What is Motivation?

bybmtking

163 followers

5 years ago

What is Motivation?

Motivation is defined as "the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way;the general desire or willingness of someone to do something." (google.com search)

In the world of entrepreneurs, motivation is what makes you work harder to achieve the goals you have set for yourself and your business. In this article, we will discuss good and bad motivation, how to use your motivation and what type of goals to set for your success

What Motivates?

The answer to this question may seem simple to most. However, it isn't always a clear answer. Why? Simply put, there are good motivators and bad motivators. On the broad spectrum, GOALS are the ultimate motivating factor. It doesn't matter if we are talking sports, health, relationships, work or entrepreneurship.

Setting goals seems like the obvious key to staying motivated. However, it is important to realize that there are good and bad goals. What differentiates the two? Good goals will provide habitual motivation and bad goals will drive emotional motivation.

Emotions = Bad Motivation

When we allow are emotions to be our motivation, we are setting ourselves up for failure. Don't get me wrong, emotions are not a bad thing, I don't want you to think you are supposed to be an emotionless robot. But, emotions should be the result not the motivator.

Bryan, what do you mean my emotions motivate me? Glad you asked that question. Too often, we wait until we feel comfortable or happy to do something. An example would be the following statement, "I am so tired of having to go to work 10 hours a day." Yes that can be VERY motivating and may push you to start something but it will most likely also keep you from finishing something.

Think about this situation for a minute and let me know if you can relate or not, it's Friday night around 8 pm, you just got home from the last day of a 60-hour work week. You've been going in early all week and staying later than anyone else so you can make sure things get done. You decide that you will leave on time today because it's Friday. As you head towards the door, your boss stops you and asks if you finished looking over a report he/she sent you earlier in the week. Frustratingly, you realize that you didn't get to the report because of everything else you needed to finish that week. The boss says well I need you take a look at that before you leave for the day.

I can picture the anger boiling up in you now. I know it did for me, because it happened to me. That one instance will almost certainly get you thinking to yourself, "there has to be something better out there for me". So you start searching on the Internet for jobs and come across an advertisement about starting your own business online. Because your angry, you sign up for the email list and think to yourself, how great would it be to be my own boss? Then you start imagining what it would be like to not have someone asking you for reports at 5 o'clock on a Friday. You spend the rest of the weekend searching online and reading emails dreading going back into work on Monday.

Monday comes around and it's back to the same old grind. Only on this Monday, your boss walks into your office and thanks you for getting the reports reviewed and completed Friday. So you go back to work and finish out your day and head home feeling much better than you did on Friday. When you get home, you read an email about someone's success using the program you signed up to receive information about. But unlike the previous days (when you were angry), you decide that just isn't for you and you will be fine where you are.

In this scenario, you can see how the initial anger emotions can motivate you to find something else BUT then comes the emotion of being appreciated and all that motivation is no longer existent or is very minimal. This is just one example of why emotions are not good motivators and why you shouldn't rely on your emotions to motivate you. Emotions are temporary and so is the motivation that comes with them.

Money (or lack of) is the Worst Motivation

What did you just say? That's right I said money, or the lack of money, is a terrible motivator. In my opinion, the worst motivation comes from setting a goal of more money.

I am not going to tell you that money is bad or that you shouldn't want more money. What I am going to tell you is that you need to be more specific when setting your goals.

The desire to make more money is only natural. However, what are you going to do with that money once you have it? That is the question you should be asking yourself when you set goals for yourself and/or your business. Ask yourself why do I need more money? Below is an example of the goals I set for myself and my business that are based on more money, but when I write them out they don't mention money rather what I will do with it:

• Help out my church more
• Payoff my daughter's student loans
• Allow my wife to stay at home
• Take more cruises with the family
• Create Coaching/Books for helping others

When you make it more personal, you are more likely to follow up. In other words, you will be more motivated.

Good Motivation

Up to this, we have focused on the "wrong" kinds of motivation. So you may be asking yourself, how do I know if I am focusing on the right motivation. There are some characteristics that help determine if the motivation you are channeling is positive or negative.

A good motivation will force you change your habits. What you have been doing isn't working, therefore you have to make a change. When something is successful at motivating you, others around you will notice a change in your habits. For this example, let's use weight loss. I know, the obvious answer is friends will see the physical change. But that's not the change I'm talking about. When you find the right motivation, you will change your eating habits, right? So the next time your friends join you for dinner, they will definitely notice that you are serving or ordering much healthier food. They will notice that instead of enjoying a chocolate dessert, you are enjoying an evening walk.

What is the My Favorite Motivation?

When it comes to me, there is one motivation that ranks above anything else. That motivation is serving others. When you set a goal to serve others, the sense of accomplishment that you will feel is unmatched.

If you have children, think back to that feeling the first time your child came running to you when they needed something. It was a great feeling was it not? Look back at the times you may have stopped to help someone fix a flat tire on the side of the road.

In this world of entrepreneurship, community support is some of the most gratifying experiences I have felt in my life. When I changed the way I listed out my goals, I noticed a trend. All of them included helping someone else. This realization made it all click for me. There is an undescribable feeling that overcomes you when a person benefits from knowing you or learning from you. A feeling that makes you want to do it again and again and again.

Bryan