The Secret to Motivation

A question that we as trainers at Dale Carnegie are often asked is what is the secret to motivating oneself. Whether it’s the motivation to make some extra calls to get new clients; the motivation to start that difficult project; the motivation to have that difficult conversation with a member of staff or perhaps even the motivation to get out of bed in the morning and go to work.

So what is the secret? Based on my own experiences and those I’ve heard from clients over the years the question should actually be in the plural what are the secrets? ..... There are many ways to motivate yourself to action the trick is finding what works for you.

Our founder Dale Carnegie writes in the book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ that ‘Enthusiasm’ is the secret of success and the key to motivating yourself. I’ve seen this work for many clients over the years as they’ve found a way to get excited about the task in hand. Focusing first on shifting our attitude towards a particular task before we start it can be the key. Like all techniques though it doesn’t work every time..... so what else can help us achieve what we don’t initially think is possible.

During a recent time management seminar we held a discussion on this topic of motivation and the question of tackling difficult or large tasks came up..... We were talking at the time about writing business plans and strategy. Everyone agreed that at some time or other they had been in the situation where they had to do a certain project and found themselves procrastinating as they didn’t even know where to start. Experiences discussed went all the way back to school and university days of writing essays. Through our conversation we came up with a few ideas of how to get started:

1.Breaking down the task into manageable pieces: This is a common technique but we added one refinement which was make your first task simply to decide how you’re going to tackle the project. By taking away the pressure of actually starting the task and just focusing on working out the ‘How’ we can often stop procrastinating and get started.

2. Make a small commitment: We discussed that it can make sense to set a time limit deciding that you’re going to work on a task for only one hour and no more can again help us to get started. Sometimes even taking this down to a ten minute commitment can be enough to get things moving. You might say ten minutes isn’t enough but give it a try and see how it impacts your attitude.

3. The burning platform: The idea is simple set the platform that you’re standing on alight and you’ll have to find the motivation to jump off it before it burns away. In business terms this can be committing to a colleague or perhaps a client that you’ll have something with them by a certain time. Our advice would be think carefully about this one before you try it but again it can really help you get moving.

If you haven’t tried these techniques before then give one a try today and see what difference it makes. If you’re looking to unlock your potential and are struggling to find the answer then come and join us this week at the preview of our flagship programme the Dale Carnegie Course in Effective Communications and Human Relations and find out how to motivate yourself to action.
Click here to book a place.

As always I hope you find the tips useful and hope you can join us for a training session soon.

David Anderson

Managing Director

http://www.london.dalecarnegie.com/