The role of intent

The key to self motivation is being in control of the three elements of self motivation: the vision, successability and environment. We do this by exercising our intent, by acting intentionally, rather than acting automatically.

Animals other than humans act only on instinct. There is a stimulus, which triggers an action. It’s automatic. Instinct works very well in the animal kingdom. The zebra smells the lion (stimulus) and immediately runs (action). Were the zebra to reflect on the proper course of action, hmmm, maybe the lion will eat my fat friend next to me, he would likely be eaten himself.

Humans will frequently act this way as well. Humans, however, have the capacity to act otherwise, to act with reflection. Reflection occurs in the space between stimulus and action. Rather than two steps, stimulus and action, there are three steps. In step one, there is a stimulus. In step two the person reflects on what action to take. In step three the person takes the action. It is in middle step that motivation occurs.

A person who acts without reflection, without that center step, I refer to as automatic man.

As self motivators, we want to avoid being automatic men. Being automatic men means we are being controlled by things and people outside ourselves. Instead we need to stay in touch with that middle step, and stay aware that we have the power to choose the action we take.

Being in control of our actions has two positive impacts on our motivation. One, it lets us takes steps to increase the positive impact of each of the three elements of self motivation, vision, successability, and environment. Two, exercising control or autonomy in our lives automatically increases our motivation.

In future postings, I will write about how you can exercise your intent to increase the motivational impact of each of the three elements.

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.

My interest in self motivation

I wanted to take a step back in this blog posting and talk a bit about me, and how I came to be interested in self motivation.

I was never a particularly motivated child. I did well in elementary, middle and high school, getting by on the brains I inherited from my mom. I never worked hard at anything, at least that I can remember, except for Latin. The only reason I worked hard at Latin was because there was only four people in the class, so you were guaranteed to be called on to read at least twice a week. Consequently, you never knew when that would happen. If you weren’t prepared …

I never really cared about any of my subjects, but did what was necessary to get decent grades, which luckily wasn’t a lot. My mother’s lament was always, “Bob, you aren’t working up to your potential.” I heard that a lot.

Based upon my performance on the PSAT (my mom was an excellent test taker as well), I got a scholarship to a good school outside of Chicago to major in engineering. The application to take the PSAT asked what my professional goals were, so since I was good in math and science, I wrote down engineering. Did I know what an engineer did? Nope. Did I ever talk to an engineer? Nope.

At this college I wasn’t able to get by on just my brains - hard work was required - and I flunked out. Eventually I returned to school, got my bachelors, went to law school and passed the bar. By this time I had at least learned how to work harder. But I still wasn’t really interested in much of what I was learning.

After being a lawyer for 15 years I decided I wanted to be a psychologist. I checked around at two near by universities, but the PhD programs were extremely difficult to get into, and I was a single parent, and … I never made the effort it would have required to get accepted.

Eventually I enrolled in an online masters program in instructional design. I wasn’t in a relationship at the time, so I had time on my hands and thought it might be a good substitute for becoming a psychologist. Running through all of the classes was the concept that you needed to build motivation into the design of your instruction.

This was an amazing concept for me. I don’t remember any of my teachers ever trying to motivate me. I became fascinated with motivation. I expanded my knowledge of motivation into fields other than education, motivation in sports and motivation in the employment setting. I slowly came to realize that the reason I was sort of floating along, living a pleasant hassle free existence, was that I wasn’t motivated. Instead of making choices, I had been floating with the current.

Motivation would change all that.

Do you have a dream that you just can't seem to get moving on? Maybe it involves a career change, or a change in your personal life. If so, I would love to hear about it. Just leave a comment below, by clicking on the word comments.

Overview of the model for self motivation.

After studying motivation in education, and employment and sports, I saw some commonalities in the models of motivation in these three disciplines. One thing I found especially interesting was that most of these models were focused on one person motivating another person. In sports it was the coach motivating the player, in employment it was the boss motivating the employee, and in education it was the teacher motivating the student.

But I wanted a model in which a person motivated him or herself, not someone else. So I examined those commonalities and thought about them for a long while, and came up with my own model, a model focused on self motivation.

The model I came up with states that self motivation is influenced by three things, what I call factors. I labeled those three factors, the vision, successability, and environment. The model states that when you positively impact any of the three factors, you will positively impact your motivation.

In future blog entries I will explain what each of these factors means, and explain how you can positively impact each one so you can keep your motivation at a high level. Keeping your motivation at a high level means you will achieve your dreams.