The Women's Link

Boosting Motivation: What to Do When Your Get-Up-and-Go Gets Up and Leaves
By Crystal Jonas, author of The Power of Purpose

Ever feel like the more you work, the less you have to show for it? Frustrated by where you are in life compared to where your potential suggests you could be? It’s time to reclaim your energy, focus, and drive by finding out what does and doesn’t work when it comes to sustaining motivation!

The “Hard Work Myth” Debunked
Hundreds of women attend the seminars I deliver for National Seminars Group all over the country each year. Often, I ask, “What’s special about you? What professional qualities do you bring to the table?”

Time and time again, their answer includes some version of this: “I’m a hard worker.” You may have even said it yourself! If so, it’s essential for sustaining your motivation that you rethink the “hard work myth.”

In my 6-CD program, The Power of Purpose: The Art of Living in Excellence you’ll hear what really gets rewarded. Here’s a quick tip from that five-hour program — an idea that has the power to help you change the way you work forever.

The universe does not reward hard work; it rewards recognized results. The results are for the company, and the recognition is for you.
Everywhere I go, I’ve met women like you: great work ethic, honest, committed to lifelong learning, and, as they will be the first to tell you, “hard workers.” But we already know, hard work isn’t a guarantee. When your hard work doesn’t pay off with recognition, respect, and rewards, what do you do? Well, if you’re like most professional women, you work even harder. You come in earlier, work through your breaks, maybe even lunch, and then you might even take work home.

Shift Your Focus to Results, Not Efforts
It can be success-crushing, not to mention demoralizing and de-motivating, to keep working harder and not having anyone notice your efforts. So you need to shift your focus. Instead of focusing on effort, focus on results.

Create concrete, measurable tasks that lead you to accomplishing goals that are highly valued by the person with the power to give you raises and the best projects, and to recommend you for promotion.

Throughout the day, ask yourself this question: does this task that I’m doing right now lead to recognized and valued results? If not, shift immediately to something that does.

Rewrite Your Natural Self-Sabotage Feature
Have you heard about those features on cars that prevent them from going too fast? You have something like that in your own personality. Think of it as a safety mechanism that prevents you from having to experience anything unpleasant or uncomfortable.

One of the best ways to kick in this safety feature is to tell yourself you “must,” “should,” or “have to” do something. Think of how de-motivating it is to do something because you have to do it and not because you want to.

Your action safety feature actually ends up sabotaging your efforts. When it hears you say, “I should ...” it helps you get to this point: “No, I don’t. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. I’ve earned the right to do exactly what I want, and no one can make me do otherwise.” Sound familiar?

OK, so here’s the bottom line: This little voice inside your head kicked in to protect you from doing what you don’t really want to do. Think about it: do you ever really have to tell yourself you “should” do something you want to do? So make your actions your choice.

Let’s say that you’ve been thinking that you’d benefit from more activity in your life. Instead of saying, “I really should exercise,” you might try, “I might want to do something after work today. If I choose to do this, what would I wear? What would I do?” Allow yourself to answer these questions and then plan out what you chose to do, and when and where you chose to do it. Actually write these three items down to boost your likelihood of follow-through.

Shocking Truth — Your Discipline Could Be Killing Your Motivation!
To light a fire under your will to make positive results in your life, you want your actions to be your choice. This is key: your choice to act because you want the results so much you can actually feel like the results belong to you. In The Power of Purpose, I walk you through how to do this step-by-step, but here’s a quick overview.

Through no fault of your own, you might have been buying into an old idea that requires a level of discipline that never pays off.

You’ve probably heard of this idea: WILLPOWER.

The fact is, willpower alone doesn’t work, and this is not your fault.

You are not lazy because your willpower gave out. You are simply exhausted from trying so hard to act contrary to your real desires. Makes sense, doesn’t it? You need to make sure you align your desired results and the choices you make!

One Final Quick Tip: How You Can Make Success Easy
You may be amazed to discover just how difficult it is to start a new habit if you aren’t aware of this secret: You are much more likely to succeed if you lower the “activation energy” needed to get started.

Here’s what that means: “activation energy” is the effort needed to start moving on a goal. Think of a train at a standstill on the tracks. It takes a lot of energy to get it going, but not nearly as much energy to keep it going.

Let’s say a goal you have is to be more active. Every action that goes into this idea of, let’s say, taking a 30-minute walk after work, takes a new decision. What you can do is lower the effort it takes to make these decisions.

You can do this by lowering the activation energy needed to take that walk after work by setting out your walking clothes before you ever leave for work. That’s right: have your walking clothes, shoes, and socks right there where you change clothes, ready to put on.

Research proves that even the 20 seconds it takes to decide what to wear and to get it out is long enough to prompt you to change your mind.

So, to boost your motivation, focus on results and not effort; think about what you want; feel that you are taking action because you want the result, therefore, the choices are yours, not based on willpower but want-power; and finally, be sure to make it easy to be successful by doing just a few minutes of preplanning so choices that lead to success are right there, in your path.

Remember that the universe opens up when you act on your own behalf and that you are worthy of the amazing results you are capable of creating.

Crystal Jonas is a motivational expert, professional speaker, and author of The Power of Purpose. “The People Skills Lady,” Crystal Jonas is known for the energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge she brings to her keynotes and seminars. An expert in leadership, communication, and emotional intelligence, some of her most requested programs include “Communicate With Credibility and Confidence.” To arrange to have Crystal Jonas come into your organization to present a custom program for you, contact our Enterprise Learning Solutions department at 1-800-344-4613.

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