Whether you are trying to lose a little of that Christmas insulation, just straight out obese and need to lose half your body weight or you need to make the ends meets like no ends have ever needed meeting before … everyone needs a little motivation.
There is always something to strive for, always something to fight for and always something to be motivated about. A wedding, a new job, got no job, sports, work, dating, catching a fish, catching a wave or catching the train on time.
And what better way to achieve your ultimate goal than by getting yourself MOTIVATED?
Have you ever tried doing something that you really did not want to do? It was hard wasn’t it? Me, I get dragged along shopping with my wife whenever I’m not quick enough to think of an excuse. And man, it is so depressing. You just walk around in a dazed trance, from shop window to shop window, being used as a coat rack for all the things in the store that your wife doesn’t want!
The shopping could technically all be done in a matter of minutes but nooooo, they want to look, and try, and feel and talk and five hours later they have a tiny white bag with some pharmaceuticals and if you’re lucky they have a new top or something, you are completely de-hydrated (why are those places always so hot?) totally beaten and defeated and a whole day seems wasted.
Doesn’t sound like fun. But what if my wife, what if all wives around the planet motivated us simple creatures into going shopping. What if they said to us?
Hey sweetie, listen I’ll make you a deal.
Ok they have our attention now, men love deals.
How about you come along shopping with me which I know is absolute torture for you … so for lunch we can stop at the pub, I’ll order you a pint of your favourite amber, you get to eat a big fat juicy rump steak with the most delicious sauce of your choice, we can stare at the walls for ten minutes and not say a single word to each other, complete silence.
When we arrive back home, if you have been extra special to me during our shopping trip you get to watch whatever you want on the TV even if it is two grown men punching each other in the head and then after dinner when the kids are in bed, let’s say you and me get a little cosy 😉
Now that, that is how you motivate a man, any man into doing what any female wants him to do. Yeah sure I get it, maybe we need to tweak that sentence a little to cater for the men that prefer scotch or prefer to watch the news, whatever. The point is that it was easy enough to do.
You see if you a have a reason for doing something, or even better doing something well. Then you have an extra special reason for obtaining that goal.
Do you think that when world class athletes train for the Olympics that all they want is a Gold Medal? No! They want the fame, they want the attention, they want the recognition for all their hard work, they want the media and publication deals afterwards. It sweetens the deal that much more.
I think it was Anthony Robbins who wrote about the effects of Pleasure and Pain in his book Awaken the Giant Within in relation to motivation. His theory is simple: if something is pleasurable or painful it can be used as a motivating factor. The extent to which it works its magic is equal to the grade or level of pleasure and/or pain.
I want you to imagine something for me: imagine you are in the water, at the beach. You are having a lovely day. The sun is out; you have no worry in the world at this particular point in time. Life could not be any better right now. Within seconds, your perfect day is turned into hell on Earth when you see a Sharks fin darting at you with what seems like UN-realistic speed.
“Arghhhhhhhhhhh!” is what you want to scream.
But you don’t scream, you don’t whimper, you just start swimming, you start swimming for the sand harder than you have ever swum before. Your mind is perfectly clear. You thrash your tentacles through the air and smash them into the water harder and faster than any time ever before in your life, your legs are paddling behind you so hard that your right calf muscle cramps up and you barely feel it.
You can see the shore is in reach now. You start yelling and screaming and at this point the swim has turned into some mixture of a salmon dance and something UFC fighters do to each other. “Sand!, sand!” you feel the hard sea floor under your feet and for a moment if you were to capture it, this is the most welcome thing that you have experienced in months, years maybe, sand on the bottom of the sea floor. Unfortunately you don’t have time to enjoy it.
You jump and heave and barge your way for a while at the same time screaming “Shark! SHAAAARK!”
The shore, you have reached the shore, you collapse, totally puffed and winded, face down into the sand and for a moment it seems like you are really alive. There is nothing, no words, nothing. You are alive.
This is motivation. It was not brought about by a three thousand dollar weekend motivation session with business elite, peers and trendy consultants.
It was not taken from the books of great authors or psychologists.
It was you. It was all you … well you… and a shark.
You see, like the positive example above with the shopping - this was a negative example - pleasure and pain, both can motivate, and both are ultimately powerful.
How you motivate yourself is up to you and you only. You can read books, get ideas, seek counsel, and watch television shows like “The Biggest Loser”. At the end of the day nobody and nothing is going to be the Shark for you. The Shark is an illusion, the Shark does not exist. It never did.
You reached the shore earlier all by yourself. The thing that motivated you to get to the shore was the thought that you will have your legs torn off and that you will die a horrible cold death.
It was all psychological, all of it.
You just did it. Didn’t you? You didn’t think, didn’t ask questions, and didn’t get advice, read a book or attended a motivational event or seminar. Your mind was clear, the goal was in target and the body just did the rest.
As good old NIKE used to say, Just Do It!
This is a Guest Article written by Tom Byrde