o you sometimes have trouble motivating yourself? If you answered no, stop reading right now.

Ok, now it's only us, those who suffer from a lack of motivation. It's nothing to feel guilty about. We all get a little lazy or put things off now and again, even the people who answered no a minute ago.

While a lack of motivation is nothing to be ashamed of, it is something to be worked on.

Think of all that you could accomplish if you weren't wasting time and energy avoiding the inevitable. Following are some tips to use for self-motivation when having trouble starting, or finishing, a task.

• Be positive. Practice positive self-talk. Envision yourself winning, being successful and having a positive outcome.

• Look for areas where you excel and give yourself credit for a job well done.

• Examine why you are afraid and face that fear head on. For example, maybe you don't have much experience winning, and the idea of failing again prevents you from putting full effort into projects. So what if you don't "win" this time? You will have tried and that's a success in itself.

Nip Procrastinating in the Bud: It Won't Get Better by Itself

• If you have a history of procrastinating, put whatever you are dreading on the calendar. Schedule time for it, and when that time comes do it. Stalling will only make it worse. As with most things in life, the buildup is usually worse than the actual event.

• Just do it or at least part of it. Tell yourself you will try it for five minutes. Whatever it is, working on a presentation, reading some sales materials or catching up on sales training, tell yourself you only have to do it for five minutes and then you can stop without feeling guilty. Five or 10 minutes is better than nothing. Chances are you will continue for longer.

• Do you have a tendency to expect failure? Maybe it's difficult to imagine that this will be a success. Instead of investing energy and resources in creating a sense of fear, confusion and doom, take all that energy and put it into visualizing a positive outcome, getting out there and doing it.

Prove Something: To Yourself

• Do it for yourself, not for anyone else.

• Do it even if it scares you. If you are afraid to do something there is no better reason to try. You can't fail because simply by attempting it you have won over the fear. Now that's a motivator.

• Greet challenges with excitement and confidence. This is a chance to overcome something, prove something to yourself and become a better person.

Learn Something: Win or Lose, There Is Opportunity for Growth

• Make the experience a success even if you didn't attain the goal. Examine what happened and identify new skills or knowledge gained as a result. Maybe you now know what not to do.

• Even if you don't succeed this time, learn from the experience. Look at your goal and reevaluate if necessary. Are both the goal and timeframe realistic?

• Regardless of the outcome, you tried. Next time you won't be forging into unknown territory, and it won't seem so overwhelming.

Lack of motivation can be the snowball that gets out of control. It just keeps rolling and rolling, getting larger and larger until it becomes overwhelming and seems impossible to stop.

Or, it crashes and destroys things in the process. Use the tips provided to handle the small snowflakes as they happen, and you won't have to feel sorry about any out of control snowballs.