Jim was struggling to be motivated
Damn the alarm clock he thought, and rolled over. He didn’t want to go to work. 
His mind reflected on the weekend, how much fun it had been. Why can’t every day be like that he thought? Work is so boring, every day the same. Cold calls! What’s the point? Jim hated cold calling.
With that mindset, there is no point in Jim getting out of bed. He’s right and will continue to be right until he fronts up to himself and asks how to change his mindset, so work becomes inspiring.
Jim needs to understand a simple principle.
“We are only ever inspired when we’re looking forward to a brighter future.”
Think about it. Was the last party you went to as good as what you’d imaged it to be? It may have been fun, even more fun than you expected, but fun is what happens in the moment. We enjoy it. It could be said we indulge in it. We want the moment to last forever. When a party is fun we’re certainly not inspired to leave, change things, and go somewhere else. Unlike anticipation which inspires us to take action, fun and satisfaction makes us want to hang around.
Sure a great experience at a friend’s party may have us eager to go back so it’s easy to think the fun inspired us to go back, but really what inspires us is the expectation of a similar party. A great experience makes it easy for us to visualise a repeat of that experience.
Jim’s problem is that he doesn’t have a vision of a brighter future for his work. He probably hasn’t taken the time to set some goals, stepping stones to an inspiring personal vision. There’ll be lots of reason why, but without an understanding of how powerful a vision of a brighter future is, he will never be motivated to even set goals, let-a-lone take action.
In that mindset he will cling onto past memories and employ the futile planning strategy of wishful thinking!
If first thing in the morning, Jim were to ask himself, and write down, three things he can look forward to in the day he’d be well on the way to moving his mindset to seeing a brighter future for his efforts.
Visualising a brighter future inspires us to take action.
More on the benefits of applying our thoughts to the future, present and past.