As Zig Ziglar warned us, motivation fades. This means we need a daily boost in order to get motivated.

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.

Try driving down the road and slamming on the breaks and see if you don’t keep going when the car stops. Better yet, don’t do that. It might be bad for your health.

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.

Here are 3 ways to get inspired, unstuck from a rut, and get your momentum going.

Use a mantra — Choose a mantra and then use it daily to create a positive environment and get rid of the negative. 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 used for 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.

An aptly chosen mantra can also act as a guiding principle for how to act. For example, Google’s “do no harm” philosophy is a mantra.

You can use them for meditation as well as a way to find calm confidence and deep strength when needed. Mantras should be short. A few words is plenty. You can choose any mantra you like, and you can choose several of them for use in various situations.

Do something physical — When we feel a certain way, we reflect that in our bodies. As goes the mind, so goes the body. Pretend you’re depressed for a moment. What does your body do? Your shoulders slump, your eyes head toward the ground, and your head faces down. Can you feel that?

Now, try using your body to your advantage. Stand up tall showing off your best posture. Put your head back and look up at the ceiling. Smile. Put your arms straight out at your sides. Lift one foot off the floor and hum out loud.

Now, hold that position and try to be depressed. It takes a lot of effort to be depressed while in that pose. Now, ask yourself what you can do physically every day to get yourself into a resourceful mental state. Maybe it’s a silly pose like this one. Maybe it’s yoga or pilates that gets you going. No matter what it is, do something physical every day and get motivated.

Travel through time — This exercise is an amazing eye opener and will get you motivated as fast as anything I know. Hindsight is 20/20. 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 kill yourself if you want. You’ll find a way if that’s what you really want to do.

Sometimes we delude ourselves into thinking we had no choice in the decisions we made in the past. Even though we regret some of these choices, we believe that we once again won’t be able to choose if faced with similar situations in the future.

So now, pretend that you’re in your own future. Think about what it’s like in your future. It’s moments like this when we see what we really want. Now, look back at the present moment that you’re in right now. What would you have done differently?

What can you do right now to make that future that you want become a reality? Say it out loud. Write it down. Make a plan. Now, go do it.

These are just a few of the exercises you can do on a regular basis to gain more control of your future and get yourself motivated. If you’ll just apply a few simple principles, there’s no limit to the ways you can come up with to achieve more.