Finding, increasing and maintaining motivation is vital if you’re going to GET RESULTS. Motivation comes out of a psychological process, made up of two opposing forces, which either push you towards your goal or hold you back from pursuing it. You have largely fear based emotions on the one hand, designed to keep you from harm, but which often hold you back. On the other hand, you have motivational forces that help you take the necessary steps for realising your goals, and getting the results you desire.
Most people find it difficult to overcome the internal struggle that is fought between these opposing forces. We fear too much, so we don’t take action. We want something with all our heart, but we don’t take action, because we’re having to move away from our comfort zone.
When you start to break down the components of motivation, it becomes clear why it is so difficult. We have things like fear, conflict, self-doubt, discomfort, distraction, and temptation fighting against things like commitment, effort, resourcefulness, purpose, desire and determination.
TAKING ACTION towards a goal is a must if you’re going to be successful. Knowing what to do and when to do it, is also vitally important. Being effective rather than efficient makes you as productive as possible, but motivation is the key, without it, nothing else is possible or gets done. You have to be motivated to learn what needs to be learned, to spend the hours, weeks, days, months, even years acquiring knowledge, building skill, perfecting talent. You will not take action without motivation. It is the fuel in your tank.
Motivation is made up of a number of ingredients, which will need to be mastered if you’re to move closer to your goal, check them out below …
Some of the posters below, link to more in-depth articles (still on this website) that drill into the subject matter of that poster, in much more detail.
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Additionally and for a limited time only, we are offering our “Get Results Quotes jpeg”, which presents some great inspirational quotes, covering the categories listed below, and is a great motivational reference you can keep with you on your phone. [thrive_2step id=’2645′] CLICK HERE [/thrive_2step] to sign up for it, so we can email the link to you.
Self awareness is essential in effectively planning the road ahead, gaining insight into why you do what you do, and don’t do what you don’t do. What you’re good at and not so good and and why. For more information about self awareness click here.
Being resourceful is about putting the excuses like “I don’t have the money, or the time, or the experience to do this” to one side and getting the job done, regardless of the difficulties you face. Resourcefulness is about getting results no matter what. For more information about resourcefulness, click here.
Taking responsibility is about not blaming others or complaining that this or that is getting in your way. It’s about being accountable for your own results. When you make the psychological shift away from playing the role of victim, you empower yourself to get results. For more about taking responsibility, click here.
Being committed is about burning your bridges, taking a focused, determined path forward, without wavering and second guessing yourself. For more about being committed, click here.
Having a strong work ethic is essential if you’re going to cover the ground from where you are now to where you want to be. For more about having a strong work ethic, click here.
Accessing your intuition is a skill which can be developed over time. Your subconscious knowledge pool is always at work, without your conscious awareness, it’s collecting information, scanning your environment, looking for inconsistencies and abnormalities. Learning to quiet your mind so that you can distinguish between intuition and fear response is something you will get better at over time. For more about intuition, click here.
Getting started is often the hardest part about making change, because over time habit kicks in and makes the behaviour/ action more automatic, check out more about initiating momentum, here.
The easiest way of getting rid of a bad habit is establishing a new good habit. Habits are hard to break because we often don’t think about doing them, they are by their nature, automatic. Most people complain that they struggle with filling the gap left by a habit, so fill the space with a new, more empowering habit, and over time it too will become automatic.
Having purpose requires having a direction, a goal. It gives us a reason to take action, to establish new behaviours, and develop new habits. Without purpose we are like a rudderless boat floating helplessly. Without purpose, there is no motivation to move from the current status quo.
To move from where you are now to where you want to be, requires change, and change is often feared because of the uncertainty, risk and danger it is perceived as bringing with it. Learning how to embrace change and risk is key to helping you move forwards. For more about embracing change and risk, click here.
No matter where you are in life, whether you are where you ultimately want to be, you have many things to be grateful for, and appreciation shouldn’t be far from the top of your mind. For more about gratitude, click here.
Fear is THE dream killer. If you can master fear, the world is your playground. For more about overcoming fear, click here.
Inner conflict can occur on both a subconscious level as well as a conscious level, which makes it difficult to identify and move beyond. For instance, fearing success or the consequences of success, while at the same time craving success, can cause chaos with internal motivational drives and subsequently attempting to unpick the underlying causes can clarify irrational beliefs. For more information about inner conflicts, click here.
