A Total "How-to Guide" to Getting Motivation (Or Motivating Others)

These days, doctors are pretty effective at treating depression of the "industrial grade" kind - the clinical condition called Major Depression. But what about those depressions you suffer of which might be more appropriately called "a slump," or "being in a rut," or simple, ordinary sadness?  Those don't feel good either, and are far more common than a major, diagnosable illness. It turns out there really is a more detailed "how-to" method to getting over them than we commonly think of in the word, "motivation."

While we go through a very thorough system for looking at sadness and depression in a woman's life in the course called the MindOS Mastery Program - the "Anger Map" - there is a specific item that we oh so commonly neglect in trying to feel better. Simply because it's so vague and impractical a word.

Let's "decode" the mystery in this thing we all seek, called "motivation."

Motivation is Hard to Find

...because it is so buried under other things we tend to try first.

If you were to dig into the material on anger, sadness, depression and self-esteem in the MindOS Mastery Program, you'd quickly find the Anger Map there, and how it shows you that "having unmet needs" is a major cause of feeling sad and "in a rut."

Yet in working with people both professionally and more informally as a writer, I've often found that it's pretty powerful to get clear and detailed about exactly what our needs are in life. After all, how else are we going to go get them met, and get out of our rut? It's ultimately assertiveness that's going to save the day - a decision to patiently, constructively, and persistently go after what we need in relationships, work, friendship and life in general. All without harming or using others. You get a sense of power, control, and independence in doing so.

Yet there's sometimes a sticking point for people. If there's no more clinical-grade condition that needs a medicine, or treatment of medical disorders, gathering up enough energy in recovery to go ahead and start living in happiness again still sometimes encounters a roadblock.

One way of describing it is a kind of passive style as a person - a habit of sort of "waiting to be served," or waiting for "good luck," or "waiting for my ship to come in." Some people just wait for good things to happen, and for happiness to smile on them - just as a matter of habit and style.

This of course doesn't work, and we realize that a logical response to "let go, and let God" is that "God helps those who help themselves," and the response to "This too, shall pass," is that, well, sometimes it actually DOESN'T unless you get off your butt and make some changes on purpose.

So we realize that underneath discovering that you have needs, and a desire for them to be satisfied - wanting more friends that you lack, more money to pay the bills, and better health than what you have now - you must make a decision, and eventually take some real actions toward having a better life.

That's assertiveness - a decision to act in caring for yourself.

Then even here, there are people in a rut who "try" to take some new actions in their lives, and it never quite works for them. They "forget" what they've learned, or can't seem to make the time, find the resources, or a whole host of other valid reasons "I can't" and invalid excuses why "I don't" - through it all, we then realize together that we've come face to face with that horrible word that never seems to offer practical, step-by-step, street-level answers.

That word is "motivation."

If you've ever been frustrated with "motivational speakers" and what often seems to fade as empty cheerleading after their rah-rah speeches, or been confused as to what people mean when they say, "just buck up" or "adjust your attitude," then it's really time to listen up. We can take the word, "motivation" and decode it into practical steps that you can judge your challenges against, learn from the past, and truly "get motivated" RIGHT NOW.

While MindOS is the comprehensive guide to the principles we are going to learn, this is more than enough to get started.

Motivation Won't Happen If You Don't Do These

Call them the deal-breakers between you and those who wish you well - on your loved ones' end. Call them the agreements you must make with yourself. Call them the three "reality checks" that have to be present for you to be grounded enough to get serious here. Or just consider them the "prerequisites" or "preconditions" necessary for true, real motivation.

They are:

• The Attention or Self-awareness we call Observing Ego in the MindOS course
• Personal Boundaries that recognize what's your responsibility versus what's someone else's
• The Personal Agency, or responsibility to actually participate in life, and learning, and a few mistakes

Without this skill called Observing Ego, the prime - core skill of personal growth, without which we cannot change or grow - we will not even notice how unmotivated we are, how deep in a rut we are, how we got there or any clue as to where to turn to get out. We have to be awake and aware of what we feel, need, think and do, and who and what are going on around us.

Without personal boundaries, we don't see what's squarely on our shoulders, and how much and how easy it is to blame others for our ruts, our little depressions, and how living less than our potential is harming us. It's a very common block to progress - to wish, wait, desire, hope for, and even expect that people other than ourselves owe us motivation, want us to be motivated or even care if we are.  They don't. It's on US to get motivated. Some will cling so tightly to this erroneous myth that they make their lives an altar to it, and everyone but themselves the villain of their story.

