How Does Motivation Work?

What is motivation? Many people use the word to describe the inner push to get them to take a first step. For example, "I do not have the motivation to go to the gym," or "I need the motivation to start going to the gym." A search of the word in the dictionary may provide definitions that substantiate the use of the word in these examples. However, there is another angle to motivation that can be considered.

Instead of waiting for the motivation to start going to the gym or start eating correctly or whatever the action is, how about making a choice?

"I choose to start going to the gym." That means that I am not waiting for motivation to go to the gym, I am simply making a choice. This is what would move me from passively waiting to actively pursuing a goal. Anyone waiting on the motivation to do anything is in a state of passiveness. The problem with being in that state is that there is no forward movement. Life is there for the taking. Sitting idly by and waiting for the fire to be kindled inside of you will only delay your destiny! Yet that is exactly what most people are doing when they wait for the motivation to do something.

On the other hand, if a choice is made to go to the gym then there is forward motion. This does not mean however that motivation is thrown out the window. In fact, after the decision is made, motivation steps up to the plate. Once the choice is made to go to the gym, do you know what it is that keeps you going back? Yes, it is motivation.

Motivation does not feed passivism. It is an inner propulsion mechanism. When there is motion, motivation will keep the momentum going. Do not think of motivation as the force that will take you from a standstill to movement. Think of it as the force that propels your movement in a given direction. So think of any area of your life where you are waiting for the motivation. If you find an area, then change your attitude and make a choice. Anything you have been wanting to do and you are not taking any forward action towards, does not need motivation. Those are areas where you need to make a choice to get going. Once you are moving, then motivation will play its part.

Let motivation be the force that keeps you going and not the one to get you going.

Copyright © 2008, Mark A. Singh. All rights reserved.

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Self Motivation

There are two basic types of motivation: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is generated due to external factors, whereas intrinsic motivation is generated due to internal sensation and is a longer lasting one.

Self motivation, also called intrinsic motivation, refers to an internal drive that originates from within a person which helps a person to overcome obstacles and pursue worthy goals. Besides internal factors, there are certain external factors that drive you to start something new or to make a move in a positive direction.

Desire, values, and beliefs are the three motivating factors that constitute self motivation.

Self motivation is necessary as you cannot always rely on others to get motivated. It is surely needed to gather courage and strength to achieve your goals. Furthermore, it is essential to take up a new activity or to plan and find new directions in life.

Self motivation has the power to enable you to achieve anything you want to experience in life. The power exists within every person, but you should be able to get self -motivated to achieve your desires or goals. Try to identify your desire, values, and beliefs and also your strength and weakness in order to establish realistic goals.

To improve self motivation, one of the easiest ways is to educate yourself through training programs. Self hypnosis is also found effective in improving self motivation. Majority of the training programs specifically teaches the skills required to consistently become a self motivated person. Nowadays, there are several learning institutes that provide pragmatic steps to improve self motivation. Also, there are opportunities to learn how to increase your self-motivation through the Internet.

Self motivation plays a vital role in the early student life. Students should be self motivated by means of various motivation techniques in order to enable them to overcome life's challenges.

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Motivation Techniques on How to Motivate Employees Using Sales Team Training and Free Web Resources

Motivation techniques and how to motivate employees is an area many sales managers find difficult and time consuming. They find it easy to present and supply sales team training on selling skills, but what about motivation techniques. To motivate a sales person you need to offer a regular boost of self motivation. It can take time to constantly find new and refreshing ideas, and give different angles and perspectives on how to get into the most effective selling state. The sales motivation techniques offered here will give you a sales training and motivation program for your sales team using a minimum amount of time. It uses the free resources available on the Internet and it won't cost you a penny. It also gets your team involved from the start and asks them to contribute as the idea grows in size and benefits.

How it worked for my sales teams

The objective is to build a list of free online sales training and motivation resources available on the Internet and use them in an ongoing motivation program. You probably have some links saved in your favourites list. Your sales team will have some as well. As a starting point imagine if you had a list of links to all those sales and motivation websites you already know about, all in one easy to access place. This is how I started when looking at how to motivate employees in my sales teams. Then we added all the other sites we came across that had effective sales training or good motivation techniques.

