Motivation

I've often wondered about Motivation and what it really means. Why are some people highly motivated & others aren't? These are some of the questions I address in this week's episode.

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E103 - Motivation.wav

MOTIVATION

What's up, my beautiful people? I hope you're well and enjoyed my last episode. If you listen to it, which is all about monogamy and marriage, I really enjoyed that episode so and I had some great feedback in terms of people really loving interviews. And as I said before, it does take time to find. People who can naturally speak and go deep in what we want to talk about, but today this is a nice short one. This is about motivation and I felt compelled to do this one because people say to me that I'm really motivated. And how do I keep going? Obviously there's a bit of resilience in there. And I think it's because, you know, I've said to people that at the moment, I'm finding it really tough in finding work. But you keep going, right? What do you do? People want to understand what that motivation is. I want to understand what motivation is and how do you get it if you haven't got it, what are the traits of highly motivated people? I've got some interesting. Points to raise there, but also what drives you? I think This is why I really wanted to delve a little bit deep and and give you a nice short sharp intro into my. Innovation, because there are two sides to it because it's one of the driving forces behind human nature. It fuels competition and you know it sparks that social connection. If you haven't got it or you aren't motivated. Then you may have a mental illness or you know, you know someone that can never get motivated to do anything. That's quite extreme, because I think some people just go through life and they just they just do right, but they are not motivated to do anything. And I've it's funny when people have said to me, you're motivated even when times are rough. But you know, it's a bit rough now, if I'm honest. But I'm smiling. You can hear me smiling through my words as I talk to you on this. And so I think just to be clear, that motivation is the psychological process that stimulates excitement and persistence of voluntary. Directions, which is aimed at some kind of goal. So let's say I'm motivated to get different work right now. You know, I want to go permanent. I want to stop working for myself for a bit, and I'm motivated by. That, and the only thing that's going to push that down is if I run out of money. So the goal is not to run out of money to get work and get it in something that I want to do. And you know, it's really important because if I didn't have that motivation to do that, what am I living for? Not just about work. I'm just talking about and everything. So, you know, there are so many circumstances that can impact motive. Action, whether it's marriage, illness, death, I mean last year, as I said before, I remember, you know, a couple of people who lost people in their lives and they weren't motivated to, to work out or or do anything really, because everything was just all consuming. And then, you know, motivation, like marriage is just kind of cool, I guess if that's your. If that's your thing, it could be a new job. It could be going on holiday. I know that. How motivated I am when I'm going away. It builds and builds and builds in that last week or so. And then when I get to the airport, that's it. But then there's economic factors that are, you know, be unmotivating. I need to say demotivating. Are you demotivated, but it's unmotivated. So I just have to correct myself there. Economic factors such as financial stability or instability, it's unique for everyone and is always changing because what motivates you? May not motivate me and a lot of it is based on emotion. So if you're feeling unmotivated, not demotivated, it could be fear, which is behind a lot of things in our life. When I think about if I'm not motivated to do something, actually I I actually, I'm going to dispute this right? Because, you know, I research everything, although fear inhibits your ability to think objectively. And believe in yourself and you fear about making mistakes. So don't start face the fear and do it anyway is what I will say to that. Let's say I'm unmotivated to do the cleaning. That's not fear. I'm not fearful of it. I just don't want to do it. And then I think. OK, let me motivate myself to do the cleaning because I'll have a little spring clean. At the same time, so I really think it depends on what you're doing. And I'm not saying that, I guess everything is a little goal, isn't it? Like, I know that I've got clean the house from top to bottom. It's a goal to do it. I'm not motivated at the moment, but I will be motivated. For example, if I see. Too much lint on the floor. I don't know. This sounds really stupid or whatever. And like today, if you see if you could see me now. Thank God this podcast isn't on YouTube at the moment because I have got this cap on my head. I'm dying. My graze, my beautiful people. I'm dying my graze and I was motivated to do it this weekend. Because I found a new henna cream, I can't use the normal hair dye. Those. Uhm, because I get allergic reactions and also I'm not ready to go all grey yet. And I think I've got issues with ageing because I think Grey is with age and yet it's not because one of my friends, daughters, many years ago her daughter went grey at the age of nine years old. Can you imagine dealing with that it. Yeah. So anyway. Just saying that I was motivated because I bought a new hammer cream and