A couple of months back I was reading a fascinating article in the NY Times Magazine about executive functioning (September 25, 2009). Executive functioning is defined in the article as “the ability to think straight: to order your thoughts, to process information in a coherent way, to hold relevant details in your short-term memory, to avoid distractions and mental traps and focus on the task in front of you.” The article describes a school in New Jersey in which, as part of a study, kindergarten aged children are being taught executive functioning. Initial findings are that it takes a lot of work to teach this, and the best way for them to learn it is through structured, imaginative, play.
As I was reading the article I immediately thought about what I had learned about frustration tolerance as I was researching my book. If you aren’t familiar with this term, please review my two earlier postings. In this study, these young children were learning how to tolerate frustration, learning how to share toys, and learning how to wait for their slower class mates to finish up assignments before they could move, as a group, to newer and more fun experiences. They were learning how to control what they did, rather than letting their emotions make the decisions for them.
It also made me thing about intentional man. Recall that the opposite of intentional man is automatic man. The Times article refers to executive functioning as “cognitive self regulation.” Executive functioning, therefore, is the ability to regulate your thinking, to be in charge of your thoughts. Implied in this is that by controlling your thoughts, you are able to control your actions. Intentional man is not put off course by distractions, stays focused on his tasks, and processes information without being unduly influenced by his emotions.
The ability to control our actions is one thing that distinguishes humans from other animals. Animals automatically react to a stimulus; when they do this, it’s called instinct. Humans, on the other hand, have the ability to operate in that middle ground between stimulus and action. I emphasize the word ability, because we don’t always operate in it, and some of us operate in it less than others. Never the less, we do all have the ability. By being aware of that middle ground, and our ability to operate in that special place, we can be responsible, able to respond, instead of just reacting. When we do that we can do all the things we need to do to become motivated and stay motivated.
Perhaps these children who are learning executive functioning will grow up knowing how to motivate themselves. Hopefully they will be unlike so many of us who do not, and consequently are unable to achieve the things we dream about. Hopefully.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Leveraging your motivation
In today’s posting I am going to share with you a strategy to increase the power of your motivation. You use this strategy when your motivation to do a certain thing, or not do a certain thing, just isn’t strong enough to accomplish what you want.
I first became aware of this strategy years ago, before I even started studying motivation, but it was so powerful that it stayed with me ever since. I heard it from a man who was giving a talk on weight loss. He works to keep from being overweight, and he shared that when he travels, he has struggles maintaining his diet. He told us when he flies his diet choices are severely limited. Soon after takeoff the stewardess will bring him and his fellow passengers lunch. As soon as he opens the package containing his lunch, he is confronted by the dessert, usually a brownie. The brownie entices him, but he knows he must resist; there are no brownies on his diet. So what he does, as soon as he sees the brownie, is open up the mayonnaise packet that comes with the lunch, and spreads the mayo all over the brownie. He knows that once the brownie is covered with mayo, it is not at all enticing, and he can eat his healthy sandwich and then throw away the brownie.
What occurs is the man knows his motivation to eat healthy and get slim is not as strong as he wishes it could be. It is strong enough to resist the brownie so long as there is a delicious sandwich waiting for him. It is not strong enough, however, to resist a brownie after he is done with the sandwich and has nothing else to eat to satisfy his urges. So what he does is leverage that limited motivation. By acting quickly, before the call of the brownie becomes overpowering, he is able to stay on his diet.
He didn’t refer to what he was doing as leveraging his motivation. Years later as I was writing my book, Motivate Yourself: A step by step guide to becoming all you can be, I remembered the story the man told and realized what he was doing was leveraging his motivation.
I also leverage motivation. On my way home from work I pass by a video rental store. I know that if I stop and rent a DVD, that once I eat my dinner that DVD will entice me and I will probably spend the evening watching it. I will not do what I know I need to do, work on my book and write in my blog. My motivation is not strong enough to resist a DVD on my television stand; not for the whole night. But my motivation is strong enough to make me keep my foot on the accelerator as I speed by the video store. Whereas I would need at least two hours of motivation to keep from watching the DVD once it were in my house, I only need ten seconds of motivation to keep myself from renting a video. That’s what leveraging motivation is all about, making limited motivation have a much stronger impact than you would expect it to have.
There are lots of ways you can leverage your motivation. By being creative, by being intentional man and taking charge of your motivation, you too can become a motivation powerhouse.
