What motivates you to get going?
Some people seem to be driven. Others stare into space. What is the difference. Are their brains wired up differently? Or is there a secret?
The simple fact is that we are all driven at some time and for some thing. Motivation is a personal issue. What works for me probably won’t work for you.
But all of us are motivated in the same way: there is something that acts as a prompt to get us started, and something that acts as a spur to keep us going.
Those two things together are all you need.
Roy Walton, in ‘The Wizard of Ads’ talks about the problem of inertia. Anyone who has ever tried to push a car know what he means. You can strain and strain but that heavy lump of machinery just doesn’t want to move. Your back will give out before it does.
Then, without you really being aware of it, the car starts to roll along. And seems to get lighter. Much lighter. Now you only need to put in a fraction of the effort to keep it in motion.
Stop pushing and it will roll to a halt and you have to put all that effort in again.
Motivation is just like that. A big initial effort – the prompt – and then continual low-key pressure to get to the end – the spur.
What are your prompts and spurs?
Today, my prompt is a sheet of paper with a list of tasks on it. There is something magical to me about writing things down. They are then endowed with a real existence. They have to be done.
My spur is two-fold: a burning desire to cross the job off of the list, and a promise of a cup of coffee when I’m done.
Yours will be different to mine. Prompts should be positive. They can be life changing or tiny (like my lists). It doesn’t matter – it is your prompt and nobody else need know about it. Just find some trigger that helps you get the heavy piece of machinery that is your life, into motion. Because nothing at all can happen without movement.
A desire isn’t a prompt. ‘I need to lose weight’; ‘I must give up smoking’; ‘I want to make money on the Internet’ are not prompts. They are desires. And although they are exactly the kinds of desires we all have hundreds of, they have no power to move us.
Something has to be added to give the desire enough weight and pressure to get us into motion. The magic ‘because’.
‘I need to lose weight BECAUSE I’m going on holiday.’ ‘I must give up smoking BECAUSE I need to save $1000.’ ‘I want to make money on the Internet BECAUSE I want to give up my day job.’
Make your ‘becauses’ positive. The brain cannot comprehend negative actions and so the desire doesn’t work properly. For example, ‘I want to give up smoking BECAUSE it is bad for me’ is a negative motivation that will have a severely limited effect.
I saw a lady on TV this morning who had the most powerful prompt I’ve ever seen. She was over 100 pounds overweight and had struggled unsuccessfully to lose it for years. Then her son got sick with a kidney disease. She was the only suitable donor, but doctors couldn’t safely operate on her to take her kidney because she was too overweight. So, her powerful prompt became, ‘I must lose 80 pounds BECAUSE I need to save my son’s life.’
She combined exercise with a complete change in her way of eating and lost all the weight in 6 months. Something she’d never had the motivation to do before.
Now we have found the powerful prompt that will get us into motion, how can we create super spurs to keep us going?
Spurs come in just two types:
* Carrots. This is positive thinking. ‘When I’ve finished this part of the job, my reward will be …’
* Sticks. Negative thinking. Denial of a pleasure until a level of achievement is reached. ‘I can’t go to lunch until I’ve finished this report.’
Go for the carrot every time. Try to find some small pleasure that will reward your efforts. Mind you, if your goal is to lose weight, don’t reward yourself with a candy bar!
Spurs are small things. That moving car doesn’t need much effort to keep it going, and neither should you. Providing your spur is in the right direction and is sufficiently motivating, you will keep right on moving.
Find your own prompts and spurs and you will never suffer from a lack of motivation again.
Napoleon Hill talks about the 2 percent club. Would you like to join?
He estimates that only 2 percent of people make a plan to get what they want and carry it out.
By sensible use of powerful, positive prompts and super spurs, you can join the 2-percenters right away. There is no fee to pay, but the club benefits are wonderful.
Martin Avis is the author of the best-selling ‘Unlock the Secrets of Private Label eBooks’ – a complete blueprint to private label rights success. Visit http://www.plrsecrets.com to see how you can tap into this goldmine for yourself.
