Your waking dreams lead you to your vision.

As I explained in my most recent posting, the vision is the most important of the three factors of self motivation. I also explained that your vision is the reason you are here, God’s purpose for your existence, your calling. Knowing your vision, your purpose, has an incredibly powerful impact on your motivation. Not knowing it can have a very detrimental one.

Many of us have heard the calling and are well aware of our vision. But in case you don’t know what it is, here is the first of four strategies to help you identify your vision.

Strategy 1. My waking dreams

A waking dream is a dream we have when we are awake. We all have these dreams. One of my waking dreams is sailing around the world on an ocean going trawler, a Nordhavn to be specific. Another is speaking Spanish. For most of us one of our dreams will be more special than the others. It will mean more to us. It will be a dream we are willing to work on and commit to. This special dream is likely to be related to our vision. To help us find this special dream, we need to examine our waking dreams.

As a first step, I suggest you take some time to write down your waking dreams. Don’t be critical as you do this first step. Don’t examine the feasibility of your dreams. Just write them down. You will examine them in the next step.

Once you have written down your waking dreams, the next step is to critically examine each one to see if it has the makings of your special dream, if you are willing to put in the time and energy necessary to make this dream come true.

As an example, one of my waking dreams, as I related above, is me speaking Spanish. However, although I do want to speak Spanish, I am not willing to commit the time necessary to learn Spanish. If I were I would have signed up for Spanish classes at the community college, or at least used the set of Rosetta Stone dvd’s I borrowed from the library and would now be speaking Spanish. So I know it is not the waking dream that relates to my vision. It is not a special waking dream.

So how do you know which of your waking dreams are possibly special waking dreams? By taking the next step of asking the following questions for each of your waking dreams:

• Would I pursue this dream if my success at it were guaranteed, if I could not fail?
• Would I pursue this dream if money were no object, if I didn’t have to worry about money?
• Would I pursue this dream if I didn’t have to worry about status or about disappointing anyone?

The answers to these questions may not tell you for certain which of your waking dreams is your vision, but you will certainly be closer to discovering it, and you will be finding out who you are.

Are you already aware of your special dream? If so, why not share it with the other readers, and maybe tell how you came to be aware of it?

The vision quest

In an earlier post I wrote that when I was younger I was not motivated, and my mom, even though she wanted me to be motivated, was not able to help me. The problem was that neither of us knew that to be motivated the first step is to have a worthwhile pursuit, something you feel passionately about.

My first wife, Karen, was passionate about her professional life, and I envied her. How I envied her and her passion. She built a program for home based child care, she started a drug rehab program. She knew what she wanted to do and she went out and did it.

I, on the other hand, even in my early grown up life, kind of coasted, just like I did when I was a kid. I did well at what I did. I graduated from a prestigious university, and went on to earn a law degree, but I never was highly motivated. So I decided to find my passion.

I somehow intuitively knew that in order for me to be motivated, really motivated, I needed something I was passionate about.

In the model for self motivation, I have made that worthwhile something, that thing to be passionate about, the vision. I couldn’t think of anything that would be more exciting, more worthwhile, than finding out why I am here, and fulfilling that purpose. And so I set upon a vision quest, a search for my vision. In my next couple of blog postings I will describe four strategies I used in my vision quest. Perhaps they can help you in yours. The four strategies are:

1. My waking dreams
2. My inventory
3. My philosophy statement
4. Look to your desires

Please join me as I present these four strategies.

Motivation by Challenge

I was talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago about my plans for when my book comes out. I shared with her that in two and a half years I would be a full time speaker and workshop leader and would leave my current job. She said to me, “Bob, there is no way you are going to leave the security of your present job to become a speaker. No way.” Now normally if you were to tell me this story, my knee jerk reaction would be this person is a naysayer, and should be immediately removed from your social environment.

Naysayers can rob you of your motivation by making you question your successability, your confidence in your competence. What was funny about this exchange, however, was that her comment did not have that impact on me. To the contrary I considered it a challenge. In fact I immediately made a small poster, writing on it only, “The Challenge” and taped it over my desk, my physical environment. Every day when I sit down to work, it motivates me.