couldn't wait. But I think sometimes if we set the wrong goals. Think we need to think because that's when you can feel unmotivated. Think whether that end goal will fulfil your will fulfil you. Well, let's put it this way. If this henna cream it should fulfil me, especially the Greys aren't evident. I'm gonna be whooping all day and you've got to think about. Are you aiming too high with the goal now with the henna cream? Could I think that this new colour, which is mahogany which is meant to hide greys? Am I putting too much emphasis on that that that's actually gonna work? It might not. And then if I fail, I'll be I'll become unmotivated. Rated to die again, but I think I won't, you know, because my goal is to hide my graze. And I think to make sure that you are feeling motivated most of the time practise some self-care because otherwise depression sets in and I've I can't say I I think I sometimes think I am depressed at times and I'm motivated. But you know the one thing that keeps me going and I'm always going to bang on about it is. To exercise even yesterday I was unmotivated to do really anything. And I wanted just to chill and a friend had said you want to get together. And I said not really. And when I went to the gym later on really late for me in the afternoon, it was like I was bouncing about like. Tigger. I really was bouncing around. It was really funny. How'd you get motivated? Well, I think you need to set some goals. You know, like I've done with the work scenario like I've done with doing things in my house and you need some deadlines as well. So they need to be kind of smart, which is specific, measured, realistic. I can't remember all of them, smart, all the smart goals and you need to break them down, especially they're bloody big ones, right? So if you say I want to like one of my goals is to play the keyboard. Well, I'm going to break that down. I need to buy the keyboard. I need to have the money to buy the keyboard, and then I need to have lessons. So there are your bits, but also before that I think it's the money and where am I going to put this keyboard so I break it down, find space in my house which I've done or going to do. Then I need to save the money. Then I will order it and find the best deals possible and then I will play through lessons. And I think it's, you know, knowing what your goals are. Some people don't have any goals which is interesting, or they don't recognise it as a goal, even if they say I want to buy some clothes next week, that's. The goal, and you should I'm always motivated by shopping. It doesn't take much to make me unmotivated. However, I am at the moment. Funnily enough, it doesn't excite me at all. I'm not motivated to go shopping. Maybe it's because I need to get some more money to be able to do it, but also I think I've had a closer look at you know what's in my wardrobe and things that I have already. And sometimes we just. Life for the sake of buying so breaking those big goals. If you have a big goal, which is to, I don't know, be the managing, Managing director of a company in 10 years time or own your own business. Break those down into manageable tasks and every time you achieve one of those small tasks towards your. The goal you need to celebrate each milestone and you know that's really, really important because sometimes we don't do that. And. I think there's highs and lows with all of that, but I think celebrating a milestone is great and and and I do it all the time and remember, motivation fuels the mindset and you need the discipline to achieve those goals long or short term, you need to cultivate a positive mindset. I try to do this in my morning rituals. Before 8:00 AM, and sometimes I get in a tizzy when a friend may ask how I'm doing because I then go into. You know, it's all right. And actually I'm feeling fine, but I'm externally putting that out there on somebody else and I don't need to do that. And I think do I practise self compassion, which is being kind to myself in facing certain challenges. I don't hardly know. I'm really hard on myself. And what about you? Do you practise that kind of, OK. It's OK. Things are going to be alright tomorrow. Blah blah blah. Or do you beat yourself up because you need to focus on your strengths and that's really important because when you focus on your strength, you get purpose. When you get purpose, you get motivated and you need to do a little bit of visualisation. It's so powerful. People and you see yourselves achieving those goals like often I'll go to bed and I see myself on stage in a band playing keyboard and singing. And that's because people have told me. I've got a great voice, not only for this, but also I know I'm very musical. And so in terms of work, what I've done with the visualisation, I've put Post-its around my house. That, say my new job will be rewarding. I can't wait to start in April, and there's one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom. All the usual places that I go to quite a lot in the day. And yeah, I had a friend's husband who is totally unmotivated, has been out of work a long time, and she said he just sits at his computer just staring at it. Literally waiting for a job to pop through, whereas I will go and do other things. And now what? I'm now starting to do rather than focusing on it everyday, I will plan a day like, you know, in the next couple of days, I'm gonna go to the cinema with my friend to see Bridget Jones again. Bridget Jones mad about a boy. If you haven't seen it, it's a proper girly flick. Absolutely love it. Renee Zellweger. And then we're going to have a look at a