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

Whether it’s household chores, losing that last 10 (or 50?) pounds, or tackling that next project at work, we need motivation. A body in motion tends to stay in motion.

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

Inertia can be your friend, because once you get the ball rolling, it’s easier to keep it in motion. The challenging part is to get things started, and that’s the job of motivation.

Below are 3 ways to get your momentum going, get inspired, and out of a rut.

Select a mantra — Using a mantra can have some advantages. You can use it every day to remove negative thoughts and clear the way for positive things. A mantra is traditionally a sound or series of sounds that are repeated over and over again during meditation sessions. But a mantra can become 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.

If well chosen, mantras can also act as guiding principles for behavior. 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 — 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 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.

It’s hard to be depressed while smiling in that pose. Now, ask yourself what you can do physically every day to improve your state of mind. Maybe it’s standing in this pose, maybe it’s lifting weights, or maybe it’s yoga. Whatever your preference, do something physical daily to 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 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 differently right now to make your ideal future a reality? Say it to yourself out loud. Write down your plan. Go do it now.

This is just a small sampling of the ways you can alter your reality 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.