How To Kick Start Into Action When You Have Lost Motivation

Hello and welcome to this talk on the topic of motivation.

This is an addition to my talk called how to turn avoidance into action,

So make sure you listen to that chocolate chunk of NLP if you haven't done so already.

My name is Jackie Wright otherwise known as The Cockney Coach and this talk is another yummy chocolate chunk of NLP,

Easy to learn and just as satisfying.

Now motivation can be a complicated subject and we all experience motivation and a lack of it in our own individual ways.

What might motivate me may not motivate you,

So during this talk what I'll be sharing with you is a strategy that will work no matter how you as a unique individual experience motivation.

It might be useful to make notes when we get to the strategy.

So let's kick this off with a quote from Maya Angelou.

When it comes to what you can drive you on and keep you motivated she famously said we may encounter many defeats but you must not be defeated and in those few inspiring words Maya is saying that in order to get to where we want to go we have to be prepared for things to get in our way and when we're prepared to succeed with flexibility of thought and action then we can stay motivated.

I first started to explore the topic of motivation during the COVID pandemic.

I recognised that I was starting to experience a lack of motivation and it was something that my friends and family were experiencing too.

For me during this time,

Like many others,

I was stuck at home unable to leave the house because I was actually considered a high risk for catching COVID and of course I started to feel the oppression of being confined.

Soon just getting out of bed got harder and harder and after the initial flush of oh this is great being at home I can get all the jobs on my to-do list done I found that I just couldn't be bothered anymore.

Now this was a situation that would not be healthy for me or my family.

I started thinking about how I could create motivation for myself and I kicked my NLP training into gear by turning to a tried and tested observation and curiosity technique.

It's actually a three question formula and it would uncover the process that was happening and give me a roadmap to work with.

So my three exploration questions were,

Question one,

What do we actually mean when we say motivation?

It is after all a small word but a big concept so I needed to understand the process and the mechanics.

My question two was,

Why is motivation important?

It seems like a no-brainer but it is a key piece of the puzzle.

Then once I had the answers to those I could get into question three,

What can I do to be motivated?

And after all nothing happens without action so I needed to work out what that action was going to be.

So I'm going to walk you through those questions and how I use them and the answers that I got.

So let's move on to question one,

What is motivation actually about?

To be able to create motivation I had to understand the process and the mechanics.

So I turned to some definitions and some of those definitions of motivation suggest that it's a process that initiates guides and maintains behaviours and action and it's the maintains behaviour that I found quite interesting.

Now what motivation is not is forcing yourself to do things that don't seem useful or relevant to you and it's not about doing tasks that are too hard because all they'll do is decrease your motivation or increase your stress levels.

So motivation,

What I found out is is what causes you to act.

It not only causes you to act but to get going and keep going.

Now whether it's to do the simple things like put the bins out or take up a new hobby or start a new course or study,

Motivation actually involves the head,

The heart and the body in a mind-body connection.

We know that thoughts lead to emotions and they in turn lead to actions.

So any motivation involves the whole body system.

In order to act there must be some form of motivation.

Now if you think about it there really are only two things that we have to do in our lives that don't require motivation and that we can't possibly avoid.

So these are one,

To breathe and two,

Take up space and because of that it means that everything else in life is a choice.

Now I know this sounds controversial.

You might say but Jackie I have no choice I must go to work.

Well yes that's true if you want the things that work and money and provide so it is a choice.

You might say but Jackie I have to wash the children's clothes.

Well yes that's true if you want the children to look well cared for so it is a choice.

But equally we can say that all of what we are and do is a choice and a balancing act.

If I don't go to work,

If I don't do the dishes,

I just have to take the consequences.

Choices and decisions are what we do every day.

So I can hear you now thinking what has this got to do with motivation?

Now motivation it turns out is driven by our needs and in general our needs have a hierarchy.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs which you may have heard of was developed by him around 1943.

The hierarchy of needs and motivation suggests that everyone seeks to satisfy basic needs first like finding food,

Water and shelter and then when these are satisfied we can move on to our needs for security and safety and then next we're motivated to belong and for social support,

For friendships and relationships.

Then we evolve our need for self-esteem followed by self-actualization which is all about achieving our potential.

So after that research I'd answered the question for myself what's motivation all about?

It's driven by our needs.

So on to question two.

Why is motivation important?

Now to get an understanding of the why I listened to my friends and noticed what they all had in common.

What was it that they were all experiencing as the result of a lack of motivation?

And I also observed myself.

I used lots of self-reflection and journaling and the answer came.

The common thing was that it turns out that if our needs are being met then we can be and are motivated to take action,

To do things,

To move forward.

If our needs are not being met then we suffer emotionally,

Physically and that reduces our ability to actually take action.

This is what was happening during the COVID lockdowns.

Our need to be out in the world,

Meeting other people,

All of our basic social needs were not being met and even more so our basic needs for safety and security were also not being met as we feared for our very lives and we experienced the people we knew and loved getting sick and sometimes dying.

So motivation is important because without it we feel lost,

We feel there's no point,

We stop moving forward and we get stuck.