Avoiding temptations and distractions is key to getting things done in a meaningful and effective way. We are often surrounded by these things and learning how to hack a way around them, or avoid them completely, so that we don’t sidetracked, is a must.
Even the thought of having to deal with discomfort, can be an ambition killer. Putting yourself in harms way, psychologically speaking, is a tough one to overcome, but with practice, you can become a master of it, rather than a victim to it.
Emotions are a vital component in driving behaviour and instigating action-taking. Emotions are what stir you, make you overcome situations, where you would not ordinarily take action. Anger, fear, regret, disappointment can be used to move you closer to your goal or keep you stuck where you are. Figuring out how to use emotions as useful tools rather than annoying obstacle is what will get you to where you want to be.
Shifting of perspective is about opening your mind and seeing things in a different way. Rigid beliefs, are often the major cause of keeping you stuck and preventing you seeing things, people, ideas and situations in a completely different light and from a completely different perspective. For more about shifting perspective, click here.
Overcoming coping strategies is about stopping yourself rationalising the thoughts, actions and behaviours that are preventing you pursuing your dreams and goals. Blocking coping strategies are a psychological way of feeling okay about your failure to take the necessary actions that are required to get you to your goals. For more about blocking coping strategies, click here.
Questions and answers about motivation
I recently did some keyword research on the search terms inputted into Google around the word “motivation” and came up with a list of questions people want answered about motivation, which I’ve listed below, along with some of the more important answers. I’m not going to answer question by question, but rather gather the general gist of the questions into a few important answers. I’ve grouped them around, questions about 1. the definition of motivation, 2. self motivation, 3. motivating others and 4. more general motivational questions.
Keyword research is a great insightful tool for getting down to the nuts and bolts of what people want to know, and are actively searching for.
1. Definition of motivation
Search Terms inputted into search engines
- what is motivation,
- define motivate,
- definition of motivate,
- what is the definition of motivation,
- external motivation definition,
- emotional motive definition,
- the definition of motivation,
- extrinsic motivation definition psychology,
- what is the meaning of motivation,
- what does the word motivation mean,
- what is a motivation,
- define the term motivation,
- the meaning of motivation,
Questions (condensed)
- What is motivation?
- Emotional motive behind motivation?
- Definition of motivation?
- What is the meaning of motivation?
- What does the word motivation mean?
Answer
Motivation is defined as a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way. Motivation can be intensified by using EMOTIONS, driving the NEED or WANT to take action, instead of maintaining a state of INDIFFERENCE in the STATUS QUO.
2. Self motivation
SEARCH TERMS INPUTTED INTO SEARCH ENGINES
- intrinsic motivation,
- stay motivated,
- internal motivation,
- positive motivation,
- motivate yourself,
- motivational thoughts,
- need motivation,
- personal motivation,
- job motivation,
- career motivation,
- develop yourself,
- intrisic motivation,
Questions
- How to stay motivated?
- How to increase motivation internally?
- How to use positive motivation?
- How to motivate yourself?
- What thoughts can be used to increase motivation?
- How to increase personal motivation?
- How to increase job or career motivation?
- How to develop motivation?
Answer
Motivation has two opposing forces, the first is the motivation to achieve some goal, to improve, get better, to succeed. All those things that you wish for, dream of or have desire to do or be.
On the flip side are the blocking motivations, which are driven by self-preservation and fear. The little voice in your head that tells you not to take risk, or pursue change because you might fail, be embarrassed, lose something important.
Both these forces fight over every decision you have to make, and only one can ever win.
If you’re not where you want to be, then the blocking motivations are the cause. It’s your job to recondition your thinking so that the blocking motivations are defeated. You can do it!
Clicking on the posters above, will walk you through the important considerations of motivation, including improving self-awareness, taking responsibility, being committed, overcoming fear, breaking inner conflicts and self sabotage.
With respect to using motivation for work, career or fitness, it works the same way in all aspects of life. Hacking motivation will support you in all aspects of life.