Personal "agency" means that you take on the mantle of adulthood, and realize that you are solely responsible for your life's story, but more... It's a recognition that you will also have to be "open" to ideas, inspiration, hints, clues, guidance and direction about what to do. If you feel that you just don't want to try something new to feel happy - such as the five principles of motivation below - then things are rather likely to just stay the same.  You've then chosen that, and not participating in life and learning has basically guaranteed what you may have become so used to: unhappiness, and the boredom of an unchanging rut.

These are the prerequisites, and if we violate them, we might as well not move on to the juicy tips below, which comprehensively cover the anatomy of motivation.

Motivation Comes From These Five Things

Now having agreed that it's on us to get motivated, ready to neither blame others nor ourselves for our predicament, and eyes wide open to some new options for getting out of a rut, we can easily look under our needs, and under the assertive decisions and actions we need to take, to know why we don't yet do what we know must be done.

The factors involved are these:

• The Right Attitude/Interest
• Enjoyment of What's "Good for Me"
• People Will Be Involved
• Know-How is a Must
• Energy Enough to Do Things

It's going to be as easy as these five. These will be a checklist against what's been missing, what you've not done and why, and avoiding their opposites will help too.

1. Having the Right Attitude and Interest

Think about a child at school. What prevents them from being motivated enough to do their homework. What's the most common thing?

That's right. The subject matter is NOT INTERESTING to them. They are bored with history, can't figure out science, and mathematics is so dry they want to fall asleep.

What's the second most common cause of not doing your homework?  Perhaps an attitude toward your parents of rebellion, a resentment of being told what to do.

If I were to ask you what's more important in getting motivated - having nice thoughts or doing actions - you'd probably agree that actions are more important. We all know that anyway from reading motivational "affirmations" and "inspiring quotes."

Yet there's SOME value in the world of ideas to get us motivated. They just aren't everything needed. So we honor them here. Our thoughts need to be in an agreeable attitude and we need to spend our time on what is INTERESTING to us.

For some, this is a big hurdle - they've been told what they SHOULD be interested instead of giving themselves permission to go ahead and focus on what they ARE interested in.

You have permission.

And you'll want to avoid doing the opposites of Attitude and Interest - which are NEGATIVITY and IGNORANCE. The cure is CURIOSITY. What makes you curious? What are you curious about?

Whatever it is, you can get motivated about.

Asking yourself questions is one way to accomplish prerequisite #1: Observing Ego, because it puts you in a role of attention, and being awake to your own behavior. Ask yourself, "What makes me interested? What COULD I have a good attitude about if not this?"

2. Enjoyment of What's Good for Me

I thought about what gets people interested in what they weren't before, and the obvious thing for the example of a student with homework is, ENJOYMENT. It's hard to be interested in what you don't ENJOY.

Still, aren't there many things that we enjoy, which are also NOT GOOD FOR US? Drugs, alcohol, addictions of all types, fatty food, partying, and the like. Too much of not being "careful what you ask for," and you'll drop motivation fast when you start feeling the harm you've done yourself.

On the other hand, isn't it also true that many things that are good for us, also aren't enjoyable?  Sure - the dentist, the hospital, school, work, and how easy is it to forget that they call it WORK because it's WORK?

The opposites to avoid are called MASOCHISM - punishing or denying ourselves because we don't feel worthy to enjoy things - and LAZINESS - because most things that are good for us do take work - patience, discipline, and persistence.

The key to this one is to ask questions such as, "How do I make this thing I enjoy, healthy for me?" and "How to I make this thing that's good for me, enjoyable?"

Answer those, and you are even more motivated.

3. People Are Involved in Motivation

Make sure you note that as "People," PLURAL. One way to not break prerequisite #2 about Personal Boundaries is to have MANY friends that you share with, encourage, and get encouragement from - not just ONE. In the latter, we have a tendency to get dependent, and even cross the boundary into thinking that friend, lover, spouse or coworker actually OWE us motivation. They do not. Not EVER.

Being friendly and having many friends, spreads the support around, and you can never be let down by just one person - which inevitably happens because we are imperfect.