It's helpful to get and stay motivated for our overall wellness and for our contentment in life.

What we were experiencing was a lack of wellness and contentment and it turns out that motivation creates that wellness and contentment and it showed me that I had to become more flexible and adapt to the unfamiliar environment.

This is actually what happens when changes happen in our life.

It can affect our motivation.

The environment can change but we tend to carry on expecting everything to be the same.

Of course that is an absolute recipe for losing motivation because as we swim against the changing tide everything becomes harder.

We start to lose that forward momentum and desire to carry on and this was what I was experiencing.

So it was time to find ways to create that change and flexibility because I absolutely needed to feel motivated for a happy life.

So that lends me on to question three,

What could I do to get motivated?

And this is the process I used and have employed successfully ever since.

If you are experiencing a lack of motivation right now it may be useful to just pause this track,

Get a pen and paper and follow along with the process as you work through how to kick-start your own motivation.

So my starting point was to understand which of my needs were not being met in this situation and work from there.

So was it food,

Water,

Shelter?

Was it security and safety?

Was it friendship,

Social support?

Was it self-actualisation or achieving my potential?

Once I knew which of these needs were not being met I could make changes to meet those needs.

Now this is a key first step and requires thought and observation.

It's not something you can go through very quickly,

It's definitely worth paying attention and devoting the time to this first step.

So in this example for me during the COVID pandemic I realised that I missed the social times I had at work.

Now as well as running my own business I was employed as a training designer by a major UK bank at the time.

I was now working remotely from home and I only saw my colleagues during video calls.

I missed the trips to get a cup of tea and if you've ever listened to any of my other tracks you'll know how much I love a cup of tea.

I missed hanging out with colleagues to get lunch,

Just chatting in the corridor and catching up on the office gossip.

My need for social connections were definitely not being met.

Also I was very afraid of getting COVID and not only me,

Both of my grown-up daughters have conditions that make them vulnerable.

So my safety and security needs were not being met.

I soon realised then that two of my most basic needs,

Social interaction and more importantly safety,

Were not being met.

No wonder I was experiencing a severe lack of motivation.

Now on to action.

After all nothing happens without action.

The question was what could I do to meet my needs for safety?

I realised this was going to need some flexible thinking and some new tactics.

After all I'd never been in this position before.

My first issue was how can I get my grocery shopping safely?

Well I could avoid going out by getting shopping online.

This was really new to me but it was something that my daughters already did and once it was set up I felt okay about it.

But this brought another issue.

Everything that was being delivered could have the COVID virus on it.

How can I create safety around that?

My eldest daughter had the solution.

I could kill the COVID virus by wiping down everything that came into the house and I used those virus wipes.

It was an action that gave me a sense of safety.

Now what else was I struggling with?

Ah the simple act of getting fresh air.

I had to get out the house somehow but how to do that safely?

Before COVID I would often take walks with my husband and it was a great way to chat to neighbours.

So how could I do that safely?

We decided to eliminate the risk of meeting someone with COVID by taking walks after 8 o'clock at night when there were very few people on the streets as well as not accepting any visitors,

Not even family,

Which was really hard I can tell you.

But all of these in total gave me a sense of control and safety.

My daughters did the same,

Tailoring it for their own circumstances and we stayed connected with frequent video calls,

Supporting each other and coming up with new ways to do normal life at the time.

Now on to the next need that was not being met,

The social interactions outside of family.

Well work was even trickier and the solutions had to be more innovative but I came up with something that felt like I was with my colleagues outside of the set meetings that we had over video calls.

I would make a video call to a colleague and after a bit of chat we would just carry on with our work without talking to each other,

Leaving the video channel open.

Now this sounds strange and it felt strange at the time but soon it felt like how it used to be in the office.

After all what we would be doing in the office is sitting next to each other in silence getting on with our work and after a while one of us would say,

Just like we would in the office,

Fancy a cup of tea?

Or as we say in Yorkshire,

Fancy a brew?

And we'd go to our respective kitchens,

Make a drink and come back to the screen for a chat before cracking on with the work again.

And just like we would in the office if either of us needed some help,

We'd just break the silence with a,

Hey can you help me with this?

It felt very organic and it really brought back some of what was missing.

So in summary,

Creating motivation is about identifying which of your needs is not being met and making choices that lead to actions that benefit you.

It's about getting going and keeping going and directing your own life.

It's important for wellness,

Contentment and happiness and it's particularly easy to make those changes and choices once you identify which of your needs are not being met,

Leading to that lack of motivation.

Finally I'd like to share another quote with you.

There is no failure,

Only feedback.

And this is one of the principal ways of thinking in the world of NLP.

And when you think about things in that context,

There is no failure,

Only feedback,

You have an opportunity to change your strategy for something that works,

Which means that you will always know you can pick yourself up and become motivated to move forward again.

Thank you so much for listening with me and experiencing this chocolate chunk of yummy useful NLP.

And when you rate the track I'd love to hear your thoughts about how these tips will help you get motivated.

Remember to listen to my other track related to this topic,

How to Turn Avoidance into Action and as always,

Much love.