3. Motivating others
SEARCH TERMS INPUTTED INTO SEARCH ENGINES
- extrinsic motivation,
- motivational people,
- how to motivate staff,
- motivating staff,
- staff motivation,
- leadership motivation,
- motivation in business,
- extrinsic motivation psychology definition,
- employee motivation techniques,
- motivation of employees,
- worker motivation,
- motivation definition,
- achievement motivation,
- motivation techniques,
- creative development,
- business motivation,
Questions
- How to get motivated?
- How to increase staff and worker motivation?
- How to increase leadership motivation?
- How to increase motivation in other people?
- How to increase business motivation?
- Ideas for creative motivation?
Answer
Once you truly understand how motivation works, you will be better placed to motivate others.
Understand that DESIRE and FEAR are the basic drivers of human behaviour. People always act with positive intent, and will respond to a potential improvement in their situation, or sense of self, as long as the risk and uncertainty, which they fear, is reduced. If the reward is greater than the risk, they will act, but you have to make a good enough argument to convince them that the rewards do indeed outweigh the risks.
If you can align employees goals with your business goals, you will win. This is why some businesses run profit sharing schemes.
But to understand people’s motivations you have to develop your emotional intelligence, so that you have more empathy for how that person models the world. We all have the same psychological structures of thought that influence behaviour, we all feel anger, sadness, happiness in the same way, but our triggers and perceptions can vary significantly. What is important to you, is not necessarily important to me, but you will react in the same way to something that is important to you, as I would to something that was important to me.
Don’t worry if you don’t get it at the moment, we will be revisiting it in future posts. I would also advise subscribing to our newsletter for exclusive content, not available on the website, which covers this subject in more detail.
4. Motivation general
SEARCH TERMS INPUTTED INTO SEARCH ENGINES
- Motivating,
- intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,
- achievement motivation,
- types of motivation,
- motivation techniques,
- business motivation,
- motivational activities,
- maslow motivation,
- motivational strategies,
- motivation and emotion,
- psychology motivation,
- increase motivation,
- motivation model,
- importance of motivation,
- goal motivation,
- motivation process,
- motivational ideas,
- models of motivation,
- motivation help,
Questions
- What is the importance of motivation?
- Where to find help for increasing motivation?
- What is intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?
- What are the types of motivation?
- What is business motivation?
- What are some motivational activities?
- What is Maslow’s pyramid of motivation?
- What are some motivational strategies?
- What emotions are used in motivation?
- What is a model for motivation?
- What is a process for motivation?
- What are ideas for motivation?
Answer
Without motivation, nothing gets done, so it is an essential part of taking action and getting results.
Intrinsic motivation refers to doing something for the enjoyment of doing it, for its own sake, rather than any external rewards. Think of things like hobbies or passions that you may engage in, which are done simply for the enjoyment of doing them. Extrinsic motivation refers to doing something to earn a reward, such as money, fame or praise, or to avoid a punishment such as being chastised, or beaten, or made to feel embarrassed. You would not engage in this behaviour if it wasn’t for the consequences. Many people’s jobs are an example of extrinsic motivation, because they wouldn’t do it if they weren’t getting paid.
Many different emotions can be entangled in motivation. Desire for something else, frustration, discontentment, dissatisfaction with the way things currently are, yearning for more, for better, or a desperate sense of needing, are good examples of supporting emotions (emotions that drive you closer to your goal). Fear is largely responsible for blocking progress (stopping you reaching your goal). I recommend checking out the posters above, for all the supporting and blocking internal and external motivations.
Maslow’s (1943, 1954) hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid. It can be described as a model for motivation.
Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival (bottom of triangle), and this will be the first thing that motivates our behaviour. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what then motivates us, and so on, until we eventually reach self-actualisation, at the top of the pyramid.
As far as establishing a process for motivation, the first and probably most important thing to do is increase SELF-AWARENESS, so to improve understanding as to what creates motivation within us as individuals, finding out what our particular triggers are. Then use these motivations to drive us towards our goal, while hacking those that get in the way. Again I would recommend reading the posters above and following the links for more in-depth information.
We will be detailing some clever motivation hacks in future articles, so please subscribe to our newsletter for content updates, as well as unique content, not available on the website.
Motivation is one of the building blocks for getting results, subscribe to our newsletter to get a walk through of our GET RESULTS methodology, as well as other content not available on the website. Email is a great way for us to provide information for you.