How to put these motivation technique sinto action today

Here's how to put this sales team training into action with your sales teams. First, build the list of good quality links to websites. Present the idea of building an Internet based training and motivation resource to your sales team. Show them a few examples of websites that you use for sales training and information. Ask them to submit their own. Get them to go through their favourites list on their PC's, log into their search history, and ask them to click around the Internet to find new and interesting websites. Get them involved, show them the benefits, and ask for their feedback.

Decide where to keep the list of links

Decide upon the best place to keep your list of sales and motivation websites. You want somewhere that is easy to access, will be remembered, and is accessible by all the sales team. It must also be somewhere that the information and new links can be added regularly. If your organisation has a company intranet then that may be a good place to start building your sales training resource. Shared drives and folders are another good place to park the list of links. You might think of other ideas such as sending it out in a company newsletter, or simply emailing the list to your sales team on a regular basis.

Add some information to each link

To make this list of sales team training and motivation links effective, add a brief description to each link. It only needs a few comments to indicate if the link is about motivation techniques, sales training, or product and industry knowledge. Ask your team to add these comments when they submit a new link to be added to the list. You could take this further and add a rating system from 1 to 5 on how effective and useful they think the website is.

Keep the list updated

Keep the list updated and over time you will build an enormous resource of sales training and motivation techniques. The more comprehensive the descriptions and comments about the website are the more effective and useful your list will be. Think what could happen if you expand and develop the use of this free resource. What if you included more people within your organisation and expanded the topics covered by this list of websites. As long as the list is separated into categories for each topic, and perhaps even a contents page written, it will remain useful and effective.

Add a motivation training schedule

Once we brought all these great website links together we set certain times of the week to make the best use of these motivation techniques. Motivation training works best in short bursts with specific objectives. There a certain times of the week when a quick burst of motivation, a new sales training idea, or examples of proven marketing techniques, are most effective.

Monday morning after a weekend break 15 minutes on a good website, with short sharp self motivation techniques, can get you into a selling state. Friday morning we have found clicking on websites with time management, or prospecting tips, which can be used the following week, can have a great effect. When you have a tough day facing difficult objections and can't close sales, then a sales training site is a good way to finish the day. These are examples of how we use these sales team training motivation techniques. You can adapt them, develop them, and find how to motivate your employees using a list of good Internet links. The sales team have bought into the idea because they helped to build the list.

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The Tao of Motivation

If you think you need to ‘get motivated’ … then I am sorry but you are thinking in reverse.

Why?

Because neither motivation nor inspiration are things that you can get ‘out there’, like they are things you can buy at a supermarket.

Does a tree need to ‘get motivated’ to reach its branches towards the sky?

Does a river need to ‘find inspiration’ to flow down to the sea?

They sound like silly questions right?

But they are no more ‘silly’ then the notion that you need to ‘get motivated’ to be the success you are naturally destined to be.

In saying things like, “I need to get motivated” or, “I need to find inspiration” you create a separation within ... a motivator and a motivatee.

Doing this can create an internal scenario where part of your mind becomes the "Task Master", the one with a whip and a drill sergeant's bellow, and another part the "Wretched Slob" who performs up to standard only to keep the whip off his back. Such internal conflict is destructive to one's well-being and is also a major waste of energy.

This type of motivation is external and artificial. 'True' motivation and inspiration are internal and come as naturally as breathing.

You see, there are four types of people. The first is the unconscious incompetent. This is the person that doesn’t even know that they don’t know. This is the lowest rung in the ladder.

The second type of person is the conscious incompetent. This is the person that knows that they don’t know, but they still don’t know what to do. The model above of "The Task Master" and "Wretched Slob" fits this type of person well. They consciously want to be achieving things but their internal incompetencies and personality traits sabotage this desire.

The next type of person is the conscious competent. This is the person that knows what to do, and then if they think about it, they can go ahead and do it. Instead of the "Wretched Slob" this person might internally be a "Super Star" but they still need "The Task Master" with his whip.

