Bobb Biehl – Executive Mentor

 

If you were to ask me the difference between a mature person and an immature person, I’d say one of the most fundamental differences is this:  the immature person has to wait for someone to motivate her/him, whereas the mature person has discovered some way of internally motivating herself/himself.  In this piece I’m going to give you three fundamental things that will help you to motivate yourself whether anyone else is around or not.

 

 

 

The first fundamental is to understand is that you do what you do partly because of your past.  I wrote a book called Why You Do What You Do.  In the book, I explain that there are eight reasons people do what they do.  As you read them, it’s likely you will think you know that you need all those things.  Yes, we all need these things, but there’s one thing in this list that you need more than any of the others.  Once you identify that, you have the bull’s eye of what drives you.  That’s what you want to be in touch with, because that’s what will be the source of a lot of your drive-energy in life.

 

The eight needs are, to be:

 

Loved

Significant

Admired

Recognized

Appreciated

Secure

Respected

Accepted

 

Go back through the list again.  As you read each need, I want you to rate yourself on a scale of one to ten (with one meaning, “I’ve had that all my life, it’s not important to me” and ten being, “I really need that – that is what drives me, it’s why I get out of bed in the morning”).  Rating yourself in this way will help you identify the bull’s eye of your own motivational interior core.

1.  How important is LOVE to you, on a scale of one to ten?

2.  How do you rate SIGNIFICANCE, being able to make a significant difference or contribution in life, on a scale of one to ten?

3.  How important is it to you to be ADMIRED, to have people look up to you?

4.  On a scale of one to ten, how important is it to be RECOGNIZED?

5.  Next is to be APPRECIATED, that is to be told thank-you for doing a good job – how important is that to you?

6.  How important is SECURITY – to feel safe and secure, confident that you’re not going to be dependent on something or someone and then be abandoned?

7.  The next need is to be RESPECTED, to be treated as an adult equal – how much does that drive you?

8.  Lastly, how important is it to be ACCEPTED as a part of the group . . . to be liked, to be accepted?

 

What drives you from the past?  Which of those eight needs is the most important to you?  That need is the bull’s eye of your motivational core.  It keeps you going day after day after day, so that need will be met.  This is a key to understanding your self-motivation!

 

 

 

There is one word that keeps you motivated – it’s like a battery that lasts forever – and that word is dream.  Once you have a dream that’s crystal clear, your energy doesn’t go away.  Your dream is the difference you plan to make in life sometime before you die.   Ask yourself this one question right now, “What difference would I most like to make in life sometime before I die?”  Your answer to this question is in fact your dream.  This is what will motivate you for a life time.

 

What you have answered is the thing that can get you going every day of your life is to see that dream become real.  You may have a dream that you have kept hidden deep inside your heart – what you want to do, or be, or have.  You may not tell a soul, but every morning your dream gets you out of bed and gets you going.  It’s just as motivating as it would be if you wrote it in the sky and said, “This is what I want to do someday.”

 

 

 

The third thing needed to establish that deep abiding motivation is to have three measurable life priorities.  Your dream is not necessarily measurable, but when you define your top three life priorities, they will be measurable.

 

When I was in my mid-forties, I went through what I call a mid-life reevaluation.  It was a time when my thinking was so “foggy” I couldn’t sort out who I was, where I was, or what was important.  As my dad would say, “I didn’t know if I was a foot or horseback.”  There was one question that brought me out of the fog and this was the question, “If I could only do three measurable things sometime before I die, what three measurable things would I do?”  Once I had those three things locked into my mind, I started moving in a direct line that I haven’t left since. 

 

 

 

If you have;

 

1.  An understanding of why you do what you do, 

2   A crystal clear dream, 

3.  Three clear life priorities, 

 

you won’t need someone to “pep you up.”  You will be a self – motivated person whose internal motivational engine is so strong that it just keeps going and going and going. 

 

 

Note: Adapted from a CD titled: Focusing by Asking!   Available at www.BobbBiehl.com

 

© 2009 – Bobb Biehl – www.BobbBiehl.com – 1 800 443 1976