The secret to motivation.

 ” How can I motivate my staff.” Or. ” How could you motivate my staff.”

I am asked these 2 questions quite often, the simple answer is, apart from a short lived rousing speech,or some kind of temporary incentive or fear, wait for it, you or I cannot motivate them.

They must be assisted to motivate themselves to have any long lasting benefit. The other side to the coin is that it is very hard to do this with people who do not want to be motivated. You have probably all heard the saying ” You can take a horse to water, but you can`t make it drink.” The same rule works for motivation.

Because each and every person has different needs, dreams, wishes, aspirations, passions and desires. What will motivate one person will not motivate the next, there may be some overlap or similarities, but it boils down to having to motivate everyone in a personally unique way. This obviously would take a long time if you have a lot of people to work with.

Goal setting is the key here. The word motivation can be split into 2 smaller easier to define words: Motive and Action.

Motive = Reason, Purpose, Goal.

Action = Do, Go, Act.

So motivation can be described as a movement towards a goal or a goal directed action.

Self motivation is achieved by inciting the desire and passion to complete something by previously working out the ” Whats in it for me ” puzzle.

By writing down and recording all the things you would wish to achieve or possess in your life that you believe will make you happy and working through the list by setting small goals to each step required in your life to achieve each one. Final goals must be timed to coincide with when you are at a point in your life to be able to take the final step to acquiring them. Of course the happiness will not have to wait until you have achieved each one it can be gained by knowing that each day your efforts have moved you one step closer to where you would like to be in your life when you will be able to consider yourself successful.

A journey of 1,000 miles can only be completed one step at a time, by taking each step you become closer to reaching the destination of your journey. This applies to successful goal setting as well. Take small easily achievable steps and it will never become too arduous as you make your way along the path to the final destination, or goal.

By writing down as many things as you can of how will personally benefit by completing each task or job that you are asked to undertake, the skill development you will need to do, the learning and educating yourself that will be required,  having to give up some of the less important parts to your life, doing things that you don`t really enjoy but know are necessary, the physical or mentally hard work required, will all get done with ease because you know that the final benefit will easily outweigh the short term hardship of achieving everything you set out to do each day. The sense of achievement that will feel as you write down each days accomplishments and also the benefits you have gained will also improve your belief, enthusiasm, self-worth, self-image and most importantly your self-motivation to achieve more the next day and the next and so on.

I previously mentioned incentive and fear as motivators. These are only temporary and don`t usually work if they are from an external source, but if you use them internally as a part of your self-motivation then they can have a more lasting benefit. E.G if you really desire to have something you can promise yourself you will get it ( holiday, car, house, etc or more time with the family each day, more relexation time, etc ) when you have completed the next particularly difficult step to another desire, rather than rush out to get it once it is within your reach. Or fear can be used by not wanting to be seen to fail, by telling significant people who have real meaning in your life, what you would like to achieve by a certain date, you will more likely motivate yourself to achieve it so as not to lose face, those people that you have told will also be able to give you the feedback and sometimes the help you may need at times, to reach your goal. Again these will all be personal to each different person as to how they use them.

Each small goal must be set as a SMART goal : Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and tangible.

If you wish to learn a bit more about this process and how it can work for you then please contact me and I will be able to give you the dates and locations of my goal setting workshops.

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