As I sat down at my key board to write this blog entry, I came up with several other examples of how naysayers with their negative comments had motivated me to push even harder. I recall how when I mentioned to a fellow lawyer that I was working on my Masters in Education, his comment was to the effect, “That’s your goal today. What are you going to come up with tomorrow?” Not that there was much doubt in my mind that I was going to continue working on my degree (even when they cut the funding for tuition payments) but if there had been, that challenge would have played a role in keeping me marching onward.

In one Glazer Kennedy marketing group meeting I was in the hot seat. I explained what I was doing and what my goals were, public speaking and workshop leading, and some issues I was facing. Next was feedback from the group. One guy suggested I try out public speaking first, before I dove into it, because I wasn’t at all dynamic. He said he had been answering emails as I was talking, that’s how unengaging I was. Didn’t this clown know I had been in Toastmasters for over ten years, in fact was a Distinguished Toastmaster and yes, had even been paid to teach public speaking? If he did, he wasn’t particularly impressed. I was externally gracious, especially since I knew I hadn’t been particularly dynamic in my presentation. But inside I was angry, and swore that this guy would eat his words. In retrospect I realize he taught me an important lesson: I am always selling myself and my products. There is never a good time to get sloppy.

So how does motivation by challenge fit into the M=f(V,S,E) model?

The “E”, environment, is the obvious one. This person is in your social environment, and will impact your motivation.

But the challenge also relates to the vision, because most often the challenge is directed at your vision. “You will never become a full time speaker; you’re not good enough,” or “you’re not motivated enough,” or “you’re not engaging.” But the stronger you are connected to your vision, the more worthwhile it is to you, the more likely you will hear such negative words as a motivating challenge rather than demotivating truth.

The challenge also relates to your successability, because if you accept the negative words, it will detrimentally impact your confidence in your competence.

As intentional man, we control how we respond to these negative words. Sure, we can let them gnaw at us and make us unmotivated. But we are so much better off when we respond to them as a challenge, and use them to fuel us to work even harder to achieve our dreams.

Leveraging motivation with your social environment

In an earlier posting, I discussed the concept of leveraging your motivation. I explained it was a strategy you could use to increase the power of your motivation. When your motivation to do a certain thing just isn’t strong enough to accomplish what you want, you do an intermediate thing for which you do have enough motivation, and that intermediate thing accomplishes the bigger thing.

I’ll give an example. I know if I have a DVD in my house, it may take more motivation than I have to not watch it, and instead work on my blog. I will need lots of motivation to resist it. If I want to work on my blog for two hours, it will take two hours of motivation to resist that DVD, because for those two hours, the DVD in my house will be tempting me. I drive right by the video store on my way home from work, so it would be very easy for me to just pull into the video store and pick up a DVD.

What I do instead is use motivational leveraging by driving by the video store without stopping. I do have enough motivation to not stop at the video store and rent a DVD. It only takes ten seconds of motivation to keep driving past the video store. But those ten seconds of motivation are leveraged into the two hours of motivation that a DVD in my house would have required. The result is the same, two hours of work on my blog, but it took a lot less motivation.

I recently became aware of another way to use motivational leveraging. It involves my social environment. Unlike my physical environment, which is my physical surroundings, my social environment consists of the people and organizations that surround me.

A great way to use motivational leveraging in your social environment is with coaches and trainers.

I hired a coach, John Fahey, for my strength training. I use this man for three reasons. The first is for his superior knowledge. He is a fanatic about weight training and is constantly studying and trying out different methods of weight training. We use kettle bells like the Russians do. I pay him instead of having to read all the literature and trying out the methods myself. The second reason I use John is to make sure my form is good. With bad form I don’t get the results I get with good form, and I am more likely to injure myself. The third reason I use him is to leverage my motivation. I know I don’t have enough motivation to go to the gym and stay there for an hour and a half working out, but I do have enough motivation to drive to his house twice a week if I have an appointment with him. Therefore, I have two standing appointments, so I manage to get to his house at the appointed times.

Once I am there, he will encourage me and inspire me to keep working, and will, in fact, push me to increase my weights and my reps. The limited amount of motivation I have, strategically applied, has far greater results than it would have applied directly to working out. The proof is in the larger sport jacket sizes. In my eight years at a local gym, I stayed at a size 38. In the two years I have worked with John, I have grown two jacket sizes; I am now a 42. The growth is mainly in my shoulders, and some in my chest.

