Motivate Yourself:

Motivating yourself is a matter of choosing targets of ambition wisely and then going after them with all you have.

Set priorities and keep a commitment to be the best you can be.

Commit to working hard regardless of rewards and punishments.

You can have all the skills in the world, but if you aren't excited enough about what you're doing, you should reevaluate the job.

Whether you call it enthusiasm, energy, passion or self-confidence, the bottom line is that to succeed you have to get off your butt and do something positive.

Taking Responsibility:

In his book:
10 Things Employers Want You To Learn In College.
by 10 Speed Press.
http://www.amazon.ca/Things-Employers-Want-Learn-College/dp/1580085245
http://sites.maxwell.syr.edu/dogooddowell/DG&DW/DoingWell.htm

Bill Copin, identifies Taking Responsibility as one of the key life skills people need to have. Taking Responsibility can be further divided into:

• Motivate  yourself
• Be ethical
• Manage your time
• Manage your money

The first two skills are about character, and the last two require precise focus and self-control.

Taking Responsibility means accepting that you are responsible for your success, character, time, and money.

Live in the present some of the time, but also invest in yourself a lot of the time.

A long term commitment to planning and follow-through has to become a habit.

Why are some people more successful than others? is it education, luck, connections.........
At the heart of it, no matter what field you look at, there is a common set of skills that distinguish those who are successful from those who are not.

Here is a very interesting book on the subject:
10 Things Employers Want You To Learn In College.
by Bill Coplin, 10 Speed Press.
http://www.amazon.ca/Things-Employers-Want-Learn-College/dp/1580085245

Here is the website for the book:
http://sites.maxwell.syr.edu/dogooddowell/DG&DW/DoingWell.htm

Bill has summarized the most essential skills very succinctly into the following 10 categories:

Taking responsibility
Develop physical skills
Communicating verbally
Communicating in writing
Working directly with people
Influencing people
Gathering information
Using quantitative tools
Asking and answering the right questions
Solving problems