windows, and just focus on what you’re trying to say. Don’t get sidetracked, and work with whatever you’re doing until it’s done. Putting this kind of a focus into anything is difficult for most people, guarantees instant results.

Give Yourself Enough Time to Write

You need at a bare minimum 60 minutes, uninterrupted, to write anything worthwhile. The first 15 minutes of writing are always lost trying to find a flow and your real topic. By giving yourself more time, you ensure your writing has unity. It was all assembled at once, in a logical thought order.

Eliminate Distractions

The key to staying focused for such long periods of time is eliminating distractions. If you’re in an environment where you can’t guarantee an elimination of distractions, wear headphones and go to a park. You can’t write well when you’re being interrupted.

Learn What Good Writing Looks Like

90% of everything written on the internet is crap, built for the moment, soon to be forgotten. Get away from your computer every once and a while and read a good book. Good books were written to span centuries in their relevancy. Notice the amount of thought and work that goes into a book. Then start writing everywhere with that in mind.

Read the Classics on Writing

There are a lot of books out there that will make you feel good about writing. All of these are crap. Get a classic book on the craft and assimilate what it says. Here are the must reads:

The Elements of Style
On Writing
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Rewrite Your Work

I write every article in a Moleskine journal before I transfer it to my computer. Writing in my journal first makes me rewrite everything I write, and ensures I read what I just wrote. I can see errors and fix them before I print out my first draft. This saves time, and makes sure I’ve rewritten everything I wrote, at least once.

Edit Ruthlessly

According to Stephen King, strong editing is the best way to improve your writing. Eliminate 10% of what you wrote in your first draft to produce your second draft. That means eliminating unnecessary words and getting rid of sentences that are redundant.

Stick with It

Learning to write is a process like everything else. Either put in the hours and enjoy the rewards, or shut up. It’s not going to come easy, but with hard work, it will come.

Share What You Write

This was the biggest mistake I made when I started writing. I wrote for an entire year, and shared nothing. My writing hardly developed at all, because I was never writing at a quality level I wanted to share. By sharing everything you write, you have to take pride in everything you write. And that’s a powerful tool to improve your quality.

If You Get Stuck, Keep Writing

There is no such thing as writer’s block. It’s only you thinking about what to write. Stop thinking about it, and start talking! Tell me what’s going on with you, tell me why you can’t write, tell me why you feel miserable… anything! Sitting there thinking about how you can’t write gets us nowhere.

Speak from Your Heart

Please don’t try to sound like an organization when you write. It only makes you sound boring and lifeless. People want to hear the human side of everything, not the organizational. So incorporate a piece of yourself into everything you write.

Make Your Writing Work for You

Make your writing do something for you. Get you a better job, a higher salary, anything. By getting rewarded for writing well, you give yourself a reason to keep writing. Starting a blog and making money from it is probably the best way, though.

Give Your Best Work Away

There are a whole lot of charities and open source developers that need a clear voice. Give them your time and help them out. You’ll get back exponentially what you put in.

Help Others Become Better Writers

There is no reason for bad writers in the world. Help turn someone you know into a good writer, so you can become a greater writer. By raising standards of quality in writing, we all have to work harder, and end up creating greater quality of work than we ever thought possible.

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