I first became aware of this strategy years ago, before I even started studying motivation, but it was so powerful that it stayed with me ever since. I heard it from a man who was giving a talk on weight loss. He works to keep from being overweight, and he shared that when he travels, he has struggles maintaining his diet. He told us when he flies his diet choices are severely limited. Soon after takeoff the stewardess will bring him and his fellow passengers lunch. As soon as he opens the package containing his lunch, he is confronted by the dessert, usually a brownie. The brownie entices him, but he knows he must resist; there are no brownies on his diet. So what he does, as soon as he sees the brownie, is open up the mayonnaise packet that comes with the lunch, and spreads the mayo all over the brownie. He knows that once the brownie is covered with mayo, it is not at all enticing, and he can eat his healthy sandwich and then throw away the brownie.
What occurs is the man knows his motivation to eat healthy and get slim is not as strong as he wishes it could be. It is strong enough to resist the brownie so long as there is a delicious sandwich waiting for him. It is not strong enough, however, to resist a brownie after he is done with the sandwich and has nothing else to eat to satisfy his urges. So what he does is leverage that limited motivation. By acting quickly, before the call of the brownie becomes overpowering, he is able to stay on his diet.
He didn’t refer to what he was doing as leveraging his motivation. Years later as I was writing my book, Motivate Yourself: A step by step guide to becoming all you can be, I remembered the story the man told and realized what he was doing was leveraging his motivation.
I also leverage motivation. On my way home from work I pass by a video rental store. I know that if I stop and rent a DVD, that once I eat my dinner that DVD will entice me and I will probably spend the evening watching it. I will not do what I know I need to do, work on my book and write in my blog. My motivation is not strong enough to resist a DVD on my television stand; not for the whole night. But my motivation is strong enough to make me keep my foot on the accelerator as I speed by the video store. Whereas I would need at least two hours of motivation to keep from watching the DVD once it were in my house, I only need ten seconds of motivation to keep myself from renting a video. That’s what leveraging motivation is all about, making limited motivation have a much stronger impact than you would expect it to have.
There are lots of ways you can leverage your motivation. By being creative, by being intentional man and taking charge of your motivation, you too can become a motivation powerhouse.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Success experiences
In today’s posting I’m going to write about a strategy to increase your successability. Successability, your confidence in your competence, is the second factor of self motivation. The model for self motivation tells us that if you increase your confidence in your competence, you will increase your motivation. What intentional man does, as contrasted to automatic man, is create situations for himself which increase his confidence. One way to do this is to give yourself challenges which you can overcome. I call these success experiences.
My Masters degree in education is in instructional design. An instructional designer designs educational instruction. As a designer, we would create the instruction a teacher would use to teach her students. We would plan out what topics were addressed each class. We determine the books that were to be used. We create the syllabus. One of our tasks is to build motivation into the instruction. One way to build motivation into the instruction is to give the learner tests, written or performance based, which the learner can be successful at. Teachers who make their tests extremely hard are not doing it to motivate their students. (To the contrary, perhaps, they are doing this to intimidate their students.) We don’t want to be a bad teacher to ourselves. We want to be like the good teacher who gives tests hard enough that they challenge the students to be their best, and which help make sure the students learn, but not so hard they get discouraged and give up.
Every time you successfully face a challenge, every time you have a success experience, your confidence in your competence grows. Every time your confidence grows, you increase your motivation.
A good teacher wants to help her students create success experiences. A good teacher does not want to have intimidated, frustrated students. Though I had learned this in class, I did not have first hand experience of it until I was in the middle of writing my book. I had decided I wanted to learn to play classical guitar. I can read music, having played brass instruments when I was in middle and high school. What I did not realize when I decided upon the classical guitar was first, that it is an extremely difficult instrument to play, and second, that as you are performing you do not read the music; the music is seen as a crutch. Instead you are to memorize the music, and memorize where each finger is on the neck and which finger is picking which string, for each note in the piece. I found it much easier to read the music than to memorize it. I’m afraid my memory for music was not yet developed adequately. I had accepted that. For a year I had been enjoying myself, playing music which actually sounded pleasant. It was hard work, but because I had been having many success experiences, I remained motivated and continued practicing.
My teacher felt, correctly I am sure, that in order for me to move to the next stage as a classical guitar player, I was going to have to start memorizing, memorizing the music and the finger positions. And so instead of giving me music for the next piece, a Bach cello solo piece, he tried teaching me, measure by measure. In my half hour lesson I managed to “memorize” three measures. He told me to go home and practice them. Good luck. By the time I got home, I couldn’t remember any of it. And I was totally stressed out!
