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 - The Energy Behind Action

Many people think motivation is just an emotion, or a thought. Its not! Motivation is the energy behind action.

No motivation and your actions are empty; without substance. However, if you add motivation to your actions, they become powerful and effective.

Motivation is the sister of intent, and together, they make us effective or ineffective people.

How is Motivation Energy?

Motivation begins with a thought or a desire. These thoughts or desires have real energy within them, and they energize whatever they touch. If these are in conversation, they energize your speech and the hearing of those that listen to them. This is a fact.

Every good salesman knows he cannot sell anything unless he is motivated and believes what he is doing is also good for those who buy. If the salesman is not “sold”, he will never sell. Being sold is his motivation energizing his thoughts, speech and finally actions.

The fact that motivation is energy is seen most easily in those people whose task it is, to convince others. You simply cannot convince others unless you are convinced. You cannot be convinced unless you are motivated.

Motivation Dispels Procrastination

Putting things off; a common human trait, is also a cause of a great many human ills and unhappy situations. If you are motivated, however, you “just do it” as the slogan goes, and step by step you eventually progress.

Do not procrastinate. If you do, you’re ideas, your thoughts become impotent, and you become impotent with them.

How to Become Motivated

There is an old prayer, where a saint is walking along with road in his bare feet, his shoes long ruined and discarded. He prayed for shoes. Just then he saw a man without feet! He withdrew his prayer, and thanked God for all his blessings.

You need no more to become motivated than to realize if you are reasonably healthy, and have the basics of life, you are more than well off. Your motivation then should be to be better in what you do, how you look, what you say, and most of all, how you are.

One needs no more than to realize most of the people in the world do not have the basics of life, yet they survive. If you ponded that thought, your motivation comes of itself.

Turning Motivation into Action

This is the easiest part of the discussion. One turns motivation into action by setting goals. Your goals must be somehow realistic, and somehow achievable. They should be (in part anyway) achievable in a reasonable amount of time. Motivation somehow needs some reward, like a horse needing a bit of sugar after working a while.

Your actions, now charged with motivation, and having a destination (goal) are the stuff that built empires. The stuff that put man on the moon, and every other wonderful achievement in man’s history.

You can apply these simple facts in your life, and you will see it improve for the better, no matter what. You must be motivated, and your motivation will energize your actions. An action, energized by motivation, and having a goal has a very large chance of success, regardless of its magnitude.

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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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Building Self Motivation

Motivation is sometimes tough to maintain, particularly for those who suffer from low self-esteem. However, motivation is integral to our ability to accomplish our goals and even complete tasks throughout our lives. We require daily motivation at work, at home, at the gym and even at play. Sometimes depression can rob us of our motivation and we stagnate. It is a difficult cycle as lack of motivation keeps us from completing tasks, which equates to failure to most people. This failure, in turn, causes people to have even less self-esteem. In order to prevent this, a motivation strategy must be implemented to achieve motivation success. It can be done, but it takes work. It is also important to recognize and overcome some common motivation killers.

Depression is a major motivation killer. People who are depressed will experience a significant decrease in motivation. In order to combat this it may be necessary for the person to use medication therapy to treat the depression. Depression may cause the person to experience a lack of desire to even get out of bed. It may be difficult for the person to leave the house or even to complete daily tasks. A motivation strategy to combat this is for the patient to first get a physical to make sure that the depression is not a symptom of an underlying, serious health condition, and then seek psychological counseling and possible medication therapy. Motivation success is possible if proper steps are taken to seek treatment.

Another condition that will rob a person of their motivation is insomnia and fatigue. Being sleepy all the time can distinctly impact daily motivation. Insomnia can cause excessive daytime sleepiness, or EDS, which can zap a person of their energy, thus destroying their motivation. When lack of motivation turns into failure on projects or daily tasks, a person’s self-esteem can be further robbed. He or she may feel like a complete failure and that frame of mind spills over onto other aspects of their life. Of course, treating the insomnia can have a dramatic affect to the person’s daily performance. In best-case scenario, motivation will return naturally. However, once the habit of procrastination and lack of motivation is set, it is difficult to break. Motivation success can be accomplished by time management and set time schedules to complete projects. It is important that a person be evaluated by a physician to ensure that the insomnia is not caused by a more serious health issue.

Perhaps the greatest robber of a person’s motivation is low self-confidence. Low self-esteem can cause a person to feel that they are unable to effectively complete projects or that if they try they will only fail. This is the most common barrier to a person’s motivation success. This goes far beyond just “sucking it up and moving on,” it becomes a physical inability to complete or sometimes even begin tasks. Sometimes the project may be too large or overwhelming or the person may lack the organizational skills necessary to be effectively self-motivated. This could range from cleaning a closet to working of a multi-million dollar project at work. All the talent in the world is useless if motivation is lacking. Organization is a good motivation strategy because it breaks down the task into parts that can be accomplished. Another motivation strategy it to set small goals over short periods of time. Try setting daily goals, weekly goals and monthly goals as well as long-term goals. Once you see that you can accomplish your daily goal, you will see that you are not a failure. Success feels good and it a great motivation booster.

