Sunday, February 28, 2010

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.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Motivating Employees

While I was doing the research for my book, one of the aspects of motivation I looked at was motivation in the work place. One of the models I studied was created by Thomas L. Quick, in his book, The Quick Motivation Method. In his model the manager determines what makes a positive choice in a particular situation, that is, the manager makes a determination as to how he wants his employee to act when certain conditions arise on the job. The manager’s goal in this model is to make his employee see that the choice the manager believes is the right choice is the same choice that the employee believes is the right choice for himself. The question the model answers is, “How does the manager motivate his employee to make that same choice?” The answer is, he increases the motivational value of that choice.

Even though the focus of the Quick Motivation Method is outward, that is, it is used by one person, the manager, to motivate another person, the employee, we can still learn a lot from the model that we can apply to motivating ourselves.

Quick provides five pointers for increasing the motivational value to the employee of any giving choice. The words in bold are Quick’s pointers. The words in italics are my analysis of the pointer, showing what we can learn about motivating ourselves from Quick’s five pointers.

1. People have reasons for what they do. This pointer means that because people have reasons for what they do, if we can figure out the reasons why people do a certain thing, we can get them to do that thing. This is a another way of saying people can be motivated. Similarly, in the self motivation model, we recognize that we do things for reasons, and once we figure out those reasons, we can create and write a plan for motivating ourselves, so that we, too, will make the right choices.

2. Whatever people choose to do, they do it to gain something they believe is good for them. The achievement must be sufficiently important for them to choose it. From this pointer we see why the vision is the foundational factor of the model for self motivation. One’s vision, becoming all he or she can be, is the ultimate life achievement.

3. The person has to perceive he or she can attain the goal. This pointer describes the second factor of the self motivation model, successability, your confidence in your competence. Just like the employee being motivated by his manager, you must believe you are capable of achieving a goal, or you will not be motivated to achieve it.

4. The conditions under which the job (the activity) is done (the situation) can affect its value to the doer or his expectation of success. This pointer is addressing physical environment, part of the third factor in the self motivation model. In the model for self motivation we add social environment, the people and organizations that surround us or are available to us. By creating an environment that enhances our successability, we automatically increase our motivation. We can enhance both our physical environment and our social environment to increase our motivation.

5. The manager can increase the employee’s motivation by increasing the value of the goal to the employee, increasing the employee’s expectation of reaching it, and enhancing the situation surrounding the performance. This pointer relates to all three factors of self motivation. The value of the goal relates to the vision, the first factor. The greater the value of your vision to you, the higher your motivation will be to manifest that vision. Increasing the employee’s expectation of reaching his goal means increasing his successability, the second factor. Enhancing the situation means making the employee’s environment more motivating.

By applying Quick’s five pointers, a manager can ensure that his employee makes the right choices. Similarly, by using the three factor model for self motivation to create a unique plan for ourselves, we can make sure that we make the right choices, moving forward, doing the work we need to do, to make all our wonderful dreams come true.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

To be motivated, be authentic

One of the most important lessons I learned while I was researching motivation is that authenticity is motivating.

Authenticity is the condition or quality of being authentic. The definition of authentic, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is of undisputed origin; genuine. The dictionary further informs us that the origin of the word is from the Greek word authentikos meaning ‘principal or genuine’.

Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who is considered the father of motivation. He created a hierarchy of needs or motivators. His hierarchy has five levels. At the bottom of the hierarchy are the physiological needs, such as food, water, and air. The next level up are the safety needs, the need to keep your body, resources, employment and property secure. In the third level up are the love or belonging needs, the need to have friends and family and the need for sexual intimacy. The fourth level up is esteem needs, confidence in yourself, the respect of others, and a sense of achievement. The fifth and final level is called self actualization. In describing this level, Maslow said, “What a man can be, he must be.”

Maslow asserted that you have to achieve the lower levels before moving up to the higher levels, for example, if you don’t have food to eat (level one) you would be motivated to find food, but would not be motivated by a need for friends (the third level).

Maslow saw being authentic, being the genuine you, as the ultimate motivator, that which would motivate you after all your other needs were met.

So being who we genuinely are is motivating. It is primarily from this idea that I created the vision. That’s why the vision is the real you, the person you were meant to be.

Given how motivating being authentic is, you would think that there could be nothing more motivating than working on becoming who you genuinely are, your authentic self. But this does not seem to be the case for most of us. Instead, many of us will work for years for someone else, living in roles assigned to us by someone else, rather than being or working toward being who we authentically are.

I’ve often asked myself why this is. I think there are several reasons. One major reason is that some of us don’t have any clue who we authentically are. We have gone through life meeting other peoples’ expectations, starting with our family’s, then our friends’ (peer pressure) and then a spouse. Others of us may have a clue, or maybe a really strong idea, of who we genuinely are, but we don’t believe we have permission to be that person; no one has ever given us permission and we don’t realize or believe we can give permission to ourselves.

I put the vision as the first factor of self motivation in the model for self motivation, because I believe it is the most important. Your vision is the ultimate destination of all your work on self motivation. It’s also the ultimate foundation of all that work.

Discovering your vision may be the most important discovery you ever make. When you are genuine, when you are doing the things that fulfill you, the things you love, you will have more energy, you will have greater persistence, you will have greater creativity and you will have more joy in your life.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Self motivation and financial freedom

In my most recent posting I showed how the self motivation model has been applied to weight loss. In today’s posting I will show you how it can be applied to financial matters as well.

Recall, once again, the model for self motivation:

SELF MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).

I find financial matters to be of especial interest because they affect almost all of us, especially in times such as these with the economy in such an uproar. Financial problems cause more domestic problems, more even than sex, which is not surprising since so many of us have so much baggage when it comes to money.

So let’s see how one intentional man, I’ll refer to him as Rod, applied the model for self motivation to his finances.

Rod was living pay check to pay check, had no savings, and had credit card debt that was slowly creeping up higher and higher. He hadn’t hit bottom by any means; he was employed and was able to pay the minimum payments on his credit cards every month, with enough left over to pay his bills, but he could see the writing on the wall and it wasn’t black. He knew he had to make some major changes, but he just couldn’t get motivated. He wasn’t able to say no to his wants, be it the newest video game, or going out drinking with his friends. Month after month, his credit card debt grew and it was taking more of his income to pay the minimum. Then he found out about the model for self motivation, and decided to give it a try.

For his vision, Rod decided on me as a fiscally responsible adult. He liked that the vision wasn’t just limited to being out of debt, or just having a savings account, but was instead addressing a fundamental change, from him as an irresponsible child who always satisfied himself, to becoming the responsible grownup he always knew, deep inside, he was.

For the second factor, successability, his confidence in his competence, Rod used my favorite strategy, the three step process for successability. This strategy helps the user achieve clarity, which in turn increases his successability. The three steps in this strategy are:

vision >> goal >> task.

Rod wrote down his three goals. He knew that when he had accomplished them, he would be well on his way to being that fiscally responsible adult he wanted to be.

1. Live within a budget
2. Stop using my credit cards
3. Have a savings account

Rod next figured out what tasks completing each of the goals would require, and wrote them down.

For goal #1, live within my budget, these are the tasks Rod wrote down:
1. Find out how to make a budget
2. Create the budget
3. Live within the budget.
4. Revise the budget as needed

Rod saw that task 1, find out how to make a budget, was a complex task, so he broke it down into its subtasks:
1. go to library and take out books on budgeting
2. read the books
3. go to a credit counselor for assistance on how to make a budget

Environment is the third factor of self motivation. It involves both your physical environment and your social environment.

Rod saw how one part of his social environment had played a large part in his lack of motivation to change his fiscal irresponsibility, namely his drinking buddies. This is a good example of how the three factors can impact your motivation either in a positive way or in a negative way. Rod saw he would need to change his social environment so it positively, instead of negatively, impacted his motivation to change. The first step was making the credit counselor part of his social environment. (Note, social environment includes your friends, but all people in your social environment need not be your friends. If this is confusing, read my posting on December 21st.)

But then he needed to figure out what to do about his drinking buddies. He knew he had to make a choice, either convert one or more of them to non-drinking buddies, maybe even making one of them a partner in his mission, or get new friends. Warning: it’s not always easy to make changes.

I could go on and on posting solely about how the model for self motivation applies to so many of the different circumstances and situations we as people face, but I think the point has been made. It doesn’t matter what your challenge is; it doesn’t matter what your vision is; without motivation you aren’t going anywhere. On the other hand, by taking charge of your motivation, and creating a plan for your motivation, you can overcome those challenges, and become your vision.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Motivate yourself to lose weight

The self motivation model can just about any pursuit you can think of. In my next couple of postings I will look at some.

Let’s look first at the self motivation model.

SELF MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).

When Motivate Yourself: A step by step guide to becoming all you can be is printed I will be starting on my next book, which will be either Motivate Yourself for Weight Loss or Motivate Yourself for Financial Freedom.

Let’s see how the model for self motivation relates to the first title.

I’m especially interested in weight loss because I was a fat kid when I was little, although my mother always lovingly referred to as me as “husky.” As I was getting ready to celebrate my 13th birthday, I was around 5’3” and weighed 165 pounds.

I’d been overweight ever since I was a little boy, and never thought much about it, certainly not enough to do anything about it. But when I was 13 I joined my junior high wrestling team. At 165 pounds, I was wrestling boys who were normally 180 pounds, but had intentionally lost 15 or more pounds so they could wrestle opponents who were normally lighter, and therefore less strong than them. The whole thing didn’t make much sense, since they usually ended up wrestling someone who normally weighed 180 pounds, but who had intentionally lost 15 pounds as well. It did make sense when wrestling me, however, a chubby (excuse me, husky) 165 pounder. Wrestling me was fun for them, but not a lot of fun for me. I spent a lot of time on my back (getting pinned) so I quickly went down to 133 pounds, though I could get down to 127 if need be. What’s interesting about it is I don’t recall ever feeling I was depriving myself. It feels like that on some level my vision, me as a slim wrestler, was so powerful the pounds just melted off. Burning calories for two and a half hours every day on the wrestling mats didn’t hurt either! The results speak for themselves, 32 pounds in a month and a half. I was certainly motivated.

I think weight loss for a busy, involved adult is a bit more of a chore than it was for me as a child. So let’s see how one intentional woman, I’ll refer to her as Barbara, applied the model for self motivation to losing weight.

In applying the model to weight loss, the first factor, vision, can be many things. It might be written as Me at a Healthy Weight or Fitting into a Size 12 or Me Liking My Body Image. The vision Barbara wrote down was short and to the point, Me Slim. Barbara knew that inside she was a slim woman, just like she had been before four children.

The second factor, successability, requires clarity, which can be achieved by the three step process for successability:

vision >> goal >> task.

This is how Barbara applied the three step process to weight loss.

We already know Barbara’s vision is Me Slim. Barbara wrote down the following as her goals, those achievements which will result in her manifesting as her vision. Four of her goals were:
1. Lose 35 pounds
2. Join Weight Watchers
3. Eat junk food only one day a week.
4. Set up a system of rewards for success

For each of these goals, Barbara made a list of the tasks, the actual behaviors she needed to do to complete each goal. For example, goal #3, Eat junk food only one day a week, involved these tasks:
1. Determine what day is the day I can eat junk food
2. Define junk food so I am sure I don’t eat it the other six days
3. Keep healthy foods in the refrigerator so I always have healthy foods to eat
4. Make sure there is no junk food in my house except on junk food day, so I am not tempted to blow my plan on non-junk food days. (This one was later modified after a rebellion by Barbara’s husband and four children. Treats were thereafter allowed in the house, so long as they were not ones that Barbara has a weakness for.)

Don’t forget to break your complex tasks into subtasks. Barbara broke down task 3, keep healthy foods in the refrigerator, into these subtasks:

1. Determine what healthy foods I like
2. Start a shopping list
3. Buy the “healthy foods”
4. Clean and prep any vegetables that need it so they are readily accessible to me

Environment is the third factor of self motivation. It involves your physical environment and your social environment. The main aspect of Barbara’s physical environment as a stay at home mom is her kitchen. Two of the ways she makes her kitchen enhance her motivation are 1) making sure it is stocked with healthy foods so she is not tempted to go off her diet, and 2) posting on the refrigerator a picture of herself when she was slim.

Barbara made sure her social environment was set up to keep her motivated in her weight loss as well. She made Weight Watchers a big part of her social environment, attaching herself to a built in social network that supports her, cheers her on her victories, and makes sure she works the program. Included in her social network is her supportive husband and her children, who, understanding how important weight loss is for their mother, forego all those particular treats Mom loves so much. Barbara made a good friend at Weight Watchers, and has made that friend a part of her social environment as well.

Barbara applied the model for self motivation to weight loss, and it helped her stay motivated to lose the weight she wanted to lose, and keeps her motivated to keep it off.

What is your big dream? How can you apply the model for self motivation to it? Using the model can help keep you focused and motivated as you work toward this wonderful you.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The WHY in Motivation

I am reading a fascinating book right now, The Sedona Method: Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success, Peace and Well-being, by Hale Dwoskin. The premise of the book is that you need to understand the role your emotions play in who you are and what you do, and learn how to make those emotions have less control over you. Last night I was reading Chapter Three which deals with the benefits the reader will gain by reading and working the book.

As I was driving to work this morning I was thinking about what I had read and what Dwoskin’s intention was in writing that chapter. I believe the purpose of the chapter is to give us the WHY of the Sedona Method, in other words, to give us, the readers, the reason why we would want to spend our time and energy in using his method. He writes that the ultimate goal of the Sedona Method is freedom, “the freedom to choose to have, be, or do or to not have, be or do anything and everything." By telling the reader this, Dwoskin is motivating us to apply the Sedona method in our lives. When we understand the benefits of a course of action, the why, we are more likely to take that course or continue on it.

The why plays a big role in marketing. When you study marketing you are taught that in your marketing you are to sell the benefits to the buyer. The buyer isn’t really concerned about how long you have been in business, or information about the chief financial officer. These things don’t benefit the buyer, so the buyer isn’t motivated by them. Similarly, the buyer doesn’t really care that you want to make money; that’s your why. To motivate the buyer you need to create in her mind that your product or service will serve her why.

The why ties into self motivation in many ways. The first factor of self motivation, vision, is a most important why. It answers the question, “Why am I here?”

The why also plays a role in the second factor of self motivation, successability, our confidence in our competence. In my last couple of postings I discussed the goal and the task. I pointed out that one important requirement for both motivational goals and motivational tasks is that they be related to our vision, that we know the why of each goal and each task. We need to know that the reason we are doing each task, the why of that task, is because by completing the task, we will be closer to achieving our goals. We need to know that the reason we are doing each goal, the why of the goal, is because it will bring us closer to manifesting as our vision.

The why can also play a role in the third element of self motivation, the environment. One strategy I have found extremely helpful keeping me motivated on those occasions when I have struggled with keeping motivated is that I have surrounded myself, in my physical environment, with objects that represent my vision. When I see these objects I am reminded of my vision, my why, and I am more likely to not spend the evening vegging out in front of the television. As an example, my vision relates to me as a speaker and teacher, talking to people and showing them how to motivate themselves so they can achieve all their dreams. In my physical environment I keep all my Toastmaster awards. These awards represent for me something I love to do, public speaking, something I will be doing as I manifest as my vision.

What is your why? What is your purpose for being here? Find this out for yourself, and you will achieve great things.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

The Task

In my last posting I wrote about the goal, the second of the three steps in the three step process for successability. Today I am writing about the third step in that strategy, the task.

