We all want success, yet so many of us are unclear about what success is and how to achieve
success.
In this video, we look at the starting point in the foundations of being successful, looking
at...motivation
If you're hungry to succeed, then this series has been designed specifically for you, giving
you tips and clarity on elements that make us successful in a given an endeavour, and
how to follow through to be successful.
In the last part we looked at the importance of proper planning and how to plan a project
in detail, factoring in multiple factors to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible.
Today's video will focus on motivation, which is important to following through to taking
action and being successful.
Before we go into motivation, let's just reiterate which parts will be covered as part of this
series:
1.
Ideas 2.
Planning 3.
Motivation 4.
Action 5.
Recycling
Make sure to watch the other parts, as the structure requires each facet to be applied
correctly if you want to see results to match your ambition.
Now before we get into the concept of motivation, I want to make absolutely clear that motivation
without action is nothing more than a meaningless waste of energy.
Getting motivated can be highly beneficial, but if you don't follow through on the motivation
by doing something to progress towards a goal, it will simply fail to serve any purpose other
than to make you feel good for a brief period, after which you'll feel bad for not acting
on it.
So how can motivation benefit us?
First of all, it's important to understand motivation, which is it's the reason people
take certain actions, act and behave in a specific way.
The reason it's important to understand this is because many, when talking about motivation,
are talking about motivation in the short term definition of the word, whereby people
listen to or watch something to give them a quick energy burst that gets adrenaline
pumping and gives them reason to take immediate action.
However, it's vital to understand that motivation when understood properly encompasses far more
than that.
In fact, you can create a distinction between short term and long term motivation.
Now I won't delve unnecessarily into links between these concepts and psychological concepts
such as Freud's structural theory of personality, never mind countless other theories that have
followed, but it is useful to understand the two types of motivation.
Short Term Motivation
Short Term Motivation is what we often commonly understand as motivation as something that
will get you in a state where you're ready to take action immediately.
This will because whatever motivates you provides you with short term reasoning and desire to
take action, as well as physically creates chemical changes in the body to help you prepare
for immediate action, mostly the rush of adrenaline you feel to act.
This kind of motivation can be great for short term results, helping you follow through with
immediate needs, but it's also quite an intense form of motivation that will take up a lot
of energy.
Due to this reason, short term motivation is beneficial in quick and immediate gains,
but isn't sustainable for long term action, as it naturally leads to burnout.
Long Term Motivation
Long Term Motivation is described in many ways by various people.
Simon Sinek refers to it as our "Why", some refer to it as long term vision and others
as "purpose".
Whichever term you prefer, the point of this kind of motivation is to understand why you
embark on a particular challenge from a higher level.
For example, I've stated before and reiterate, the purpose of this channel is to try to encourage
and help people with long term lasting positive change in their lives and to be an example
to my son about the values I intend to pass onto him.
This motivation isn't about my immediate goals, say creating this video, but rather a more
holistic view on why I create all of my videos on the channel.
While Short Term motivation helps you with immediate or short term goals and results,
long term motivation is critical in understanding your reasoning for embarking on anything that
you do.
It's effectively your mission statement, you purpose for going into a long term challenge
and what you ultimately intend to accomplish out of it.
Where long term motivation can be particularly beneficial is in the push and pull effect.
Short Term motivation often pushes us towards undertaking certain actions, but long term
motivation pulls us towards it as it's the fundamental reason we chose to do what we
decided to.
So how can we use short term and long term motivations to our benefit?
1.
Habits
As already identified, short term motivation can be exhausting.
Knowing this, how can we utilise the benefits we gain from taking action from short term
motivation?
Well, the key is to create habits, whereby we automate processes to help us maintain
consistent progress towards a given goal.
This is something I'll be covering in more detail in the next part of the series when
talking about Action.
However, in this part what's also important to note about habits is how they need to be
controlled and managed.
Habits are essentially built as a mechanism of our primitive mind.
In prehistoric times, this was to eat, survive and procreate, meaning we'd have natural instincts
to help us ensure those needs are met.
Today, we build habits to help for other reasons, but we're still using our primitive minds
when doing habits, meaning we do them out of instinct and automation, not necessarily
for thought.
When it comes to habits when working towards a goal, this can be highly beneficial towards
making consistent progress, but at the same time, we periodically need to take a step
back and reflect on our habits, reviewing whether they are benefitting our long term
motivation.
For example, as a YouTuber, this would be to periodically spend time checking analytics
and growth to see if the existing process of creating videos is garnering results we're
satisfied with.
If expectations aren't being met, then the habit needs to be adjusted or changed to achieve
them.
2.
Automate Long Term Motivation
We understand how habits can be both beneficial, but also detrimental to our behaviours, but
equally important is to spend time automating your long term motivation.
Here, rather than setting up behavioural habits designed to help taking action towards a short
term goals, the idea is to set reminders towards your long term motivation and purpose.
There are multiple ways to do this, such as write down the long term motivation daily
or say affirmations.
Personally, I follow Tony Robbins' morning routine, part of which is to spend time envisioning
your future, during which time I spend time also reminding myself as to why I'm working
towards that future.
Put simply, the whole idea here isn't just to do something for the sake of doing it,
but consciously think about why you are doing what you are.
3.
Strengthen Your Brain
So now that we understand different types of motivation, understand that building habits
can help reduce the intensity of short term motivation and also the potential pitfalls
of habits without keeping long term motivation in mind, how do you actually make sure you're
consciously thinking about decisions you take when taking action?
Well, the most effective way is to practice.
Just like the body needs exercise for muscle to grow, the mind needs to be exercised for
us to strengthen our cognition, willpower and mental capacity.
For example, if you create a habit, as part of the habit build in a routine to spend time
thinking about how the habit will benefit you on the given day when considering your
long term motivation.
This means when you get into taking action, you don't just act on the primitive mind and
mindlessly take action, but instead make a clear and deliberate decision towards taking
that action.
Let's use exercise as an example, you might have a habit of exercising an hour at the
same time each day.
However, to make what exercises you do deliberate and with clear purpose, before each session
you start to exercise, you could choose to decide what you're going to focus on that
day, such as cardio, the upper body or your legs.
This means you still have the benefits of making exercise a habit, but you focus on
what you're working towards in your long term motivation at the start of each session.
Motivation can be highly beneficial when working towards a specific goal, and understanding
how long term and short term motivation affects us critical in utilising motivation towards
taking action.
However, the key word is action, as anyone can say a few words to get you motivated,
but then not following up with action is meaningless.
And this is precisely why we'll be looking at action in the next video, but in the meantime
I would love to know what do you do to get motivated?
Let me know in the comments section below.
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