This was NOT a success experience. I was totally amotivated (the opposite of motivated) and I never returned for the another lesson. In fact, yesterday I put my guitar in the mail and shipped it to my daughter, whose music memory is better than mine.
The exact opposite situation was shown to me Thursday morning. (I work with my trainer Thursdays and Sundays, as part of my social environment.) After an hour of working solo, a new client showed up for his training. The new client is an older man, with health challenges. To me he appeared extremely uncertain about his physical abilities. My trainer must have studied success experiences. Everything he had this new client do challenged the man, but was within his ability. He was never allowed to fail. With every success, the man’s motivation grew.
Which way do you want to treat yourself, like the good teacher or the bad teacher? If you want to motivate yourself, and keep yourself motivated, create success experiences for yourself. Put yourself in situations in which you can blossom, in which you feel powerful. This doesn’t mean don’t challenge yourself. It means challenge yourself with reasonable challenges, challenges that you can overcome, so that you thereby increase your motivation.
My Masters degree in education is in instructional design. An instructional designer designs educational instruction. As a designer, we would create the instruction a teacher would use to teach her students. We would plan out what topics were addressed each class. We determine the books that were to be used. We create the syllabus. One of our tasks is to build motivation into the instruction. One way to build motivation into the instruction is to give the learner tests, written or performance based, which the learner can be successful at. Teachers who make their tests extremely hard are not doing it to motivate their students. (To the contrary, perhaps, they are doing this to intimidate their students.) We don’t want to be a bad teacher to ourselves. We want to be like the good teacher who gives tests hard enough that they challenge the students to be their best, and which help make sure the students learn, but not so hard they get discouraged and give up.
Every time you successfully face a challenge, every time you have a success experience, your confidence in your competence grows. Every time your confidence grows, you increase your motivation.
A good teacher wants to help her students create success experiences. A good teacher does not want to have intimidated, frustrated students. Though I had learned this in class, I did not have first hand experience of it until I was in the middle of writing my book. I had decided I wanted to learn to play classical guitar. I can read music, having played brass instruments when I was in middle and high school. What I did not realize when I decided upon the classical guitar was first, that it is an extremely difficult instrument to play, and second, that as you are performing you do not read the music; the music is seen as a crutch. Instead you are to memorize the music, and memorize where each finger is on the neck and which finger is picking which string, for each note in the piece. I found it much easier to read the music than to memorize it. I’m afraid my memory for music was not yet developed adequately. I had accepted that. For a year I had been enjoying myself, playing music which actually sounded pleasant. It was hard work, but because I had been having many success experiences, I remained motivated and continued practicing.
My teacher felt, correctly I am sure, that in order for me to move to the next stage as a classical guitar player, I was going to have to start memorizing, memorizing the music and the finger positions. And so instead of giving me music for the next piece, a Bach cello solo piece, he tried teaching me, measure by measure. In my half hour lesson I managed to “memorize” three measures. He told me to go home and practice them. Good luck. By the time I got home, I couldn’t remember any of it. And I was totally stressed out!
This was NOT a success experience. I was totally amotivated (the opposite of motivated) and I never returned for the another lesson. In fact, yesterday I put my guitar in the mail and shipped it to my daughter, whose music memory is better than mine.
The exact opposite situation was shown to me Thursday morning. (I work with my trainer Thursdays and Sundays, as part of my social environment.) After an hour of working solo, a new client showed up for his training. The new client is an older man, with health challenges. To me he appeared extremely uncertain about his physical abilities. My trainer must have studied success experiences. Everything he had this new client do challenged the man, but was within his ability. He was never allowed to fail. With every success, the man’s motivation grew.
Which way do you want to treat yourself, like the good teacher or the bad teacher? If you want to motivate yourself, and keep yourself motivated, create success experiences for yourself. Put yourself in situations in which you can blossom, in which you feel powerful. This doesn’t mean don’t challenge yourself. It means challenge yourself with reasonable challenges, challenges that you can overcome, so that you thereby increase your motivation.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Vision
The Vision
In my second blog I presented the model for self motivation:
SELF MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).
It is read "self motivation is a factor of vision, successability and environment." This equation means that any positive impact on any of the factors on the right will result in a positive impact on the left. It’s like a law of nature, human nature.
I explained in recent postings what the third factor, environment, means. Now I want to explain what the first factor, vision" means. When you understand what each of the factors means, you will be able to create your own ways of increasing each factor and thereby increase and maintain your self motivation.
