Why you would want to motivate yourself.

As I wrote in an earlier blog, most of the research I read on motivation dealt with motivating someone else, the teacher motivating the learner, the coach motivating the athlete, the manager motivating the employee. Motivating another person has its place, certainly, but it seemed to me if I could motivate myself, this would be more powerful for me. My research showed this idea was correct.

I saw in my own life that getting my motivation from another person has at least two problems. My dream was becoming a public speaker. I already had a job doing something else, so I had to do my work on my public speaking after a hard day at the office. If it was a real hard day, I would much rather just eat my dinner, and watch TV. I just wouldn’t be motivated to work on my dream. Occasionally I would go see a motivational speaker, and would be motivated for a couple of days, maybe even a week if the speaker was real good, working on my new career every night, but two weeks later, or a month later, I would I would go back to my old ways, kicking back watching the tube. The problem is the motivational speaker is not always going to be there to make sure you stay on track.

Well, you might respond, can’t you listen to the speaker on a CD? Yes you can, but only if you are motivated to put the CD on. But there is another reason that the speaker, whether live or on a CD,. is not going to be all that helpful in the long run. The reason is that each one of us is unique. We have different likes; we have different dislikes. And similarly, the things that motivate us are different as well. What motivates you is not what motivates me. Unfortunately, no one else is going to take the time to figure out what motivates each one of us to achieve our particular dream. That job is ours!

And that ‘s why we want to be our own motivational speaker, so that we can be there, 24/7, and so we can create a plan of motivation that is uniquely ours, not a generic speech aimed at the masses.

In my next posting on this blog I will be sharing with you the role of intent, the role you will need to play in motivating yourself.