Did you ever notice that when you are in a rut, and a group of people all excited and motivated about something invites you into their circle, that something you never knew about before can become quite enticing?  Now you are motivated for something you never would have suspected.

Did you notice that when you, yourself were very excited about a hobby, you just wanted to share the motivation with others?

Motivation always involves PEOPLE, and the opposite to safeguard against is ISOLATION or WITHDRAWAL, even if you don't feel like socializing. Remember, the "don't feel like part" can make you violate Prerequisite #3 - the need to be the Agent of Change in your own life. There are certain things you just have to do to feel better.

Ask yourself, "How can I get involved with people? What do I have that people have told me is interesting about me? Even if I don't feel like it right now, maybe I could share that of myself anyway."

Before you know it, people have you motivated, and you motivate them to motivate you back based on what they like about you.

4. Know-How Motivates

Did you ever notice that when you don't understand something, it's not very motivating to get involved?  Even if you know it's good for you? I'm like that about golf.

How about when you ARE interested in something and it's even good for you, and enjoyable to be around, but it's just so complex, that you still can't get motivated? I'm like that about violins. I don't know how they work, and even if I wish I did, if you gave me one I wouldn't do anything with it. I'm not motivated for playing the violin because i don't know how to.

So the fourth thing we can do to definitely get motivated is to go out and learn something new.

There's a psychologist named Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, who long ago started writing on "peak performance" and what he calls "Flow State," which is sort of like what you hear of in athletes who look for "being in the zone."

Being in the zone is HIGHLY motivating because we are fulfilling what we are capable of, living at our highest potential, and also probably challenging ourselves. It's that WINNING feels good, and it being "possible to win" happens to be even more motivating than already having won. They say to "stop to smell the roses." Well this is even more true here.

What Czikszentmihalyi found is that when we do things that are far ABOVE our skill level, we get frustrated, take a hit to our self-esteem, and QUIT, deflated. We "bite off more than we can chew." When we do things far BELOW our skill level, we get BORED and QUIT. We "don't live up to our potential."

But when we try things just a little beyond our skill level, and keep learning to up that skill level, we are in the zone, and thrive with motivation.

The opposites of know how are again IGNORANCE and LAZINESS, add DENIAL, with a healthy dose of PEDANTRY and HUBRIS - two things that deceive us into thinking we are more skilled than we are - and in for a big let-down: a rut on top of a rut.

Questions to ask are, "What could I learn today?" "What do I not know, but would like to, or always wanted to?" "Am I being lazy?" "Am I pretending to be more skilled than I am? Being in denial?" "Have I bit off more than I can chew?" "Am I living less than my potential?"

5. Energy is Needed for Action

This one wraps up most other concerns about motivation.

We could be in the right attitude, and interested, enjoying something good for us, involve people, and get some new know-how, but if we just don't have the physical energy to do things, we STILL won't do them, and motivation will again die until we quit attempting.

We have to backtrack to the causes of poor physical energy.

Good nutrition, exercise, sleep quality and general health maintenance are essential.

Going back to the beginning, clinical depression can have physical symptoms that need to be treated in a local doctor's office. These could be that last piece of motivation we haven't considered, along with other kinds of physical ailments such as hypothyroidism, diabetes, and heart conditions.  Get a physical often or at least once a year, and if you take medicines, learn about them and maintenance of your health.

The opposite of these is RECKLESSNESS with your own health.

Ask questions such as, "How is my sleep this week? My nutrition? My exercise? My physical health?"

You need energy to be motivated.

Motivation is Available Anytime, Any Place

So now you know.

Anything you have ever lacked motivation for, been in a rut about, or been mildly depressed or sad about, or even had no idea why you just felt the blahs without reason, you can apply these three prerequisites to, and the five factors of motivation to, and have answers.

You know why, what and how of motivation, and can generate it, or change directions toward it anytime you need to.

From there, you finally take actions that are interesting, enjoyable, good for you, involve people, challenge you to learn, and rejuvenate the energy you've already been maintenancing.

Apply these actions to your NEEDS, by being ASSERTIVE (finally!), and you start feeling less angry, less sad, and instead HAPPY.

Which is what we are all about at Women's Happiness Magazine.

There's definite further study to be had in MindOS Mastery, and the Women's Happiness On Demand Membership, where 2000+ women, myself and my staff discuss it all in 24/7 forums, and weekly teleseminar calls.