When I think of the factor vision, the word I think about most is potential. When I was a boy I was not particularly driven. I did well in school, but not exceptionally well. Some parents would have been satisfied with good, but not my mother. She wasn’t happy with good, because she knew that I had a lot more inside of me than just good. She know I was coasting. She would always scold me, “You’re not working up to your potential.” I knew she was right, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I wasn’t motivated to work up to my potential. And so I didn’t.
I know my mom had my best interests at heart, and I believe now (years after she passed away it occurred to me) that she didn’t want me to make the decisions she had made. I now believe she felt she hadn’t worked up to her potential, felt bad about it, and she wanted to spare me from similar feelings. Telling me I wasn’t working up to my potential was the only way she knew to stop me from suffering the same fate. But it didn’t work. Telling me I wasn’t working up to my potential didn’t help. I already knew I wasn’t working up to my potential. So what was the problem? Why wasn’t I motivated?
The problem was I had nothing to be motivated about. What I didn’t know then, and neither did my mom, was that in order to be motivated I needed a worthwhile pursuit. I needed something to feel passionate about. And if I didn’t feel passionate about something, I needed to spend some time, maybe lots of time, finding something I was passionate about, something that was worthwhile to me. I needed to find my vision.
Vision is an image of yourself that is special, ever so much more special than you already are. Vision is who you were put on this planet to be. A visual image that resonates with me when I think about vision is an acorn. The vision of an acorn is an oak tree. All that potential is in that little seed. But it also symbolizes something else with vision. And that is that vision is not what someone else is telling you to be, not what society says you should be, not what is practical for you to be. Vision is what you are, deep down inside, but which you haven’t yet brought fully into your life.
Vision is who you were meant to be.
In my next posting I will talk more about vision, and, if you aren’t yet aware of your vision, I will give you some strategies to help you find out who that marvelous person is.
In my second blog I presented the model for self motivation:
SELF MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).
It is read "self motivation is a factor of vision, successability and environment." This equation means that any positive impact on any of the factors on the right will result in a positive impact on the left. It’s like a law of nature, human nature.
I explained in recent postings what the third factor, environment, means. Now I want to explain what the first factor, vision" means. When you understand what each of the factors means, you will be able to create your own ways of increasing each factor and thereby increase and maintain your self motivation.
When I think of the factor vision, the word I think about most is potential. When I was a boy I was not particularly driven. I did well in school, but not exceptionally well. Some parents would have been satisfied with good, but not my mother. She wasn’t happy with good, because she knew that I had a lot more inside of me than just good. She know I was coasting. She would always scold me, “You’re not working up to your potential.” I knew she was right, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I wasn’t motivated to work up to my potential. And so I didn’t.
I know my mom had my best interests at heart, and I believe now (years after she passed away it occurred to me) that she didn’t want me to make the decisions she had made. I now believe she felt she hadn’t worked up to her potential, felt bad about it, and she wanted to spare me from similar feelings. Telling me I wasn’t working up to my potential was the only way she knew to stop me from suffering the same fate. But it didn’t work. Telling me I wasn’t working up to my potential didn’t help. I already knew I wasn’t working up to my potential. So what was the problem? Why wasn’t I motivated?
The problem was I had nothing to be motivated about. What I didn’t know then, and neither did my mom, was that in order to be motivated I needed a worthwhile pursuit. I needed something to feel passionate about. And if I didn’t feel passionate about something, I needed to spend some time, maybe lots of time, finding something I was passionate about, something that was worthwhile to me. I needed to find my vision.
Vision is an image of yourself that is special, ever so much more special than you already are. Vision is who you were put on this planet to be. A visual image that resonates with me when I think about vision is an acorn. The vision of an acorn is an oak tree. All that potential is in that little seed. But it also symbolizes something else with vision. And that is that vision is not what someone else is telling you to be, not what society says you should be, not what is practical for you to be. Vision is what you are, deep down inside, but which you haven’t yet brought fully into your life.
Vision is who you were meant to be.
In my next posting I will talk more about vision, and, if you aren’t yet aware of your vision, I will give you some strategies to help you find out who that marvelous person is.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Motivation in Athletics
The last couple of blogs have discussed detractors, those things that knock us off our path toward manifesting our vision, if we let them. The two we have looked at so far are distracters and low frustration tolerance. Rather than scaring you with yet another detractor (and there are too many of them) I wanted in this posting to write about a model of motivation that had a strong influence on me in creating my model for self motivation.
My research for my book, Motivate Yourself, a step by step guide to becoming all you can be, revealed three fields in which there was lots of research: education, employment and sports. These are all important and large industries, so the magnitude of the research being done is not surprising. I am an athlete (amateur), so I was particularly interested in sports motivation, how coaches and trainers motivate their athletes. One model of motivation was particularly interesting. It is called the Resonance Performance Model, or RPM. It had a large impact on the creation of my model.
