Motivation - It Takes What It Takes
Over time, our perceived effort toward a goal (how hard we work/what we are willing to sacrifice) will equal our motivation to achieve the goal. In other words, we will only work as hard as our current motivation level.
When there is a mismatch between motivation and our perceived effort, we change to equal them out again:
We decrease our performance or increase our motivation until they match.
This is great when our motivation is high and we raise our performance to match…but when our motivation fades, so does our activity.
Or we influence our motivation to match the effort we need to give to tackle a certain set of challenges on the way to achieving a goal or vision.
This provides consistent results over time.
Greatness takes what it takes!
In most situations, our desired outcome will not lower itself so that we can lower our efforts and still get the outcome or achieve our goals/dreams.
So, since the bar isn't often lowered, (home plate isn’t widened!), when the great encounter difficulties, they find a way to increase their efforts to match the challenges.
Greatness doesn’t lower itself to the level of effort you feel like giving any given day – it takes what it takes.
The result of understanding the inflexibility of greatness, and committing to give whatever effort necessary to win is consistent success, despite obstacles along the way.
On the other hand, many people give up when they encounter obstacles…because motivation fades if we are not careful to feed and fuel our motivation daily!
People don’t give up and give less effort because they are weak...it’s because they are human and our brains default setting is to pick the path of least resistance to protect ourselves.
The path of least resistance to get back to equilibrium when the brain notices our effort seems to be more than our motivation is to DECREASE effort until it matches our motivation.
This is built into our DNA, so we need to be aware of it to have a chance to change it – that’s why average is so prevalent, and greatness over time is so rare.
When we realize that our effort WILL decrease when our motivation decreases, we can make conscious choices to intentionally increase our motivation in service of accomplishing a goal or manifesting a vision.
There are a few keys to consciously nurture and feed our motivation to keep our effort high enough to reach our goals:
Get clear about what you want
Take the time to figure out what you want your life to look like – what do you want to have/do/be? What does success look like to you?
Then connect your daily activities to creating that life – usually hitting goals at work is simply a means to an end in service to the life you want, so get clear that you are hitting goals at work for YOU – not just for the company you work for.
Remind yourself of what you want – why you are doing what you are doing – daily! The moment you lose connection with your WHY, your motivation will begin to fade.
Increase belief in self by increasing confidence
Get comfortable doing hard things – get comfortable being uncomfortable!
Doing hard things in any area of life has a cross pollination effect that increases confidence in other areas – going hard at the gym helps increase confidence in other areas, and vice versa.
Accept reality
Let go of past regret/shame/blame (it’s gone)
Let go of future worries/anxieties (they haven’t happened yet)
Accept what is, right now, and DO what needs done based on the moment you are in right NOW
Then the rest is consistent action – try, fall down, try, come up short, try, try again – as many times as it takes to succeed – greatness take what it takes. Period.