new gym, which I can't afford. But, you know, it might be my goal in the future. So it will fuel me and motivate me. It's way too expensive. I'd have to work around that. And so, uh, yeah, I think, you know, the visualisation thing and those that whole cultivating that positivity, it just builds some confidence and I feel confident when, for example, with work I've done an application, put it in, if it doesn't come through, doesn't come through. But I've done it and I'm trying to develop these healthy habits. Routine self-care. Eliminating distraction. So friends moan at me and say God your phone is off or I tried you because I put it on play mode because otherwise I sit there scroll. And as I've said before, social media can be a really damning to mental health. I also don't put TV on during the day. It would be so easy to stay in bed and not do anything. But the TV doesn't go on doing sorry during the day and I've got a dedicated workspace. So I've got my desk and I go and sit it there, put the computer on whatever I do, and blah blah blah. And just have music playing. The other thing I've done in the last couple of weeks, especially to do work is and what loads of people could do is seek accountability and support, which means you're going to have to open up to somebody. I've told everybody about my situation with work because I think the more people that know, the more that can be, that people can help you and and and they will reach out. So I do that. Because it's trying to get people on my side and knowing ohh yeah, putting time in front of mine. Maybe when it comes to work. I'm also telling people that I want to join a cycle group and I want to bring black people together to cycle, especially black women, because there's not a lot of us right in the world cycling and I want that. So I've put that in the universe. I'm actually telling people in my close circle that I want a group of women to cycle together cause I think it be really bloody. And the good thing that happened with work, as I said to you when I told people. A friend said to me, look, I would. I can find you a pro bono coach if that would help you to unlock some creative things that I think about. And I don't do anything about perhaps, and that started and that was really good. So you know, now it's really cool that I have a coach. And I think when someone constantly. Feels unmotivated or struggling to get motivated. Then look at their mental health. Do they need therapy, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera? Let's hope not. I think you need to remember what motivated you in the 1st place. Why did you start and stick with whatever motivates you and I think about my journey with cycling, which is my new thing. People is still fitness, but I was motivated last year. I kept seeing all these. The cyclists go out on Sunday morning and whizz past my window at 8:00 and I thought I actually like it because I'm a bit of a ******. So when you're in. Like a you're out in nature B. You're looking around you and see surroundings more. And I thought, no, I'm seeing so many of my male friends doing this cycling thing and I just had this normal mountain bike and would go out maybe once every two months. I decided to change my bike and what motivated me to change my bike is because I wanted to become a better cyclist. And I've got a road bike, which means I've got the drop handles. I'm leaning over more and I thought. And I buy that bike. I'm going to go out no matter what in the weather, at least twice a week. If I can minimum once a week. So that's up the ante from what I used to do. I bloody love it. I absolutely love it. So I started it. I was motivated by getting the road bike, and now I just want to find a nice group of people that I can go out with, even if it's once a week. Or every two weeks and just get into it, man, and do some distant cycling. Ah, love it. And I've taken my motivation from others in that field. And you know, that can come from anybody, from friends, family. The amount of times I get motivated by podcasts, I listen to diary of a CEO quite a lot and I will just suddenly come up with something or there's something I've read in my personal development book in the morning and that's it. I'm motivated to do something and but similarly, you also need to take a break from stuff, take a break like I do with work. Sometimes I think I'm not looking at jobs today. And I keep going on about this, but I take a break and just do something different. Obviously. I've talked about my vision boards, which I absolutely adore because it provides a constant reminder of what I'm working towards, and I got a vision board for work. I've got a vision board for finding my life. Partner and I've got a vision board for different things like I will book a holiday by X or I will cause you know I've got this inflammatory disease called sarcoidosis. I will eat less inflammatory foods. All this kind of stuff. It's all on a board that I look at every single morning. What is also important is, well, that for. Example, if I don't get an interview or if I get an interview and I haven't got through, I embrace that failure. If if we can call it a failure and I seek it as a learning opportunity and I think that's really important because some people get. So I'm gonna say demotivated. I'm sure it's a bloody word demotivated if they failed at something and they can't pick themselves back up. I guess it depends on the severity. Of what they failed at. But don't let fear of failure hold you back if you setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow. Because as people have said to