Psychological counseling can help a person suffering from lack of motivation and low self-esteem. This is not the “head shrinker couch” that you see on TV. Those are exaggerated versions of counseling and you won’t likely have someone peer intently at you are ask repeatedly, “Now, how does that make you feel?” Instead, your therapist is likely to become a major player is increasing your self-esteem and motivation. Counseling can help you achieve motivation success. The counselor will walk you through exercises to increase your self-confidence which, in turn, will help your motivation increase. Additionally, the counselor can give you motivation strategies and if you follow the direction and work with the counselor, you will boost your self-confidence and achieve motivation success.

Kevin Christopher is the creator of http://www.time-success-freedom.com. Your online source for personal development and motivational tips and ideas.

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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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Leveraging a Sales Person's Motivation

Sales people who have clear objectives, the required competencies, and a supportive working environment still require a level of desire, willingness and positive thinking to complete tasks or sales activities in order to optimize performance. This state of willingness could be restated as motivation, the mental game or the internal forces that affect the outcomes, intensity and perseverance of a sales person’s voluntary behavior.

Sales Managers need to evaluate each sales person’s motivation, skills and the thinking supporting them due to shifting corporate goals and competitive threats. Given that there is a broad range of individualistic practices within the sales population, it is likely that each sales person is motivated in different ways and a good sales manager or sales leader, according to my experience, has the responsibility to identify those differences and leverage the individual potential from each and every sales person.

In David C. McCelland’s theory of learned needs he suggests that achievement, affiliation and power are the important sources of motivation. As he suggests, however, high achievers are self-motivated to high levels of achievement while low achievers require direction and reinforcement from others. He goes on to say that employees can learn to become more achievement oriented but recognizes that there are different types of employees bringing a balance to our social framework.

This is why it is so key that sales managers understand sales people for the individuals that they really are. Daniel Goleman, who has done extensive work in the area of Emotional Intelligence, suggests that those employees with potential are motivated by a desire to achieve for the sake of achievement and states further that managers with strong emotional intelligence are themselves self-motivated individuals – These principles should then apply to sales people and sales managers.

If motivated sales people are more willing to exert certain effort over a period of time in order to achieve a goal, then what role does the sales manager have in his or her interaction with that sales person?

It is important for sales managers to have a grasp of each sales person level of ability and motivation according to Dr. Paul Hersey. He suggests that the ownership of the task between the sales manager and the sales person be shared in accordance to the various possible levels of both ability and readiness. A training company named Gilmore and Associates devised a model that incorporates these notions and I have worked with them to further its usefulness.

It is important that a sales manager determines what the over all ability of a sales person is prior to attempting to teach, share or transfer the key aspects of the tasks to that employee.

The same holds true for motivation but I would suggest that the aspects of motivation are often overlooked by sales manages as it is the more difficult of the two to identify and manage. Just as with ability an evaluation of motivation should be considered and then skillfully engage, encourage and recognize the mental game and thinking of each individual sales person.

[I believe that ability is mind to hand while motivation is mind to heart. Think of it this way – Sales Performance equals Ability (Mind to Hand) times Motivation (Mind to Heart) or SP=A(MH)XM(MH)]

Sales managers often remedy performance issues with more skills training when from my experience more often than not the underlying performance issue is the thinking and motivation of the sales person. This generally means the wrong solution for the wrong problem incurring more overhead cost, lost opportunity cost and often a further slippage in the motivation of the sale person.

Different levels of the sales person’s ability will mean a different coaching style on behalf of the sales manager in order for the task to be completed at the required level of performance. Lower ability will mean more sales manager involvement and a specific teaching style will be necessary. As ability increases so too does the ownership of the task by the sales person increase, as he or she will begin to determine what is required in order to complete it. A sharing style becomes the most commonly used style by sales managers during this next phase. As the sales person’s ability level optimizes the role of the sales manager shifts more to a transferring style. Involvement of the sales manager is far less and ownership for the task is now primarily that of the sales person.

Typically the same holds true for levels of motivation (M) with respect to the same task although the characteristics and processes for engaging it are more emotional than behavioral. It is here that the passion for sales managing sales people comes to the forefront.

Sales managing a sales person with low motivation will require a nurturing sales manager, one that will engage in the values and principles of the sales person more so than technical abilities for that task. I believe that emotional factors have to engage the sales person’s values in order to stimulate the whole sales person. As the sales person’s motivation improves you follow through with encouragement reinforcing the positive and helping them see that there is light at the end of the tunnel. At the highest level of motivation you simply recognize their capability supporting them to the highest possible level of success.

A sales person with high ability and motivation with respect to a specific task is more apt to have higher levels of success with the role of the sales manager being that of a provider of information or in a position to just delegate and reward with little need for intense interaction.

As a sales manager’s proficiency increases with the use of this model, his or her competency at identifying the issues of ability and motivation will also increase. This will provide the sales manager with an advantage as he or she mentors and coaches his or her sales people for greater results. For the longest time I have used this model intuitively but from time to time I have been known to reference a wallet size cheat sheet that I have carried with me for at least twenty years. A real testimonial to the Gilmore model!

Ron Foss is the Senior Partner of EQ Management Group committed to improving management capability and more information can be discovered at http://www.eqmg.com

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