The highest level of person, though, is the unconscious competent. This is the person that has it so ingrained in them as to what to do, that they don’t even have to think about it. They just automatically do it.

The unconscious competent does not need any sort of external motivator ... motivation for them is a natural, internal state of being.

Chapter 38 of the Tao Te Ching1 begins by saying:

One of subtle universal virtue

is not conscious of being virtuous,

therefore, he is truly virtuous.

Applied to motivation, it could be modified to say:

One of subtle universal motivation

is not conscious of being motivated,

therefore, he is truly motivated.

Look at young children playing. Do they need conscious motivation to be playfully exuberant? It is only when social conditionings encroach that this natural exuberance diminishes and we have to resort to artificial 'motivational systems' so that we can do the things that used to come to us 'naturally'.

Here’s a personal example, for a long period of time my internal "Task Master" would be always telling me to exercise more because I wasn't as fit and trim as I used to be. I tried all sorts of processes including reward/punishment systems, time management systems, personal trainers, going to the gym and the list goes on.

But then in a moment of clarity my inner youth piped up and said, "Hey! Wouldn't it be much easier if you just did something that you really enjoyed?"

That's when I discovered Hacky Sack. For the uninitiated a Hacky Sack is like a little bean bag that you have to try and keep up in the air with only your feet ... just like the pro soccer plays do with soccer balls.

*** I LOOOVE HACKY SACK! ***

Playing Hacky Sack for me isn't exercise at all ... not in the sense of, "OK now I am exercising." I went from struggling to 'exercise' once per week to having up to 2 or 3 full-on sessions with the Hacky Sack every single day. I grab every chance I can to kick that little sphere of joy up into the air!

You see my motivation to exercise went from an external, artificial affair to an 'unconscious competence' state of being. By digging deep within me and discovering that my true nature is very playful, exuberant, and youthful I was able to discover ‘automatic motivation’ to engage in exercise.

I now don't have to ‘get motivated’ to exercise ... I just get out there and play because I am motivated from within to do something that I really love doing.

And there … right there … is the essence of motivation.

In the I Ching (the Book of Changes)2 you will find that it is the nature of things for life to be ever-changing, ever in motion, ever 'motivating' into new manifestations. So it can be said that 'motivation' is a natural prime mover that keeps life going on its merry course.

When viewed in this light motivation can be seen as a core fundamental principle of your very being. So if you feel you are suffering from a lack of motivation it basically means you have cut yourself off from your core inner reservoirs. It means that you are not in tune with your true nature.

At a basic level this is caused by 2 things:

a) You have an internal ‘blocker’ that is preventing you accessing your inner reservoir of motivation. In essence, your inner ‘river’ of inspiration has been clogged up with a lifetime of debris and conditionings.

b) Also, a lack of motivation can be the result of engaging in something that is not truly your ‘path of heart’ (which is usually caused by having internal blockers).

The solution of course is to remove these internal blockers so that you can once again integrate with your limitless reservoirs of natural energy, enthusiasm, and motivation. Unblock the dam and the river flows again.

Until you can tap into your inner source of motivation your attempts to ‘get motivated’ will only create superficial motivation because as soon as you stop the motivation process you run out of motivation. Like when you are cold you put a jacket on to get warm, but when you take the jacket off you get cold again.

What you need to do is to reach the stage of being unconsciously competent, or unconsciously motivated. Motivation needs to be so much a part of your being that you don’t even realize that you are being motivated.

You see that is the secret to motivation ... it is not about how to 'get motivated' ...

…but how to 'be motivation'.

Because the truth is that you already are motivation. You just need to clear away the ‘debris’ and let your natural motivation and inspiration flow forth.

ends

References:

1 Ni, Hua Ching (2003) The Complete Works of Lao Tzu. LA: SevenStar Communications Group, Inc.

2 Ni, Hua Ching (2002) I Ching, The Book of Changes and The Unchanging Truth. LA: SevenStar Communications Group, Inc

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stuart Shaw is a recognized motivational speaker and poet. His web site, http://www.inspirationmagic.com, provides a wealth of inspirational articles, poems and resources on everything you'll ever need to know about motivation and personal success.

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