me, I'm very resilient. That resilience drives you forward and helps you learn from your failures. Keep it moving, people keep it moving forward. Here's a few things for you. Did you know activation, persistence and intensity are the key things of motivation. Which to remind you is why a person does something. Think about motivation as the thing, quote, unquote, that helps you lose weight. Pushes a promotion in work. Helps you save money because you want to get that high, you know, let's take the lose weight thing. The motivation to lose weight would be health reasons. Get into smaller clothes and look good. So you're motivated to do that if it's going on holiday, then you think about right. Gonna work really hard. I'm going to save money. But I think one of the big things is the motivating factor for a lot of people. But at the moment I see around me the young ones is to buy a property so they are going to seek. They're motivated to look for a job that pays more. They are motivated to do more things in home and socialise as opposed to spend money. And I think, you know, if you're motivated, if you have this strong urge inside you to achieve goal. A sense of purpose and willingness to take the initiative, even if faced with a challenge, and I think back to times when I've had purpose to take the initiative, even if I've been faced with challenges, particularly even when I was younger and in care, there was a lot of times that I wanted to give up and think I'm just a Holmes kid or. I belong to somebody else, hence the my life, not yours. Title of this podcast. That's how it started. And then I thought, no, I am going to be a better person. I am going to prove everybody right and I'm not going to be labelled. That was my biggest motivation. I'm not going to be labelled and you can be motivated. By your proactive behaviour and your persistence in your resilience and your focus and concentrate even when tasks are difficult or boring. And you know, I I feel that there's a lot of people that are motivated because they approach these tasks with enthusiasm and they're eager. And I think being able to. Identify your strengths and weaknesses. You can use that to your advantage, that knowledge to your advantage, and if you always reflect on the why you want to do something, it will help you discover your motivation and purpose. Which I said earlier and I think I've been reflecting on that a lot in terms of why do I exercise, why do I want to find a new job? Well, the motivation for the job thing is because. Being out of work like this, I want some security because I want to pay off my house. That's the big goal. So if you think about it, the big goal is to pay off what's left on the House that I've bought, because I don't own it outright yet. And so that motivation is fueled by earning more money, et cetera. When you feel motivated or when I feel motivated, I feel confident and energetic and I get excited about things on the horizon. Now I am excited. Going into full time work, I'm excited about joining the cycling. I'm excited about playing the keyboard, excited about finding a meaning, but it does have a lot to do with emotions and mood, so it fluctuates naturally because until things shift, your mood could be just. Flatlined. Or it could be really high 1 moment, and I think there's a massive difference. So I'm having a stretch of my voice sounded a bit weird then between feeling motivated and being motivated. They're totally different. Let me break this down. Being motivated is having a consistent drive or purpose that pushes you towards achieving your goals or completing tasks. It's a constant state of being rather than a fleeting emotion, IE teen as a motivated gym goer. Remember, I'm being motivated. I am a gym goer. Well, I'm a I'm a workout, her right? Cause I don't go in the gym all the time for any stretch of the imagination, but I am motivated to work out five to six times a week and that is being motivated. Feeling motivated is totally different. It's a temporary state of enthusiasm or inspiration that can. Fluctuate. It's an emotional response to a situation or task or idea. I have plenty of motivated feelings I really do, but do they often go anywhere edgy? I feel motivated to look at and new business, or I feel motivated after meeting Carol, a good friend of mine, but it doesn't extend. I mean, more than that. Yeah, I find that quite interesting cause the biggest one for me out of everything I've mentioned is being motivated to work out. That's my biggest thing and I do it no matter what, no matter what. So I just want to finish. On traits of really highly motivated people, #1 resilience. If you don't know the Navy seals or if you don't know Olympians, think about the highest performers and you know through everything they are resilient. Think NASA astronauts and the reason why I mentioned them is because it was quite interesting. Showing those astronauts that got caught in space for nine months and when they came back, they looked really aged. They've grown in height, but their bone density has gone. Man, I find it absolutely extraordinary and they're totally motivated to go to the moon and the amount of training and whatever, but they undergo intense training and they face extreme challenges and that could be a boss in work or something mental toughness of high, highly motivated people. They have this. This capability to push past the limits and handle pressure and stay focused on the goals, even in difficult situations, so nothing phases them man. Oh my God, I'm not I'm not highly motivated like that, but I just know some people who are and they