Back in highschool, a friend of mine was a heavy smoker.
Every lunch break, he would light up around ten cigarettes.
He wanted to stop but on the other hand he enjoyed doing it.
His passion for smoking was blended with pain.
He would smoke & soon after regret having done so.
this cycle is making his life a sheer misery.
One day, however I came up with an idea.
To restrain himself from smoking, he had to find a solid reason.
My suggestion was to norm an alarm on his phone, a reminder for all the motives not
to smoke.
He used to smoke only in lunch breaks so
when it's time for a smoke, his phone would ring & display a damaged lung picture with
the following list:
Cancer- impotence-
weak bones- low energy.
etc.
So every lunch break,
he'd recall the reasons & throw away all his cigarettes.
This soon became a habit.
& after a while, the urge to smoke dissipated entirely.
The main concept here is to start with why:
People won't do anything for you or themselves unless they have a concrete reason to.
and This incentive could be a negative or positive motivator.
Negative motivation entails using other people's fears to your advantage.
Not in a manipulative way but to help them out.
in my friend's case,
he stopped smoking simply because he was reminded of all the horrible things that could happen
to him.
over & over.
A smoker, lives for instant gratification.
their focus is narrowed on the pleasures of the moment, overlooking the consequences thereof.
and by depicting a clear picture in their minds of all the future detrimental outcomes,
They will stop & reconsider.
The second type of "why" can also be a positive motivator.
let's say your teenage child got addicted to alcohol.
Now, nagging him to just stop drinking, won't further anything in the slightest.
Instead, find out what the other person truly desires.
Something that would appeal to their self-interest.
If he's a musician for instance, maybe persuade the person by fulfilling one of their needs.
this is a mere example, the concept pertains to any situation.
You just have to find out something they really cherish.
and work your way from there.
here's a cool trick:
You could combine negative & positive motives.
hence the person will have something to anticipate & something to fear.
This creates an astounding burst of motivation.
Start with why is also applicable to business.
If you're selling a meditation app, guess what?
hundreds are advertising the same thing.
And most of them market similarly.
They first introduce their pruduct by listing "what" they do : we sell meditation apps.
And then describe "how" they do it better than others.
Reason this: the only peculiarity that will differentiate you from your competitors is
your why:
back in the day, people had this obsolete mp3 player.
It was barely able to hold 40 songs or less.
& When apple devised the Ipod, they didn't boast off merchandising how
better their product is compared to that old mp3 player.
Their advertisement merely displayed:
"A 1.000 songs in your pocket"
You see what they did there ?
They kept it neat & succint.
Their ad answered the customers most important question wich is : why do I have to buy your
product.
Well here's why:
We're not selling this ipod because it's new,
we're not advertising it because it's better.
We're merely selling this because you need it.
You need an mp3 player that can holds more than 40 songs right ?
here's a 1000 songs in your pocket.
Done.