More Self Motivation Skills:
Managing My Mind and Spirit Resources

Which books provide the self motivation skills you want for doing a better job managing your mind and spirit? Here are reviews of some of my personal favorites.

They the resources I most often turn to to build and maintain my own high scores in the Managing My Mind and Managing My Spirit areas on the Wake Up Eager quiz.

These self motivation skills and tools books are the books I'll never give to Goodwill or take to the 2nd hand book store. I feel as though I have a personal relationship with this books! I hope some are meaningful to you too.

This is not a self help book, but it will help you build more self motivation skills. The writer shows what it takes to create the optimal experience, FLOW. He's scientifically researched and defined what it takes to get 'in the zone', in the flow, happy.

He writes, "Happiness is not something that just happens, it is in fact a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated and defended privately by each person."

In one of his how to build self motivation skills studies participants reported in numerous times a day, recording how they were feeling and what they were doing.

The study reveals the power of focus, goals and challenge, key elements in creating more FLOW in our lives. It turns outthat challenge, self direction, guiding our life is key to creating a satisfying life.

If you want more achievement motivation and self direction, this book provides the science, philosophy and insight thatwill encourage you to continue to move forward on purpose.

My husband was buying tools at Costco so I was perusing the book selection. I picked this one up, and could not stop reading.

It turned out to be a best seller. The author is outrageous, funky, a little arrogant and very bold. I love that.

What I like most is his focus on self empowerment and that life and work can be fun, not drudgery. He has a millionstories and that many tips, tricks and ideas to help you gain more control over your time and energy.

The greatest value for me out of the book are two areas:

1. Eliminating Time Wasters, Time Consumers and Empowerment Failues - excellent email strategy is provided.
2. Outsourcing - offloading work to others to free yourself up to live. He recommends Brickwork, a resource I've now tried, and many others.

His stories are interesting - he's had a lot of adventure for such a young life. His ideas are bold, not the same old stuff. Some of what he shares is not a fit, but I love that he shakes things up and thinks outside of the box, way out.

For a stimulating read and new ideas for self motivation skills and work motivation, spend some time with Timothy Ferris and the 4 Hour Work Week.

This book is important for building self motivation skills - it will help you step-by-step - in setting more and better goals. More and more I realize how important making decisions, being self directed and feeling empowered, is to living a life we love. We've just got to get better at guiding our time and where we place our attention.

This book is solid and offers so much more than just how to set and achieve goals and self motivation skills. It's a guidebook for thinking more clearly about your life.

You can read my review here. This is an eBook and available immediately. Click here to read my review. Get goal setting worksheets and more...

I've had this book since my freshman year in college. I loved it then and love it now.

The author does not sensor himself - it's like you've become a mind reader and you get to hear his every thought, uncensored.

He shares his high and lows around his self motivation skills and insight, honestly. That's what so fresh about it - it's his clear and brutally honest thoughts, observations and insights as he discovers more about who he is and what he wants out of life and his relationships.

He demonstrates what it's like to be self aware and conscious, an honest observer of your life and what you do. Journaling, writing about your life, your thoughts and your future, brings clarity and honesty to the present and future. A great tool for getting more self direction and more self motivation skills: getting to know yourself.

Tap into Hugh's mind and I'll bet you'll find yourself being more honest in your own thoughts and writing.

Check it out.

This is a brand new book. I've been carrying it around with me every where I go. The author has a blog, gapingvoid.com (Opens a new window.) He creates these amazing, kind of raw, 'doodles' on the back of business cards that have made him 'famous'.

His 39 Keys to creativity and building self motivation skills are sharp, witty and empowering.

The first key is: Ignore Everybody. He's talking about learning to trust your insights and instincts, to be more self directed and guided.

There are so many of the 'keys' that are my favorites, I've already marked up the book, tabbed it and turned down many page corners. But my absolute favorite in this moment is: #10 "Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb."

He writes,"You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed and all you will feel is emptiness.

He goes on to share some sage advice. This is easy to read, profound, thoughtful and inspiring. A keeper for building self motivation skills and self direction.

The Wake Up Eager Managing My Spirit area is focused on making and keeping strong personal and professional connections with others through networking, sharing and hobbies.

It is a focus on balancing your life and meeting the needs of your Spirit. Here are a few of my favorite reads:

I've met this author, he lives north of Atlanta, GA. He's passionate about the topic and is well known.He's used his own self motivation skills techniques in Netweaving to build his own VAST support group and network.

His concept of Netweaving is a concept that will help you quickly build your support network. If you've felt shy or disdainful of networking events, this book will help.

Netweaving is about meeting people with the intent of looking for opportunities to help others. Its shifting from a WIIFM mindset (What's In It For Me) to a WIIFY mindset (What's In It For You).

This approach to networking is powerful, memorable and more authentic than the 'speed dating' nightmares of having to share your 'elevator pitch' in 30 seconds.

