The interplay of the factors of self motivation

The model for self motivation is

MOTIVATION = ƒ (VISION, SUCCESSABILITY, ENVIRONMENT).

This means anything you do to one of the factors on the right, will automatically impact your motivation. Make your vision more desirable, your motivation will increase. Take actions to increase your successability (your confidence in your competence) your motivation will increase. Surround yourself with people who support you (environment), your motivation will increase. Negatively impact any of the three, and your motivation will suffer.

But the relationship is more complex than that, because the three factors of self motivation are not three independent factors; instead they are interrelated. Steps you take to impact one factor will frequently favorably impact not only your motivation, but will also favorably impact another factor, which in its turn will favorably impact your motivation.

A major interaction is the one between successability and the environment.

People who have high levels of confidence in themselves (successability) are more likely to use the resources available in their social environment. They will seek out relationships in their social environment that will help them achieve the goals they are seeking. As a result, their confidence will increase even more. Those who feel less confident, on the other hand, are less likely to pursue these relationships, so they will lack the support and other benefits that such relationships can provide. As a result, their confidence in their ability will diminish even more.

The more confident person will be more likely to pursue the training and skill gathering opportunities available in the environment, whether from institutions of learning or less formal training from social organizations or from their employer. As a result their confidence will increase as they acquire additional skills. The less confident person will question his or her ability to succeed at such training and will be less likely to attempt it. As a result, the person with low confidence will not be able to benefit by these resources.

The relationship between vision and successability is just as important. It is easier for a confident person to come up with a more exciting, more compelling vision. The more desirable the vision, the more valuable it is to the person, the more motivating it is to the person. A less confident person is more likely to accept what he has been offered, rather than selecting what is truly dear to his or her heart.

The reason this interdependency is important for you, is so you know to work on all three factors. Don’t ignore any of the three. Working on all three factors gives you three times as many opportunities to increase your motivation. But because the three are interrelated, the outcome can often result in more than three times as much motivation. On the other hand, ignoring any of the three can have a powerful impact on your motivation as well, but in a negative direction.

Vision, successability and environment are the three factors of motivation. Use all three to maximize your motivation.

P.S. If you want to know how to increase your self confidence, take a look at my last posting.

Do you nourish your brain with a good environment?

Napoleon Hill wrote, “We begin to see, therefore, the importance of selecting our environment with the greatest of care, because environment is the mental feeding ground out of which the food that goes into our minds is extracted."

When I first read that quote, a couple of weeks ago, I immediately knew I wanted to use it in a blog about self motivation. In the self motivation model, environment is the third factor, along with vision and successability. One of the ways we increase our motivation is by working on our environment. We can mold our environment to enhance our motivation. So I copied the quote into a Word document along with other quotes that I have saved. As I sat down at my computer to write this posting, a couple of weeks later, I copied the quote into a clean document, reread the quote and couldn’t figure it out. I wrote right below it, “What the heck is a mental feeding ground?"

But as I reflected on the quote, it slowly started to make sense, and I could see why I had saved it. As I read it, Napoleon Hill is telling us that your environment is where you get your knowledge, your wisdom, your attitudes …… all the things that nourish your brain. So you better choose it carefully. If, for example, you surround yourself with people who are nay sayers, people who see nothing but the bad things, people who tell you your dreams are impossible, you will be nourishing your brain with these negative messages.

At first I wanted to write malnourish, but I think Napoleon Hill is right. Even though the results of this nourishment are bad, it will nourish your brain. Your brain will grow, just not in a very good way.

We always want to be aware of our social environment. We want to surround ourselves with smart people, with people who think we are special, with people who think they are special. We want to seek out people who will help us grow, people from whom we can learn the skills we need to manifest our vision.

What are some of the things that you need to manifest your vision? Are there skills you need? Do you need to find a person or group of people with whom you can safely share your dreams, and know they will not make fun of you? Do you need to find somewhere to learn those needed skills?

I’d like to share with you a strategy to help you make sure your environment is nourishing your brain in a positive, life affirming way. Take out a piece of paper and draw two lines, from the top to the bottom, dividing the paper into three equal columns. In the left most column, make a list of the things you need, emotional support, skill improvement, whatever you need to assure that you will be successful in manifesting your vision. In the middle column, next to each need, write down something already in your personal environment, or something that you can add to your personal environment, that will serve as a source for that need. In the right most column write down the steps you need to take to utilize that which is already in your environment, or that which you need to add to your environment.

And then go do it.

Your environment is going to nourish your brain, whether the food is healthy or not. Be intentional man or woman and make sure it is healthy.

Physical Environment

The third factor of self motivation is environment, both physical environment and social environment. Today’s posting deals with physical environment.

Physical environment is usually what we think about when we hear the word environment. It’s a place. It’s the place where you do the work that is required to manifest your vision. But it’s more than just the place; it also includes the things in that place. For many people the place will be an office, whether outside or inside their home. For others it might be in their car, for example, a person who does outside sales. A library could be a physical environment, for a researcher. The place or places where you pursue your vision is your physical environment.

As intentional man your goal is to make your physical environment enhance your motivation. There are several ways you can do this. The first way is to set up your physical environment so that you are more productive. This increases your successability, your confidence in your competence.

My physical environment, the place, consists primarily of my office in my home. In my office I have a desk, on which is a computer. I have a wide screen monitor which lets me have two documents open at the same time, next to each other on the monitor. This makes the constant editing I have to do so much easier. I have a built in book shelf next to my desk, on which I keep the books related to the work I do to manifest my vision. They are right at hand whenever I need to look up something. My physical environment, both the place and the things in it, make me more productive and thereby increase my motivation.

Another way to make your physical environment enhance your motivation is to make it inspiring. Posters are a great way to make your physical environment motivating. Many different inspirational posters are available at any mall. But inspiration can come from something as simple as an advertisement from a magazine. I have above my desk a Smith Barney advertisement I cut out of a magazine. It shows a new Town Car backing out of the drive way of a very nice, upper middle class home. In the back ground you can see the sun is just coming up. The ad reads, “Luck? There’s blind luck, dumb luck and then there’s get-up-every-morning-at-5:30-and-sweat-the-details-luck.” I may not want a Town Car, but the beautiful house looks real attractive, and these words remind me that to achieve my dreams I need to work hard; luck is not going to do it.

Your physical environment may be the dining room table after the kids have been put to bed. It doesn’t matter. Whatever your physical environment, there are steps you can take to make it more motivating for you. It’s well worth your while spending some time thinking seriously about the changes you can make in your physical environment to enhance your motivation.