RPM focuses on the motivation of high performing athletes. Dr. Doug Newburg, at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, developed it after interviews with hundreds of these athletes.
Just as my model for self motivation has three elements or factors, Dr. Newburg’s model has three elements:
1) the dream,
2) extensive preparation,
3) a strategy to overcome obstacles.
The dream refers to one idea, one concept that captures the athlete so totally that he makes a commitment to making the expression of this one idea his life’s work. The person has a dream, and he wants to express that dream in his life. This is why the word resonance is in the model’s name. The athlete’s intent is to make his or her external reality be in conformance (in resonance) with that inner reality, the dream.
In RPM, the dream is not a goal you set. The dream is inside of you, something you live every day.
Extensive preparation is the second element in RPM. Preparation involves all the activities you engage in to make your dream happen. For a high performing athlete who is in resonance, however, this preparation is not drudgery. It is not something the athlete is compelled to do. Instead it is something he wants to do, something that has real meaning to him, something that is an integral part of the dream. The incredible amounts of time a high performing athlete spends preparing for competitions makes the dream a part of his or her every day existence. The preparation becomes part of the resonance, that merging of the internal with the external. Newburg asserts that striving for the goal may actually be more resonating than achieving the goal.
The third element of RPM is the strategy to overcome obstacles used by the athlete in resonance. Newburg uses the term “obstacles” very broadly. There are external obstacles, such as rejection, losses, and injuries, and internal obstacles, such as fear and self-doubt. They sound like the detractors we have been discussing, so the way the athletes deal with these obstacles is instructive to all of us. Newburg found the way the high performing athlete deals with obstacles is different than how lesser performing athletes deal with them. Instead of taking the obvious step of just returning to the preparation stage and increasing the duration or intensity of the practice, or modifying it in some other way, the high performing athlete first revisits the dream. Instead of going back to the second element, the preparation, the high performing athlete returns to the first element, the dream. The high performing athletes interviewed by Newburg explained that when they revisit their dream, they are reconnecting with the feelings that motivate them to do the activities they do. Revisiting the dream can include watching videos of performances, reading journals the athlete had kept, listening or just thinking about what is important to them. It may also include redefining the dream.
This contemplative, internal activity allows the high performing athlete to reconnect to the dream, his inner world, which allows him or her to integrate that inner world with the physical or outer world, the performance.
As you become more and more familiar with my model for self motivation, you will become more aware of the influence Dr. Newburg had on me.
My research for my book, Motivate Yourself, a step by step guide to becoming all you can be, revealed three fields in which there was lots of research: education, employment and sports. These are all important and large industries, so the magnitude of the research being done is not surprising. I am an athlete (amateur), so I was particularly interested in sports motivation, how coaches and trainers motivate their athletes. One model of motivation was particularly interesting. It is called the Resonance Performance Model, or RPM. It had a large impact on the creation of my model.
RPM focuses on the motivation of high performing athletes. Dr. Doug Newburg, at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, developed it after interviews with hundreds of these athletes.
Just as my model for self motivation has three elements or factors, Dr. Newburg’s model has three elements:
1) the dream,
2) extensive preparation,
3) a strategy to overcome obstacles.
The dream refers to one idea, one concept that captures the athlete so totally that he makes a commitment to making the expression of this one idea his life’s work. The person has a dream, and he wants to express that dream in his life. This is why the word resonance is in the model’s name. The athlete’s intent is to make his or her external reality be in conformance (in resonance) with that inner reality, the dream.
In RPM, the dream is not a goal you set. The dream is inside of you, something you live every day.
Extensive preparation is the second element in RPM. Preparation involves all the activities you engage in to make your dream happen. For a high performing athlete who is in resonance, however, this preparation is not drudgery. It is not something the athlete is compelled to do. Instead it is something he wants to do, something that has real meaning to him, something that is an integral part of the dream. The incredible amounts of time a high performing athlete spends preparing for competitions makes the dream a part of his or her every day existence. The preparation becomes part of the resonance, that merging of the internal with the external. Newburg asserts that striving for the goal may actually be more resonating than achieving the goal.
