Stories of Achievement

In order to increase our motivation, all we need to do is increase the motivational impact of one of the three factors of self motivation, the vision, successability or environment. There are many strategies you can use to accomplish this. Today’s post is about one strategy that you can use to have a positive impact on your successability, your confidence in your competence. The name of the strategy is stories of achievement.

One thing that will make us confident about ourselves is remembering experiences in our lives in which we were extremely competent, experiences in which we succeeded beyond any doubt. Unfortunately most of us are much more likely to dwell upon experiences in our lives in which we failed miserably, and to berate ourselves accordingly. This is not good for our motivation. As intentional men and women, we have the power to choose what experiences we identify with. As intentional men and women who wish to be highly motivated, we need to identify with those extremely positive situations which exist in all of our lives.

In the strategy stories of achievement we remember and re-experience our successes. A story of achievement is the recitation of a situation that occurred in your life of which you are proud, that reflects highly on you. It can relate to positive attributes in your character, to special skills you have, or some other characteristic. If you can find a story of achievement that relates closely to your vision, so much the better. But don’t worry if a story doesn’t so relate. What’s important is that you come up with one. We all have them, but you may have to dig. You may also have to be honest with yourself, instead of automatically being humble.

My major story of achievement occurred to me when I was a relatively new lawyer. I was asked by an association of social workers and teachers that deal with teens to do a presentation at their annual conference on human sexuality and the law, as it involves minors. I didn’t know a lot about the topic, and I hadn’t had much public speaking experience, but I decided, what the heck, and agreed to do it.

My presentation, a break out session, was set for 10:00 AM. It went extremely well, so well, in fact, that I was asked to do it again at 2:00 PM, as many people had gotten so much out of it, that they told everyone else. Even today as I write about it, more than twenty years later, it still motivates me. It was a major reason I became a public speaker, and when doubts start to come up, wreaking havoc on my motivation, it’s a good story of achievement to bring my successability back into line.

Don’t wait for your motivation to suffer to start thinking about your stories of achievement. At those rough times they will be harder to come up with. Instead, take a quiet hour or so, this week maybe, in front of the computer, or with a journal, thinking of two or three stories from your life that reflect positively on you.

The positive motivational impact these stories can have will make it time well spent.