Motivation

Words DO mean things.  One of the classic mis-use of words I hear all the time is when people say that they need me to ‘motivate’ them in order to begin training, eating right, or generally level up their lives.  I’m always quick to rain on this particular parade by explaining that I or someone else may give them ‘inspiration’, but motivation can only come from within.  The root for the word itself is ‘motive’, and providing a motive for self-improvement is strictly a personal issue.  Sure, others may act in a manner which makes a motive clear to you or defines it better, but no one else can give you the motive to change your own set of circumstances. 

Everyone can develop internal motivation.  As the classic book Psycho-Cybernetics teaches, we all have a Success Mechanism that, once a goal is established, our brain will work day and night to point us in the direction of that goal.  But two things must be stated about this mechanism.  One, although it’s called a ‘success’ mechanism, if your self-image is such that you see yourself as a ‘failure’ or ‘loser’ this same mechanism will point you in the direction of where you see yourself.  It can work both ways.  So it’s important to have a positive self-image, one where we see ourselves as ‘winning’ in the end, so to speak.  The second crucial thing to remember about this internal success mechanism is that action from you is required to fulfil any of the goals that you’ve set in front of yourself.  No action equals no achievement (we’ll talk a little about this in the next post).

To summarize.  Get a motive to change, then get inspired to take action.  Easy peasy (not really, but sometimes just looking at the big picture makes things easier)

‘Till next time.