The third element of RPM is the strategy to overcome obstacles used by the athlete in resonance. Newburg uses the term “obstacles” very broadly. There are external obstacles, such as rejection, losses, and injuries, and internal obstacles, such as fear and self-doubt. They sound like the detractors we have been discussing, so the way the athletes deal with these obstacles is instructive to all of us. Newburg found the way the high performing athlete deals with obstacles is different than how lesser performing athletes deal with them. Instead of taking the obvious step of just returning to the preparation stage and increasing the duration or intensity of the practice, or modifying it in some other way, the high performing athlete first revisits the dream. Instead of going back to the second element, the preparation, the high performing athlete returns to the first element, the dream. The high performing athletes interviewed by Newburg explained that when they revisit their dream, they are reconnecting with the feelings that motivate them to do the activities they do. Revisiting the dream can include watching videos of performances, reading journals the athlete had kept, listening or just thinking about what is important to them. It may also include redefining the dream.
This contemplative, internal activity allows the high performing athlete to reconnect to the dream, his inner world, which allows him or her to integrate that inner world with the physical or outer world, the performance.
As you become more and more familiar with my model for self motivation, you will become more aware of the influence Dr. Newburg had on me.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Overcoming Low Frustration Tolerance
In my most recent blog I discussed a detractor, low frustration tolerance, and explained how it could stop you in your tracks.
There’s nothing wrong with getting frustrated. We all get frustrated on occasion; it’s a perfectly human response to not getting our way, or when things don’t go the way we planned. The problem arises when our reaction to these frustrating things gets in the way of achieving our goals.
Victor Maslow, the grand master of motivation, theorized that people with high tolerance for frustration probably have increased frustration-tolerance because of earlier gratification. “People who have been satisfied in their basic needs throughout their lives, particularly in their earlier years,” he has written, “seem to develop exceptional power to withstand present or future thwarting of these needs simply because they have strong, healthy character structure as a result of basic satisfaction. They are the ‘strong’ people who can easily weather disagreement or opposition, who can swim against the stream of public opinion and who can stand up for the truth at great personal cost.”
But there is hope even if we do have low frustration tolerance. I say that because there are three strategies we can implement to increase our tolerance for frustration.
Strategy 1. Change our attitudes about frustration
It’s been theorized that some people have low tolerance for frustration because they think if they don’t get their way or if things don’t go the way they are supposed to, the consequences will be horrible. If you feel that way, you need to change that attitude. Being intentional man means you chose your response. Give yourself permission to experience the frustration, and move on. Tell yourself, “It’s not the way I want it, but it is tolerable. Even though it makes me disappointed, even though it makes me annoyed, I can tolerate it. I do not need to avoid it. I do not need to structure my life so I do not experience frustration. Frustration is not going to kill me.”
Strategy 2. Balance the long term and the short term
This strategy also involves being intentional man. It requires that you look at what is frustrating you. Often you will find out that the frustration involves your desire for short term satisfaction, at the detriment of your long term goals. When you see that not getting the short term desire may actually improve your life, in the long term, the frustration will not be as great.
Strategy 3. Play with frustration
This third strategy involves you intentionally putting yourself in situations in which you are likely to encounter frustration. The purpose is for you to experience frustration so you can see it may be uncomfortable, it may be inconvenient, but it is not going to kill you. You would prefer that things are different, that things were as they were supposed to be, but you can live with them the way they are.
There is hope if you have not had the earlier gratification that creates people with high tolerance for frustration. By practicing these three strategies, you can become one of the strong people that Victor Maslow wrote about.
There’s nothing wrong with getting frustrated. We all get frustrated on occasion; it’s a perfectly human response to not getting our way, or when things don’t go the way we planned. The problem arises when our reaction to these frustrating things gets in the way of achieving our goals.
Victor Maslow, the grand master of motivation, theorized that people with high tolerance for frustration probably have increased frustration-tolerance because of earlier gratification. “People who have been satisfied in their basic needs throughout their lives, particularly in their earlier years,” he has written, “seem to develop exceptional power to withstand present or future thwarting of these needs simply because they have strong, healthy character structure as a result of basic satisfaction. They are the ‘strong’ people who can easily weather disagreement or opposition, who can swim against the stream of public opinion and who can stand up for the truth at great personal cost.”
But there is hope even if we do have low frustration tolerance. I say that because there are three strategies we can implement to increase our tolerance for frustration.
Strategy 1. Change our attitudes about frustration
It’s been theorized that some people have low tolerance for frustration because they think if they don’t get their way or if things don’t go the way they are supposed to, the consequences will be horrible. If you feel that way, you need to change that attitude. Being intentional man means you chose your response. Give yourself permission to experience the frustration, and move on. Tell yourself, “It’s not the way I want it, but it is tolerable. Even though it makes me disappointed, even though it makes me annoyed, I can tolerate it. I do not need to avoid it. I do not need to structure my life so I do not experience frustration. Frustration is not going to kill me.”
Strategy 2. Balance the long term and the short term
This strategy also involves being intentional man. It requires that you look at what is frustrating you. Often you will find out that the frustration involves your desire for short term satisfaction, at the detriment of your long term goals. When you see that not getting the short term desire may actually improve your life, in the long term, the frustration will not be as great.
Strategy 3. Play with frustration
This third strategy involves you intentionally putting yourself in situations in which you are likely to encounter frustration. The purpose is for you to experience frustration so you can see it may be uncomfortable, it may be inconvenient, but it is not going to kill you. You would prefer that things are different, that things were as they were supposed to be, but you can live with them the way they are.
There is hope if you have not had the earlier gratification that creates people with high tolerance for frustration. By practicing these three strategies, you can become one of the strong people that Victor Maslow wrote about.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Detractor Two: Low frustration tolerance
In my last posting I discussed my number one detractor, the distracter, and shared some strategies I have used to overcome this distracter, or at least minimize its impact. Today’s posting is about another detractor, low tolerance for frustration.
When you are working toward something that is important for you, it is not uncommon for you to encounter bumps on the road. People will make promises that they will not keep. (Even though your vision is a worthwhile pursuit, it may not be worthwhile to other people.) Deadlines that you have established will come and go, unmet. Deliveries will come late. Computer hard drives will crash or get viruses. Office equipment will break. People you have to deal with will be crabby or even rude. The list goes on and on and on. All these things are frustrating. Frustration is a given; if you’re not getting frustrated, at least occasionally, you are probably either real lucky or you aren’t aiming too high with your goals.
Frustration occurs to all of us. The important issue for each of us, however, is how sensitive we are to this inevitable frustration. How sensitive you are to frustration is referred to as your frustration tolerance. What studies have shown, and which is something that we probably all know intuitively, is that people have different levels of frustration tolerance. We all know people who just cannot handle any frustration.
Some people with low frustration tolerance when faced with a block to achieving a goal may rage uncontrollably. Others will break down in tears, just give up, and make no more efforts toward their goal. Others will look for someone to blame.
When a person with high frustration tolerance faces a roadblock, however, they persist, even though the task is difficult and even though things aren’t going their way.
Our frustration tolerance, how we deal with frustration, will play a large role in whether we manifest our vision. Why? Because the reality is life can be difficult. And if we aim high, it’s going to be even more difficult.
When you aim for the stars you will encounter a lot of frustration. You will be required to count on other people’s promises. You will need to interact with people who aren’t having a good day. And sometimes your best won’t be good enough. You will be doing things continually, which creates a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong.
So the bad news is, we will face a lot of frustration on our path to our vision. But there is good news. The good news is we can increase our tolerance for frustration. In my next blog I will share ways for you to increase your frustration for tolerance.
When you are working toward something that is important for you, it is not uncommon for you to encounter bumps on the road. People will make promises that they will not keep. (Even though your vision is a worthwhile pursuit, it may not be worthwhile to other people.) Deadlines that you have established will come and go, unmet. Deliveries will come late. Computer hard drives will crash or get viruses. Office equipment will break. People you have to deal with will be crabby or even rude. The list goes on and on and on. All these things are frustrating. Frustration is a given; if you’re not getting frustrated, at least occasionally, you are probably either real lucky or you aren’t aiming too high with your goals.
Frustration occurs to all of us. The important issue for each of us, however, is how sensitive we are to this inevitable frustration. How sensitive you are to frustration is referred to as your frustration tolerance. What studies have shown, and which is something that we probably all know intuitively, is that people have different levels of frustration tolerance. We all know people who just cannot handle any frustration.
Some people with low frustration tolerance when faced with a block to achieving a goal may rage uncontrollably. Others will break down in tears, just give up, and make no more efforts toward their goal. Others will look for someone to blame.
When a person with high frustration tolerance faces a roadblock, however, they persist, even though the task is difficult and even though things aren’t going their way.
Our frustration tolerance, how we deal with frustration, will play a large role in whether we manifest our vision. Why? Because the reality is life can be difficult. And if we aim high, it’s going to be even more difficult.
When you aim for the stars you will encounter a lot of frustration. You will be required to count on other people’s promises. You will need to interact with people who aren’t having a good day. And sometimes your best won’t be good enough. You will be doing things continually, which creates a lot of opportunity for things to go wrong.
