Being able to keep yourself continually motivated toward your goals on a daily basis is an invaluable skill that once mastered can go a long way to ensuring your success in any pursuit. While motivation is not the be all and end all of success, its an aspect that very little can happen without. In actuality we are all motivated in many ways every day. Even if we are procrastinating and putting off taking action we are motivated, just toward a different end. Understanding the fundamentals of motivation theory is essential to your ability to take continual massive action. This article will explore the most intrinsic motivation theory and allow you to determine your own style of motivation and how to harness it for ultimate success.
There are many elements to motivation but in essence, each of us is primarily motivated to taking action in one of two ways. We are either motivated by the thought of moving TOWARD things or by moving AWAY FROM things.
Research has proven that the ingredients to motivation are the same whether the task is to get out of bed in the morning or to hit a sales target at work. Regardless of the desired outcome the same forces of motivation either away from things or toward them, are continually at work. While we each exhibit instances of each kind of motivation, most people will tend to favor one over the other.
Understanding under which of these categories you fall is essential to keeping continually motivated.
“Toward” Motivation
One group of people, myself included are motivated by the notion of moving toward things. This group gets excited by the thought of what they might achieve, or the pleasure that will be gained through the attainment of some task in the future. “Toward” people are usually goal orientated, entrepreneurial types who like ‘getting things done’. They will find themselves waking from bed most easily by thoughts of the things they get to do in the day. They will be motivated to take a break from work by the thought of who they might be able to talk to, or what other things they might get done. Basically they move toward the things they want.
“Away From” Motivation
The other group of people are motivated by the notion of moving away from things are painful or uncomfortable. This group takes action after the consequences of not taking action become too dire and they have to ‘avoid’ some negative consequence. “Away from” thinkers are more aware of problems and they take action in a way that removes them from those problems as much as possible. “Away from” people will wake from bed in the morning at the thought of avoiding having their boss yell at them.
What To Watch Out For If You Are “Toward”
Toward motivated people are often so Gung Ho that they will leap into activities or pursuits without proper consideration of the potential risks or dangers involved. They are possibility thinkers, they see opportunities and are focused on the end result. Being this way means that they often avoid the thought of the ‘downside’ and press forth with less careful analysis and strategy. Also as a toward motivated person you can start to lose motivation when the progress toward your goals lessens. When you aren’t getting the pleasure fix of achieving it is easy to weaken your efforts and become discouraged, and because you don’t have as much inclination to move “away from” that pain, it can take longer to get yourself back on track.
What To Watch Out For If You Are “Away From”
The challenge with “away from” individuals is that they can get so caught up in possible problems and complications that they can scare themselves out of taking action all together. Because they like to analyze things so deeply and “look before they leap” so to speak, they can easily get caught in the paralysis of analysis and be prevented from taking action altogether. Further more, stress and anxiety can become a big issue for “away from” people. Because a lot of their thinking involves problems, when problems mount up too high, it is common for them to feel overwhelmed.
Tips For “Toward” Motivation
The most important thing for toward motivated individuals is to use the momentum that your energy for success will generate. You will get a lot of work done when you get on a roll of being continually excited about the tasks you are being set to perform. As a toward person, your motivation will be increased the more frequently and more clearly you can look to the future at the things you want. You will feel a mental ‘salivation’ by being able to clearly visualize the things you want and you will feel more compelled to pursue them. Take advantage of your toward motivation by focusing on what you want out of a situation when you feel your motivation waning. Concentrate on everything you will gain by completing a task and you will feel your energy immediately rise. Furthermore it will be helpful to keep the company of some “away from” motivated individuals who can bring you back down to earth and alert you to some of the potential problems involved in your lofty schemes.
Tips For “Away From” Motivation
If you are motivated by moving away from things the first thing you need to learn to do is “build the pain” quickly. Quite often you will find yourself not taking action until the pain becomes too great which means your progress will be slower. What you need to do is illustrate clearly the pain involved in not taking action and if necessary exaggerate it so that you won’t wait too long to actually DO something. For example when your alarm goes off and you hit the snooze button you should get into the habit of illustrating clearly how much pain will be involved if you don’t get up right now! Identify all the kinds of pain you will experience and in what quantities so that you will be ‘scared’ in a way into taking action sooner rather than later. Sounds sadistic but that’s how you people operate and there’s nothing wrong with that! Also, you should develop a sturdy process for your review of problems that involves finding an end solution. You will find that analyzing potential problems is only helpful up to a certain point after which you have to start looking at HOW you are going to avoid that problem ie thinking of a SOLUTION that will work for you. Finally as with toward motivated people, you will do well to keep the company of some of your counterparts who can give you a kick in the pants when you are taking too long to make decisions.
Which Style Are You?
Just from the above descriptions you should already have some idea of which category you are in. Take a few days to monitor your thought patterns and notice whether you find yourself taking action when you are excited by things or when you are concerned by things. Also watch your language. Words like gain, achieve, accomplish, get, discover, learn, find etc are toward words while ones like avoid, escape, save from, problem, won’t have to” etc are away from words.
Remember each style has its advantages and disadvantages and the most important thing is realizing what motivates you personally and harnessing that force so that you can take continual loads of massive action. I trust this knowledge of motivation theory will allow you to take a big step forward in your ability to remain consistent and achieve your goals.
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