Netweaving, if implemented, will ensure that your network of support grows, people will see you as a resource, problem solver and good listener.

The book provides exercises, examples,top 10 strategic concepts and a sample tracking system.

Pretty soon your connections will be far and wide...

People who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their job.

This book is chock-full of research, statistics and insights around the power of friendships at work, home and in creating a rich and full life.

If you're working so much and you've given up taking the time to cultivate friendships, well, this is the book for you.

If your business minded, this book will appeal to your business mind, even though it's about a "soft" subject.

The book comes with access to a Vital Friends website, journal and friends assessment. They have a free assessment you complete on each close friend to determinewhich of the 8 Vital Friend roles this friend brings to your life. I found this very insightful when I completed it. It brought more clarity around the what different friends bring to my life. Very interesting.

If you scored low in this Support area, use this book, and this very cool website, to build self motivation skills and more long lasting, life-enriching, friend relationships.

Are you on Facebook? If not, go there and get on it! It's free! Go there and "friend" me, Suzie Price. I'll be your first friend, okay?

I used a cerebral reason for joining about a year ago, "It will build my internet footprint!" Well, I have no clue if it's done any of that, but it HAS helped me connect with friends I'd not talked to in years. I had a four hour dinner with one friend recently. We connected again via Facebook. We had a blast! I'd forgotten how much I liked her and how much we'd shared. An old friendship, renewed.

Facebook is kind of weird, there are no instructions. This book will help you use all the bells and whistles a little morequickly. It is also a great business resource. You cna add forums, promote products and more.

If you want to boost your network of friends and family, finding a way to make connections when you have a busy schedule, Facebook is a great connector.

Not, get this book and log on to Facebook. Friend me. I'll "see" ya' there!

If all you're doing is working, with little time for hobbies and play, maybe you can enjoy writing about your life. As you can probably tell. I'm a proponent ofusing writing to help you better understand where you've been and where you want to go. Writing is a hobbyyou can do anywhere, anytime. It will boost your self motivation skills and it can help balance out a busy, fast-paced work life

Here's how SARK opens this book, "This book is for anyone who wants to write and share what's in their heart. This book is especially for you if you don't write, quit writing or bought an expensive journal that still has blank pages."

This book is like a non-judgmental, happy and sharp friend guiding you to share your own life, to write the book that's within you.

If you're looking for a hobby and you've always wanted to write, this quirky book and honest writer can be your Guide.

Another writing book. As I listen to other writers I start to acknowledge within myself that writing is a profession, that it has value and that it is something worthy of my time.

Sometimes in my business mindset I need help remembering that something that calls me, and that is fun and happy for me, is a worthwhile endeavor that will bear fruit.

Goldberg is a legend (this book is a best seller) for her ability to tie Zen studies to writing. She helps us see our state of mind affects our world, our life and our writing. This book is full of writing exercises, profound thoughts, inspiration and practices for writing.

Yea, this IS a writing book, but it's really a 'how to live a self-directed, full and joyous life' book.

Do you want to build a network of positive minded, future focused, go-getting people? Are you in search ofa hobby, something you can do to balance out your life so you're not only work focused?

When's the last time you went to a gym? The gym can be a great place to meet people AND get in shape.

If you go to the gym I can guarantee that you'll leave there feeling more self directed and full of self motivation skills and insights. Plus, if you can go on a regular basis, you'll meet all kinds of really nice people.

Use this book, Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle to build your confidence and knowledge base about fitness.

Then, go to the gym. Better yet, just go the gym. The folks there will help you get comfortable.

Recently I encouraged a lonely and bored friend who's living in a new town and does not know a soul, to check out the gym.

After weeks of moping, he went three nights in a row and met 4 people. His mood and feelings of empowerment, inner strength and self motivation skills improved.

This book is available for immediate download. Read my full review here.

There's a whole 'wine culture' of delightful people and interesting science. Studying wine is another hobby you could consider.This young sommelier is famous and she's taken the 'snooty' level down< and in a natural and easy way helps you understand the basics.

This book is a great introduction to wine tasting. Easy, step-by-step and fun. I'm not afraid of the sommelier anymore!

I used Andrea's Complete Wine Course For Everyone as an excuse to bring friends together.

I'm talkative and open, but sometimes shy in social situations unless we are focused on something together. I alsolike to keep conversations productive, not gossipy. I find that having a focus, something you can do together, is more fun. Can you relate? I found the wine course the perfect antidote..

This course showed me how to set up a wine tasting event, step-by-step. It was easy. Really. I knew NOTHING about wine. This guide made my Wine Tasting Event a success.

This is a great way to build friends, have fun and add a new hobby into your life.

I add self motivation skills materials often. To be notified of updates, click on the bright green RSS feed, up and to your left.

You can also be notified when new self motivation skills material is added through my online eNewsletter. Subscribe here:

Join the Wake Up Eager Community & List Get My Email on the List: