Rekindling the Fire: The Search for Motivation by Mark Wager
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Rekindling the fire: the search for motivation
By Mark Wager
When you are motivated, you are focussed. There is fire burning inside your heart and you feel like nothing can stop you. The world is yours to mould into whatever you want it to be. You feel you are on top of the world. Yet on the downside when that fire has gone out minutes feel like hours and hours feel like days. You start to question everything you do and you just feel like an insignificant thing lost within a huge world. There’s no question which feeling is better. However, when you have lost that fire and it happens to all of us at some time or another, what on earth can we do to get it back?
The first step to rekindle your inner fire is to understand where motivation comes from. Your inner drive occurs when two questions are answered.
What is the reason to change?
What is the reason to believe?
To be motivated to do anything you need to know what the fundamental single reason for change really is. If you are perfectly happy with everything in your life then why would you be motivated to do anything? There has to be a difference between the reality to where you are now and the perception of where you should be. Notice that I said should be rather than want to be. This fundamental reason has to generate a stronger reason than just wanting something. When there is a difference between your current reality and where you believe you should be your non-conscious mind creates a feeling of anxiety, of discomfort. It is this discomfort that will light your passion to succeed as long as the second question is answered. What is the reason to believe? In order for the discomfort generated to turn into motivation you have to have the fundamental belief that you can make that change. If this doesn’t exist then the discomfort has a negative effect and life suddenly becomes a lot less bright. The answers have to be brutally honest otherwise they won’t generate the necessary motivation to overcome the obstacles that you face with every challenge.
Every January the most common New Year’s resolution you hear is people wanting to go to the gym and lose weight. What happens is gyms have a spike in membership every January and in most cases sign people up to 12 month memberships. Why do they do this? It’s because they know that the majority of people approx around 80-90% don’t visit the gym after the first month. By then the motivation has gone. The reason will be a failing in one of the two questions. For example someone may think their reason to change is because they want to look better and the reason to believe is that going to the gym twice a week will make this happen. I know as a Leadership Coach these answers are a warning sign that they are not strong enough, not personal enough and not coming from the core of their being and the chances are that as soon as they hit the first obstacle the motivation vanishes.
The key to finding out the true personal answers to the questions of what is the reason to change and what is the reason to believe is to ask a third question. That question is “why?” Ask yourself why and keep on asking yourself this until you can’t answer it anymore and be prepared you might find the answer is not a comfortable one and often one people have difficulty sharing. Using the gym example, if a person says they want to lose weight to look better then they need to ask themselves why and keep on asking why until they reach the core of their being when there are no more whys. All that remains is the fundamental brutal truth. It is not uncommon to find that people have set themselves a wrong goal. I’ve seen people who do this realise that weight-loss isn’t the true goal. The true goal is self-acceptance, an equally admirable and difficult goal. Another thing to remember is that the answers have to be personal to you. The reason should not involve other people or what think or what they want. True effective motivation is an internal power and is generated by you and you can be inspired by someone else but the kind of motivation that gets you through the hard times, the obstacles, the challenges only comes from one place and that’s inside you.
Just remember when your inner fire has gone out, don’t blame other people and don’t give up. Remember it is time to reflect and when you are feeling discomfort in any area of your life whether it’s the workplace or in relationships again it’s your internal alarm system that is telling you to ask yourself those two difficult questions
What is the real reason to change?
What is the real reason to try?
About the Author:
Mark Wager is one of New Zealand's leading Leadership Mentors, Mark is an expert in turning effective Managers into inspirational leaders. To contact Mark regarding Team Building or leadership coaching use the enquiry form below
Posted: Monday 28 October 2013