Another part of my social environment is my consultant/publicist for my book, Wendy Kurtz. I pay her for her knowledge and experience as well, of course, but also to increase my motivation. She is the reason I post two blogs every week, every Sunday and Wednesday. I have enough motivation, without her, to maybe blog once a week, but she encourages me and inspires me, and keeps my focused on my vision, helping people achieve their dreams by teaching them how to motivate themselves.

These are just two examples of how I use my social environment to leverage my motivation. There are opportunities in your social environment to leverage your motivation.

Trainers and consultants cost money, but it is money well spent if it helps move you further on your path to achieving your dreams. But if you absolutely cannot afford to hire a coach, a peer partner can work very well. As your peer partner motivates you, you motivate your peer partner. You can also join clubs and organizations which can increase your motivation as you work on your vision.

What ways can you think of to leverage your social environment? Please leave a comment to share your way with fellow readers.

Your original medicine and the vision

I am reading Gail Larsen’s book, Transformational Speaking; If You Want to Change the World, Tell a Better Story. Gail’s thesis is if you want to be a speaker who transforms others you need to get in touch with who you are and convey that person to your listeners. This, she states, is more important than your technical skills in gaining trust and credibility as a speaker. Trust and credibility are necessary if you are to transform those who hear you.

The first of her six principles is “You are an original, nowhere else duplicated.” She goers on to explain that indigenous cultures have a phrase, “original medicine.” One’s original medicine is one’s natural attributes and abilities. It is important to discover your original medicine, she writes, because if you don’t you won’t be able to express your personal knowledge, strength and understanding.

For those of you who have been following my blog you will immediately, as I did, see the connection between original medicine with the vision.

Two things in particular about this concept of original medicine resonated with me. The first one, something I had never thought about as I wrote about the vision, is that we may not be aware of our original medicine, our special gifts, or may even devalue them, because our gifts come naturally to us, they are who we are. What comes naturally to us is effortless, so we might think our talents are not particularly special. (Maybe also because we don’t think we are particularly special?)

I can relate to this. Notwithstanding comments from others to the contrary, I have occasional doubts about my ability as a writer and a speaker. I sometimes even wonder if I have anything special to say. Rather than getting hung up in this emotional quagmire, I let my intellect take over, my rational side, tell myself that I have indeed been given gifts, and just keep plugging away.

The second point she raises is one that I have thought about, that we need to be true to ourselves, our own original medicine, rather than emulating someone else. This is not only true for me as a speaker, but also true for you regardless of what aspect of your life your vision relates. The point is not to be just like someone you admire, but rather to be just like you, the real you that you will start to manifest as you become aware of your vision.

Because so much of your motivation and your success in life is related to discovering and manifesting the true you, whether you call it your original medicine or your vision, it’s extremely important you spend the time necessary to discover it.

In my next blog I will write about some strategies you can use to help you discover this special part of you.

Your vision is your calling

The factor of self motivation that I get the most questions on is the vision. People understand successability, once it’s defined as “your confidence in your competence.” And people understand environment, and how there are two types of environment, the physical and the social. But when it comes to vision, people often get stuck. This doesn’t surprise me, as it was the most difficult factor for me to wrap my hands around as I was writing Motivate You: a Step by Step Guide to Becoming All You Can Be. Because vision is the most important factor, it’s important we understand it well.

I like to use the word vocation when I discuss the vision. Vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, which means to call. The implication when you apply this word to your vision is that there is a greater voice that calls you to pursue a certain goal, something outside of yourself, and/or deep within yourself. It was probably originally used exclusively in a religious setting, that is, one was called to be a priest or a nun, then it started being used in service type professions (where you “serve” others), for example, doctors and nurses, and even teachers. It can be what makes a profession more than just a job.

Victor Frankl, a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, wrote, “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

This Frankl quote calls to mind two points of the vision I want to highlight in the quote. The first is that the vision is a goal worthy of the holder, because in order for the vision to motivate you, it must be of value (worthy) to you. The second is Frankl’s use of the phrase, “the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled…” We see the word call, the vocation, and we also see the word potential, all we are capable of being.

But don’t think your vision needs to fit within the strict meaning of vocation, generally meaning more of a career or life work. There are many calls we can receive in our life.