So the bad news is, we will face a lot of frustration on our path to our vision. But there is good news. The good news is we can increase our tolerance for frustration. In my next blog I will share ways for you to increase your frustration for tolerance.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Distracters
In my most recent posting, I explained the concept of the detractor as anything that stands in your way of manifesting your vision. I shared with you that the most daunting type of detractor for me was the distracter.
When I talk about the distracter I am referring to those things that temporarily knock me off course as I pursue my vision, my goals and my tasks. Telling you what my most powerful distracter is will explain very well what a distracter is. It might be yours, too. It’s the television. In twelve step programs they tell you that sobriety or being drug free occurs one day at a time. For me, a distracter keeps me from achieving my goals, one day at a time.
A distracter doesn’t knock me off the path. It’s too subtle for that. Instead it temporarily seduces me from my path. Instead of writing a blog entry, I sit down in front of the television and watch mixed martial arts on Spike, or flip over to HBO to see whether an action movie is playing. And it doesn’t matter if I have seen it before, I’ll watch it again!
Other common distracters are alcohol, illicit drug use, going to clubs, hanging out. You know your distracter better than anyone else (except maybe your significant other).
Distracters are generally more powerful when we are supposed to be doing a task that isn’t particularly exciting. Exciting tasks have motivating appeal of there own which is likely to overcome the lure of the distracter, but a boring task may not. Even though we know the task is important, in that it will move us closer to achieving a goal, it may not have a lot of inherent appeal. Consequently, we are more likely to be distracted from tasks that involve drudgery.
It’s important that you look carefully at yourself and figure out what your distracters are, if you don’t already know. Once you know what they are, distracters are not usually too difficult to overcome. The problem is, they must continually be overcome. It’s not a one time battle. The good news is losing a battle occasionally will not keep you from achieving your dreams. That's the key, making sure it only happens occasionally.
When I talk about the distracter I am referring to those things that temporarily knock me off course as I pursue my vision, my goals and my tasks. Telling you what my most powerful distracter is will explain very well what a distracter is. It might be yours, too. It’s the television. In twelve step programs they tell you that sobriety or being drug free occurs one day at a time. For me, a distracter keeps me from achieving my goals, one day at a time.
A distracter doesn’t knock me off the path. It’s too subtle for that. Instead it temporarily seduces me from my path. Instead of writing a blog entry, I sit down in front of the television and watch mixed martial arts on Spike, or flip over to HBO to see whether an action movie is playing. And it doesn’t matter if I have seen it before, I’ll watch it again!
Other common distracters are alcohol, illicit drug use, going to clubs, hanging out. You know your distracter better than anyone else (except maybe your significant other).
Distracters are generally more powerful when we are supposed to be doing a task that isn’t particularly exciting. Exciting tasks have motivating appeal of there own which is likely to overcome the lure of the distracter, but a boring task may not. Even though we know the task is important, in that it will move us closer to achieving a goal, it may not have a lot of inherent appeal. Consequently, we are more likely to be distracted from tasks that involve drudgery.
It’s important that you look carefully at yourself and figure out what your distracters are, if you don’t already know. Once you know what they are, distracters are not usually too difficult to overcome. The problem is, they must continually be overcome. It’s not a one time battle. The good news is losing a battle occasionally will not keep you from achieving your dreams. That's the key, making sure it only happens occasionally.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Detractors
So far, I have been blogging mostly about things you can do to motivate yourself, that is, ways to increase your motivation. We’ve learned that having a vision, something that is worthwhile for us, is motivating. We’ve learned that clarity, whether it’s about our vision, our goals or our tasks, will keep us motivated.
Now I want to talk about things that decrease our motivation, things that are amotivating. I call these things detractors. These are things that detract us from manifesting our vision.
Just as our motivators are unique and personal to us, so too are our detractors. Some of the motivators I describe in my book and in future blog postings will have absolutely no power over you, yet others will truly be forces for you to reckon with. Being intentional man means finding out what our detractors are, those things are stopping us from achieving our dreams. People say knowledge is power, and when it comes to detractors, that saying is very true. Once we become aware of our detractors, we can take steps to overcome them. We apply strategies that nullify their power over us.
For every detractor in your life, there is a strategy you can use to overcome that strategy, or, at a minimum, to lessen its impact on your motivation and on your life.
In my next posting I will talk about the detractor that I have found to be the most overwhelming for me. I call it the distracter. I refer to it as the mild mannered detractor, because it is hard for me to believe that things that appear to be so unimportant have so often detracted me on my path to manifesting my vision.
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