In order to stay motivated, we need to renew our motivation daily. This is the advice we got from motivational great, Zig Ziglar.

We need motivation in order to push beyond the ordinary and the mediocre. Whether it’s losing that last 10 pounds, or taking on that tough project at work, or a business venture, motivation wins out. Inertia is a huge factor in our lives.

The power of inertia keeps you going. Test it out the next time you hit the breaks in your car.

Inertia can work for you, because once you get going, you’ll tend to keep going. The challenging part is to get things started (and re-started), and that’s where motivation comes in.

Below are 3 ways to get motivated, inspired, and unstuck from a rut.

Choose your mantra — Choose a mantra, then use it daily to wipe away the negative and make room for good things to happen. In the traditional sense, a mantra is a sound or series of sounds that are repeated over and over again during meditation. But, they can be much more than that.

Guy Kawasaki says that instead of long mission statements, we should use mantras to tell the world what we’re all about. Short and to the point, mantras can evoke a sense of power, and put us in a state of calm strength whenever we need it.

Mantras can also act as guiding principles for behavior and help with decision making. Google’s “do no harm” philosophy is a mantra for how to do business.

Mantras should be short, only a few words long at most. You can choose any mantra you like, and you can choose several of them for use in different situations. You can use them for meditation sessions as well as a sort of battle cry when you need strength and confidence. You can also use them to calm yourself when decisions need to be made.

Do something physical — Tony Robbins teaches us that when we feel a certain way, we reflect that in our bodies. Try being depressed for a moment. What happens? Your shoulders slump, your eyes immediately head toward the ground, and your head faces down. Can you feel that? As goes the mind, so goes the body.

Now, try using your body to prevent a depressed feeling from overtaking you. Stand up tall showing off your best posture. Smile. Lift your arms and put them straight out at your sides to form a cross with your body. Tilt your head back and stare up at the ceiling. Lift one foot off the floor and hum out loud.

Try to be depressed in that pose. If you can be depressed while smiling in that silly pose then you’re really good. Now, ask yourself what you can do physically every day to get motivated. Maybe it’s a silly pose, maybe it’s a 2 mile run, or maybe it’s yoga. Whatever it is, do something physical every day and get motivated.

Jump to the future — We all have choices. In each moment, we choose what we do. I hear people say that they have no choice. This is not true. You always have a choice. You can eat that second helping of french fries, or you can have an apple. This exercise is an eye opener. Hindsight is 20/20. This will get you motivated as fast as anything I know.

Sometimes we regret the choices we’ve made in the past. Often, we fool ourselves into thinking that we had no choice and won’t have a choice if similar circumstances arise again.

Try the following exercise. Pretend you’re in the future, and give some real thought to what things are like for you. Now, look back at the present moment that you’re in right now. If given the choice to relive this moment, what would you have done differently?

What can you do right now to make that future that you want become a reality? Spell it out and say it out loud. Next, make a plan to achieve it and write it down. What are you waiting for? Go do it.

These are just a few of the ways that you can bend your reality just a bit and get motivated. There’s no limit to the ways that you can gain control of your future if you’ll just apply a few simple principles.