I don’t know about you, but I as an entrepreneur struggle with what it takes to motivate myself, especially when fear is involved.
I listen every morning to Darren Hardy’s success tips and it was perfect timing for me to here his take on how to truly motivate yourself.
I started this year off with a great plan, working on projects that are do-able and and will push me out of my comfort zone. However, I still have some demons I need to battle because there are a few things on my list that are not staying on track according to my schedule.
There’s a couple of reasons, one is that I was overly ambitious about what time it takes to create a stellar online course and the other is that I’m afraid of putting myself out there in a big way – that I’ll fail somehow….
Yes that’s right…I’m afraid to create and launch an online course.
Even though I’ve built a system that works for a wide variety of my clients and I have a desire to be able to reach more people.
So what’s stopping me?
According to Darren Hardy we are motivated by one of two things:
- The carrot – the benefit
- Or the stick – the pain
Well I’ve got plenty of fear, but not put into the right place that’s going to motivate me. Instead it’s stopping me from moving forward.According to studies, we are more motivated by the stick than the carrot.
Doing what we have to do is much easier than what we should be doing….so what is there that you should be doing that you aren’t doing?
I’m asking that question of myself too.
If creating consequences is a great to motivate ourselves then why don’t more people apply this theory to their goal setting?
This type of motivation is called Loss Aversion Theory. As human beings we find it easier to avoid loses instead of acquiring gains. Losses are 2 times more powerful to motivate us than gains.
It has to hurt to be a real consequence that will motivate us…
This has me pondering about what does it take to personally motivate me. What will it take to turn my “have to’s” into “must do’s”. It’s kinds of scary to put oneself on the line like that.
Darren Hardy told a great story about how the stick method works and I’ll share it with you.
His wife had a friend who complained for over 13 years that she couldn’t loose 30 pounds. She tried all sorts of things and nothing seemed to work. She even tried a version of the stick where she wrote a check to a charity that got cashed when she did not reach the goal. Darren asked her about how she felt when she wrote the check and she said it did not bother her because she liked the charity.
Here’s where the breakdown occurred, the consequence did not make her suffer. Darren told her to try this again and this time to write a check to a charity that she hates.
Guess what?!
This time the consequence was big enough that it helped her to lose those 30 pounds.
So what is it going to take to truly motivate yourself to accomplish that one thing that will make the biggest difference in your life?
What are you avoiding or afraid of doing?
Apply this principle and watch the magic happen.
Let me know in the comments below how you’re going to motivate yourself.