In the three step process, we first determine our vision. From that we determine our goals, the goals we need to complete in order for our vision to manifest. From those goals we determine our tasks. Tasks are the things we actually do. They are the activities that we perform in achieving our goals. If we complete our tasks, we will achieve our goals. If we achieve or are achieving our goals, we are manifesting our vision.

We have control over our tasks. We don’t have control over our vision, because it’s not something we do; it’s something we are. We discover our vision. Similarly, we don’t control our goals; rather, our goals are achieved by the one step we do control, our tasks. When we focus on our tasks, what we can control, we increase our motivation.

Just as there are requirements for a goal to be motivating, there are rules for a task to be motivating.


Motivating tasks are:
• specific: write them down in enough detail; a complex task should be broken down into its smaller component tasks.
• clear: must be easily understood; if you are confused as to exactly what you are supposed to do, you will not be motivated.
• observable: are behaviors, something you can see
• measurable: have clearly defined results for each task and well stated objectives; this has the dual motivational effect of reducing anxiety and increasing positive expectancies
• realistic: you must believe you can perform the task; if you don’t, you will not be motivated.
• related to one of your goals: be clear on how the task fits into the goal. If you don’t see how the task is going to help you achieve one of your goals, you may want to ask yourself why you are doing it.

We’ve all heard the proverb. “He who fails to plan, plans to fail.” The three step process for successability is a great start in creating your plan for self motivation.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The Goal

Successability is the second factor in the model for self motivation. Successability is your confidence in your competence. The more confident you are that you are a competent person, the more motivated you will be. In earlier blog postings I shared with you two things that will strongly impact your successability. They are the proper degree of risk and clarity.

I pointed out in that blog that one way of increasing clarity is by using the three step process for successability. Because for me it is such a fundamental part of the model for self motivation, I wanted to make sure that I was clear as to how we use this strategy to keep ourselves motivated.

The steps in the three step process for successability are:
vision >>> goals >>> tasks

In the three step process we first need to discover our vision, that special image of ourselves. In the second step, we determine what goals we need to complete or be working on to manifest as our vision. In the third step we figure out, for each goal, exactly what tasks we need to accomplish in order for that goal to be achieved.

(For those of you who are visual learners and would like to see a graphical
representation of the three step process, drop me an email at strategiestomotivate@yahoo.com.)

In order to use the three step process, it’s helpful to understand exactly what the terms vision, goals and tasks mean, and how to make sure our vision,goals and tasks are motivational. In an earlier posting I explained what vision means. In this posting I will explain what goal means, and how you can create an effective, motivational goal.

A goal is an accomplishment the achievement of which will result in you being closer to your vision. I use the word accomplishment because a goal can involve just about any type of accomplishment you can imagine; it just depends upon your vision.

However, to be motivational, a goal needs to meet certain criteria.

A goal must be related to your vision; its accomplishment must bring you closer to you manifesting. Each goal must have a purpose, must in some way bring you closer to manifesting your vision. You should be able to write down how it is related to your vision. If you are clear how it relates, your vision will actually motivate you to achieve your goal.

A goal must be specific and measurable. It must be clearly stated and easily understood. If a goal is vague, it will not motivate you. You need to be able to tell when you have achieved the goal. You need to know if you are not achieving a goal. A specific and measurable goal will allow you to evaluate your progress.

A goal must be attainable and realistic. If the goal does not seem realistic to you, if you think there is no way you can successfully achieve it, you will not be motivated to attempt it. Every time you achieve a goal, you will be motivated by your feelings of competence. There is nothing wrong with an easy goal, however, so long as after you have achieved it you are closer to manifesting your vision.

A goal must be prioritized. When you prioritize your goals, you focus your energy. Sometimes it will be necessary to work on a couple of goals at the same time, for example when you are waiting on someone else to complete a part of a project that you need completed before you can continue with your work. But try to avoid working on too many goals at the same time, as it can drain your energy and make you unfocused. This will negatively impact your successability, which will have an amotivating effect, robbing you of your motivation.

Picking the right goals and making sure they are motivating will make manifesting your vision much easier and much more enjoyable.