Yesterday I had a conversation with a good friend of mine who had found her self in somewhat of a rut and like many of us do she dug herself further into that rut but not reaching out and asking for help.
The reaching out is something we discussed and both agreed she would need to make a better effort to make contact with someone for help if she found herself in the same or similar situation in the future.
But this piece is not about asking for help, it’s about something else that came up in the conversation which was her motivation.
For her it was something that she didn’t believe she could find for herself and that she almost relied on being pushed (or dragged) and encouraged by people around here to achieve her goals. Now this is not uncommon for people to feel like they need to be motivated or feel motivated by the actions and the words of others. I’ve seen it for years as a Personal Trainer when working with some people who really didn’t need my help with any actual exercises or nutrition they just needed to have someone there telling them what to do and pushing them to do so, because they couldn’t motivate themselves to do it.
So why does this happen (in my opinion)?
I don’t think anyone needs to be motivated by someone else, ever.
I think what people need is to take more time to ask themselves why it is important. If we use personal training as an example and a new client has decided they want to take on a trainer and when you ask them why it is because “I want to lose weight” well that reason just isn’t enough for most if not all people. If it was then every single person who wanted to lose weight would do so.
What you need to do is take some time to think about and write down the real reasons why you want to lose weight. When you do this I want you to keep thinking of reasons until something you write down makes you cry or smile, because until there is en emotional connection to your reason it will not be strong enough to motivate you.
So let’s make a hypothetical list based on a few of the reasons I have heard from my clients.
– I want to lose weight
– I want to look good with my shirt off
– I want to lose weight for my kids
– My doctor said I need to
– I want to feel good about my body
– I want to look good in a dress
– I want to look good in a bikini
– I want to be able to play sports
– I want to set a good example for my kids
– I need to lose weight or I’m going to lose my job
– My family member just got ill because of their weight and I don’t want to be the same
I’ve had lots of these reasons brought to me some of them are more common than others, but the trend I have seen with them is those people with a reason that they feel emotional about have reached their goals a lot more often than those people who just said they wanted to lose weight.
Some of you probably can’t relate to most of this because a) you’re not overweight or b) you’re not a perosnal trainer, but that’s ok because the principle is the same for every goal you set. In business for example if you set a goal to increase your revenue and the only reason is “I want more money” then you will find it hard to persevere when you come to a challenge. But if your reason for increasing revenue is something like “I want to send my kids to a better school” or “I want to create a bigger impact with my business” then you will find yourself more easily driven to continue on your goals.
Now that we have discussed how to best find your reason to do something I do want to touch on what I said earlier about my friend reaching out or not feeling like she could reach out.
Something I believe heavily in is the power of askign for help. It says a lot about you as a person if you are humble enough to ask for help, but what is even more powerful is taking action with the help you get. It’s great to be able to ask someone for help, but if someone has invested time and energy into helping you then the best way you can repay them is to take what they said, what you said and what you both agreed on and act upon it!
Another thing I’d like to mention is it’s ok for someone to help you find your motivation, just don’t rely on someone to actually moitvate you. When two people can openly discuss what’s important to them and why it’s important then naturally you will find more and more reasons that will motivate you.
I could go on and on about motivation and how I find it or how I would like you to find it, but in the end it all truly does come from within. It can be the result of outside factors but your reason for doing something is your own so make sure it’s powerful one
Thank you for reading!
Peace
As always I will leave you with a video that i think will compliment the blog so here is a short video with some powerful words to make you think about your motivation.
Kane Fitzpatrick 