www.aiming-higher.co.uk
The motivation to succeed
Hello and welcome to February’s coaching column. How has your year gone so far? Are you still feeling positive and motivated, or are you slowly losing your desire and determination to succeed in achieving your aims?
The good news is, whether you are feeling either of the aforementioned, this month’s column will help you to identify and focus on your objectives and what needs to be done going forward.
This month we are looking at goal setting and understanding how our motivation works.
Traditionally at the start of every new year, we make resolutions that things are going to change i.e. I’m going to give up smoking; I’m going to get fit and lose weight; I’m going to make more of an effort to do this or that; start a new career or training course, and so many other things.
AND traditionally, after only three or four weeks, we’ve gone back to our old ways, lost our motivation and joined the ranks of the ‘I wishers’!
Firstly, resolutions rarely work and we need to replace resolutions with setting ‘goals’
Secondly, understanding our motivation for what we want to achieve is a major factor.
If what you want to achieve is a ‘should’, it is going to be much harder to maintain momentum, than if your goal is a ‘need’ i.e. I need to earn more money; I need to stop smoking; I need to get fit; I need to have better relationships. I ‘need’ is a much stronger emotion than a ‘should’ and will create a force much stronger in terms of your internal discipline.
The second part of understanding your motivation is whether you are a ‘towards’ or ‘away from’ type of person. I have only understood this myself in the last couple of years in terms of how my own motivation works.
I have spent years visualising having the figure of Elle McPherson – How I would feel when I had that kind of body, how I would feel wearing the clothes I want to wear, imagining the amount of energy I will have and so on ………… for me - projecting my vision forward never worked!
HOWEVER …….. once I started to think about how I didn’t want to be (and I imagined myself at my worst), the motivation to succeed was much stronger and my goal became more realistic and achievable.
Now I have to say, that whilst I still to not have the figure of Elle McPherson, I have been moving towards my goal far quicker and easier than I had done previously. So whilst you are ‘moving away’ from something, you are in fact moving towards what you want to achieve – all you’ve done is changed your focus!
What works for you? Are you an ‘away from’ or a ‘towards’ type of person?
Once you’ve thought about what you want to achieve this year, you need to make it a ‘goal’. A goal is far more compelling than a resolution, simply because goals are planned, time-phased and actioned. Here is a six-step process for setting your goal:-
- Set your goal in a positive and present tense sentence i.e. I am going to complete the London Marathon on Sunday 26th April 2009.
- Important! – You must write your goal down and place it in a prominent place so that you can be constantly reminded of your goal – especially important for those times when maintaining momentum is becoming challenging.
- Is this goal realistic? Do you know this to be achievable?
- List all the things that you could do to achieve this goal i.e. regular gym training, join a running club, lose weight, personal trainer, supplements, therapies etc etc….make it an exhaustive list and include the support you will need.
- Now…. From that list write down what you are going to do i.e. I’m going to join a running club and go once a week; go to the gym 3 x weekly, take the correct supplements to protect joints and start a healthy eating plan.
- Finally, when….are you going to do it? Plan…Plan……Plan……Plan………!!
In any goal setting, planning is absolutely key to your success – setting sub-goals along the way and focussing on these individually is a great way of maintaining momentum and measuring your progress.
What we put off until tomorrow becomes another empty yesterday!!
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Until next month, I’ll leave you with this great quote that came into my mailbox this week from ‘Simple Truths’; www.simpletruths.com
”Life is not about waiting for the storm clouds to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain”
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CONGRATULATIONS – Yvonne Slater from Lytham was the Lytham St Annes Express Coaching competition winner. Yvonne wins 4 hours of life coaching worth £240!
Feedback
As always, feedback is very important to us here at Aiming Higher and your thoughts and suggestions are welcomed. We would love to hear of any success stories too!
E-mail: wendy@aiming-higher.co.uk
Tel: 01253 731319 M: 07940 370867
www.aiming-higher.co.uk
Until next month.