The “101” on motivation

I was talking to this sales guy in DFS the furniture shop, and he was doing his routine on me. They are heavy sellers in there. However, I knew what I wanted, and planned my approach before I went to the shop – and took a friend to make sure that it was two-onto-one in my favour. I was also able to use my NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) experience to unpick his crucial moves, and to keep things going where I wanted.

Anyhow, I got my deal and he got his sale, and we got chatting. He told me how he had been through a tough six months, including a period of depression. Sales targets were tough. He brought up the topic of motivation, and so I gave him my “101” on motivation. I said that I thought there are only three things that go wrong  to do with motivation:

 

1. You set a deliberate goal that you really must have, but….
   the truth is, it’s like homework, or clearing up your room as a kid; you don’t really want to do it, in your heart. So what happens? You set your mind with a “should do it” attitude, and sometimes you do indeed find the motivation to do the things required… but eventually you fall back into your old ways. Maybe you repeat the cycle.
   
   
2. You have an aspiration – a kind of dreamy goal – that you would dearly and wholeheartedly love, but….
   the honest truth is that inside you, you don’t really believe it will ever happen. And the likelihood is, because of your inner, unconscious truth, it is very unlikely ever to happen. So your motivation towards this goal will be there sometimes, but fades away when things get difficult. Perhaps the cycle will repeat.
   
   
3. Nobody ever said you could have what you really want.
   Because it’s selfish, or because life’s hard work, or because you are not one of the gifted ones, or because it’s just a matter of lucky breaks…. Fill in your own reason. So you maybe never set a compelling goal that’s truly meaningful to you personally. In this case, sometimes you find yourself “given” tasks that you like, or “falling into them”, and for these you feel motivated – for a while. At other times, you get tasks that, well, you don’t really care for - the situation rather as in (2) above. Motivation goes up and down. Good days and bad days.

The sales guy told me that they get loads of expensive trainers coming in and teaching motivation. But this was the first time he had got something meaningful and straightforward. Which was nice  - but more importantly, it told me that I was on the right lines, since this guy lived in motivation city.

So here’s the deal: the only solution for sustained motivation is to trust you heart in setting your goals, find ways to overcome inner doubts about your “right” to have them and about your ability to get there. And that’s also a recipe for a happy life that you love.