By Katherine Hegemann (kittyhegemann@embarqmail.com)
Motivation means to induce, move, provoke, prompt, or cause. Simply put, it’s the yearning to do something.
Motivation is an interesting concept. Recent studies have found some very interesting principles of motivation. If the goal is something relatively simple, incentives like money work well. For example, if you work in a retail store, getting a bonus for more sales is a good motivator.
If, however, you earn enough money to cover your life expenses, there are other motivators. These include self-direction, expertise and purpose. Here’s an example: You’ve just been hired at a small company and will be making $45,000 a year. The head of the company asks his employees to come up with a new employee manual. You aren’t going to make more money; however, this is an opportunity to set policy. You also see this as a way to show leadership and develop group problem solving skills.
The same is true if you are setting your own goals. Money or other tangible rewards don’t motivate you as much as doing it for yourself, becoming an expert, or adding another purpose to your life.
Before you get motivated you have to find something to get motivated about. So what really moves you?
After you figure out what you yearn for or what moves you, you have to decide what to do about it. That means you have to figure how to get from desire to reality.
That moves me!
This is an activity-based article so go right now and get pencil or pen and paper. I’m waiting.
First, make a list of five things that move you. Here are a few examples: drawing, community involvement, computers, cars, and good health. Take a few minutes to write down your list.
Now, take your list of five and turn the ideas into action phrases:
- learn to draw
- become more involved in my community
- increase computer skills
- change the oil in my car
- improve my health
What next?
Set your goals
You have to set goals. There are short and long term goals. Short term gets you going and sets a deadline to go from goal to action. Long term helps you develop and expand your life’s purpose.
So next, you should turn the action phrases into goal statements like these:
- I will take a class and learn how to draw children.
- I will contact the Senior Citizens Center and volunteer to help one day a week.
- I will buy a book on word processing and work through the exercises to become more proficient.
- I will get my mechanic friend Bernie to teach me how to change the oil in my car.
- I will call the Mountain City/Johnson County Community Center for exercise classes in my area.
Look at your list and prioritize them using the numbers 1-5 with 1 for most motivated to do down to 5 for least motivated to do.
Take the number one item on the list and write that one sentence as a purpose statement. Example: As a way to become more involved in my community, I will volunteer to help at the Senior Center one day each week.
Now, move on to the next step.
Action plan
You’re motivated and have a goal. Now you need to have a plan to achieve it. You have your goal. I’m going to use the purpose statement to volunteer at the Senior Center as an example. So follow along with your purpose statement.
You don’t want to just walk into the Senior Center and tell them you will deliver Meals-On-Wheels every Thursday. That might not be the help they need right now. Your plan will be to contact the director, find out areas where help is needed, decide what services you can volunteer to do and are comfortable doing, set a schedule, and mark your calendar so you will fulfill the service.
Make sure you include in your commitment to anyone involved in your plan your schedule conflicts like weather, doctor appointments, vacations, or previous commitments.
Rewrite time. You need a final complete statement of what you want to do and how you will do it. Finished statement: As a way to become more involved in my community, I will volunteer to help serve lunch at the Senior Center each Wednesday for six months.
Control yourself
You’ve found motivation, set a goal, developed a plan, and you’re excited that you are ready to start this new adventure. It’s a challenge you have chosen by and for yourself.
Excitement is a motivator all by itself. “There’s always time for a new adventure” is my motto. If you have difficulty with new adventures, try something small at the beginning. Doing something small or large helps you enjoy living. Personally, I love a new challenge plus I’m goal oriented. Those character traits make me very willing to try something new. If I make it or fail, in my mind I’ve at least tried. The trying is as much a success as completing the goal. I’m a lifelong learner and find great excitement when I step out of my comfort zone. Not everyone is like me, but you can start just a little out of your comfort zone and build on small successes.
Share what you are going to do with a friend, spouse, or other family member. That reinforces your motivation and helps you do the follow through.
Because you have done the work and planning to make sure this is what you want, you will get much more pleasure by actually completing the goal. You KNOW what you want to do and HOW to do it.
If you’re not excited by now, it’s time to go in another direction before you actually commit to the action. Heck, I’m almost ready to call the Senior Center myself, but I don’t have the time right now. That’s where evaluation comes into the plan. Maybe you have found out that this isn’t really what you want to do. That’s okay. So move on to the second item on your list.
Sometimes things just don’t work out as we would wish. The reasons may be centered on who you are or outside circumstances. It is important to be honest with yourself and move on to another yearning.
Often we want to do something but never get around to actually doing it. That’s called procrastination, and most people have at least a touch of it. One way to overcome procrastination is to make a decision and write on your calendar a one week time frame in which to keep your commitment to yourself. Consider asking a friend or family member to help you stay with your schedule.
The most successful people I’ve met are ones who break down a task or problem into easy-to-achieve steps. You complete one step at a time. That’s part of why this whole motivation and goal setting is given the way I have done. As long as you complete one step at a time, each one completed helps you stay motivated enough to go on to the next step.
Occasionally, you are motivated do something you yearn for but find it just doesn’t work out. There are times you have to give up. Maybe other obligations come up that are critical; you get sick, you move to another location, you realize that you have misplaced aspirations. You make a decision and move on. However, if you have made a commitment to other people, you need to give them adequate notice that you are quitting or fulfill your obligations.
Limits are a reason to not do something even if you want to do it. What limits? They might include physical, mental, work, family obligations, or money. When we moved here, I would go to Boone three times a week to swim. I loved it, and swimming made me feel good. Besides, I have a disability, and this was something I could actually do. Unfortunately, the price of gas increased from less than two dollars a gallon to over three; it was time to look at my priorities. I decided that I could no longer afford to spend the amount of money for gas. So we bought a low impact exerciser, and I set up a yoga schedule for myself. I’ve done fairly well with keeping up my exercise although I do go through periods when I am not very faithful about it.
I just recently read that discipline is not the same thing as habit. That rang a bell in my head. After thinking about it, I realized that this is so true.
A habit is something you do over and over until you don’t really think about it anymore, but any divergence in the habit can cause discomfort. I try to put kitchen items back where I found them so that I can always find what I need. If an item gets put in the wrong place, I get ticked off. That’s a habit.
Discipline is following a set of rules or guidelines to develop or improve a skill through training. I complete a simple yoga routine three times a week. If I find one pose causes me pain or becomes too difficult to do, I skip it and find another one I can do. If health issues make me unable to do my yoga for a time period, I go back to it when I am able to do so. That’s discipline.
Just do itTaking the first step is the hardest part of all this. Starting small, staying on track, and completing your goal are the greatest motivators of all. Once you successfully finish small goals, it’s much easier to move on to larger, more complicated ones. Success!
If you did your writing, you should be able to use your motivation to set a goal and use the action plan to fulfill your yearning.
Ready, set go!
Resources:
- Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (http://www.stephencovey.com)
- Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (http://www.purposedrivenlife.com)
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