Your vision can be related to any of the many different aspects of who you are. It can relate to a desire to be in a loving relationship. It can relate to you being healthy, perhaps involving weight loss or an increased fitness level. It can be a calling to a hobby, like photography or gardening, perhaps becoming a Master Gardener like my Dad was.

The major requirement for a vision is that it be compelling; it must be worthwhile to you.

When you think about your vision, does it feel like it involves a vocation, that is, a calling? If you would like, please leave a comment, sharing your response to this question.

Patience and persistence, and taking that one extra step

I woke up a little after three this morning. Wide awake and stressing. Things I wanted to happen on the book weren’t happening. Developments in my social media that were supposed to be happening weren’t happening. Negative thoughts were coursing through my head. Was I wasting my time? Was I really sure I even wanted to have a successful career as an author and a public speaker? Wasn’t the job I had good enough? Wasn’t just continuing to do what I was doing all right?

Are you ever plagued with doubts like I had this morning? Do you ever wonder if you are going down a path that’s a dead end? Do you ever feel like just giving up? If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, welcome to the club.

When I get in that space, thinking about just packing it up, I like to remember what I call my two requirements:

patience and persistence.

I need to be patient, and appreciate that things are not necessarily going to flow on my time table. At the same time, I have to be persistent, and realize that even if things don’t appear to be working out, I need to keep working at my dream.

Many wise people have spoken and written about my two requirements. John Quincy Adams is credited with saying, “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” I’m not sure if I heard it from him originally, or if I just came to realize on my own, that I needed to cultivate these two traits.

What really fascinates me is how so many people speak about how when you feel like quitting, it’s time to take that one extra step.

Thomas Edison wrote, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

Or this one by Harriet Beecher Stowe, “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”

I think about all the amazing things people have accomplished, people who obviously didn’t give up. And I think about what Jane Addams, the second woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, said, “Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.”

This one resonates with me. What if I take that one further step, say write a tweet, and one of my tweets is retweeted by some one with lots of followers? And lots of people find out about the model for self motivation and are able to achieve their dreams?

I know I do not want to have given up too soon. So when these feelings arise at 3:00 AM, I get out of bed, fire up the computer, and work on my amazing things.

You need to plan your motivation.

The fundamental principle underlying the self motivation model is you are in charge. This is good news, but it’s also bad news. The good news is that you have total responsibility for your motivation. The bad news is you have total responsibility for your motivation.

Unlike in so many other parts of your life, when it comes to your motivation, there’s no one else for you to rely on. When you went to school, you weren’t the only one in charge of your motivation. Your teacher played a big role in it. For most of us in our jobs, we aren’t the only one in charge of our motivation. Our boss or our manager plays a big role in it.

But when it comes to achieving your dreams, there isn’t a teacher or a manager to make sure you stay on task. That job is up to you! So how do we carry out this so important assignment, being in charge of our motivation?

The old saw, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,” is nowhere more true than in motivating yourself. You cannot count on motivation just happening. It hasn’t “just happened” yet, has it?

So be your own boss, and give yourself the assignment to make a motivation plan, and to write it down. Creating your motivational plan may turn out to be the one assignment you do that ensures that you achieve your dreams.

What does a motivational plan entail?

First and foremost it includes your vision. Your vision is you manifesting your potential, becoming the reason you are here. The vision is first as you must have a worthwhile pursuit to become motivated and to keep your motivation high. Nothing is more worthwhile than becoming all you can be.

Second, your motivation plan includes some means of keeping your sucessability, your confidence in your competence, at a high level. One way to keep it at a high level is with the three step process for successability, discussed in an earlier blog:

vision >>> goals >>> tasks.

Add into your motivation plan other strategies that will help you keep your successability high.

The third part of a motivation plan is the environment. Your plan should include specific strategies you can implement to make your environment enhance your motivation. Your strategies should involve both your physical and your social environments.

The fourth part of a motivation plan is a process for continued improvement. By including such a process, you make sure that your motivation plan will keep getting better and will grow to meet changes in your life.

In order to become and stay motivated we must become intentional men and women. Being intentional men and women means we spend time figuring out who we are, our likes, our dislikes, and the things that motivate us. The motivational plan is where that all comes together.

Why not make a promise to yourself today to spend some time learning who you are? The motivational plan is a good place to start.