will stop at nothing until they get what they are. I've got a friend like that actually it's almost. Robotic, though, and it's just. I don't know goal setting. They set specific, challenging and achievable goals and they have a road map of how they're going to get there. And as I said before, the easiest way to do that is to break them down into smaller, actionable baby tasks or steps. They're disciplined and they're dedicated and to whatever they do and they have strict. Regimes and practise consistently and maintain a strong work ethic, you know? Think about Olympians and people who work out. Obviously, I'm gonna keep saying that and think about entrepreneurs who keep building business upon business upon business. They've got that visualisation of what they. To achieve and they go after it. There's also routines and rituals. They have very specific daily routines. I mean, I know I do my little mind thing in the morning, but that doesn't even touch the sides. But they prepare the mindset and fuel the discipline necessary for that extreme focus and time management and relentless prioritisation. God, it feels exhausting just talking about it, to be honest. Adaptability. They will adapt to any change in circumstance, and it's interesting that I was doing the Myers Briggs test personality. And you know the one that sometimes workplaces can get you to do and it says, are you good at adapting to change. I have to put sometimes because I'm not good sometimes. I'm just, you know, I get comfortable with what I know, I guess. And do you are you adaptable, maybe practise something out of some of the things I'm mentioning, teamwork and collaboration I think is really kind of stemmed towards work. Remember, we're talking about highly motivated people, but they do understand the importance of teamwork and they build these strong teams and don't take all the credit and they want these partnerships because at the end of the day, you're only as good as the team around you. So that is really work based, I think. And well, no, not really. I go sport. And anything where you work in a team or something like that, outside of work mindset and visualisation, using that mental rehearsal. And visualisation the techniques you can use to prepare for challenges. As we know for visualisation and visualisation isn't just about visualising, let's say let's let's take sport, because that's the easiest one. I visualise. I'm going to do the long jump which I used to do. I jump off and I do a big jump. I also visualise what it is like to do a no jump and I. Have no jump loads of times, you get 6 jumps, right? And if you do it five times, you have to visualise what how you come back from that. No jump, or if the wind is in your face or something like that. What does that look like? And I do it even with my cycle. I visualise what it's going to be like to go outside and have the the wind in my face. Do I then think shall I start with a hill first? Or if I go that direction it's really weird, but anyway that leads me to continuous improvement because those people who are highly motivated are committed, I mean committed beyond reasonable doubt to growth and improvement. They seek feedback. Do I seek feedback all the time on things? No. I've started getting better, especially in the work scenario. Now my CV. I've shown it to people I've learned from. I wouldn't call them mistakes, but amends that I need to make and I'm always looking for ways to enhance my skills and performance. So you know, that's been a bit of an eye opener in the past few weeks with my CV and what I can do and my profile on LinkedIn. But you know, think about yourselves. How can you? Keep improving. What do you need to do there? Is it having that accountability? Is it having people around you and then risk taking? All these successful people, they disrupt the industry, they innovate, they push boundaries and explore territories that haven't been touched before in their field. And I really love that. And I think about some of the most successful people. In the world, whatever success means to you, that's what they've done. If you I. That's why I love an autobiography and I get motivated by autobiographies, my people. So maybe you think about that too. So in a nutshell, motivation is important in our lives and is the driving force behind our actions. I don't care if it's washing up. Washing the car, chilling or shopping like the motivation for chilling could be I need my rest to be able to perform well tomorrow, mentally and physically. You know, I like to work out and the motivation is a thing, quote. Quote. That helps you get closer to your goals. And on that note, replay this podcast episode on motivation. If you're feeling a little bit down in the dumps and you need some motivation, think about some of the techniques I've mentioned, from accountability to setting some little goals, and it could be anything. You know, I think about last year and I set a goal the year before about I've got to get a new shed. You know, it sounds really tedious, but the shed was leaking and whatever. So I set this goal. I broke it down because it was. Offensive. I had to find someone to help me do it, yada yada yada. I achieved that goal, man. My friend helped me. We got it. I've been researching sheds for at least six months. I went to look at them and I said to my neighbours yesterday when I walked out in the garden. I love my new shed. I'm really proud of it. And on that note, before I bore you into the abyss, have a wonderful week. Or whenever you're listening to this, be good, think about motivation and check in with me next time.