Ms Motivator

It’s been a while. I’ve neglected my blog, and I’m keen to re-enter the groove of writing.  To start with it’ll feel rusty and stunted, and I will persevere until it flows once more. Then it will be a joy, I’ll feel great and there’ll be ideas for new blog posts wherever I look. It’ll be a virtuous circle. I just need to get motivated to jump back in.

How to get motivated is a question that’s raised all the time in coaching sessions and workshops.  So that naturally forms the subject of this post! The trick is to know what motivates us personally. And then to do it. (The second part is always the crux.)

What’s working for me right now, is buddying up. Here’s why.

Sometimes, when I am ‘too busy’ to write my blog, a friend might unexpectedly call and ask for a hand. I then miraculously find time from somewhere (perhaps down the back of the sofa). This happened last week. From time to time I help out with an amazing project by doing some communications consultancy (writing press releases and the like). I received a call saying they needed a PR, and I knew that a couple of hours of my time would make a big difference. So I found time. And did it. Which was a big help to them, and fulfilling for me. It also illustrated that if I was suitably motivated (being inspired by the project, wanting to help my mate, knowing I’d get positive feedback)… surprise, surprise, I found the time.

I’m learning that if I have a tendency to do certain behaviours (be able to make time for other people, even when I claim to have no time for myself) sometimes, rather than changing that behaviour, it’s more effective to cunningly use it to my advantage.

So I have found myself a blogging buddy in the beautiful form of my dear friend, fellow coach and confidante, Karin. The deal is that I’d like to help her out with something on a regular basis . However, under the rules of our blogging buddy charter (discussed last night over a Nepali curry in Ealing), I’m only allowed to help her once I’ve written a blog post. So I borrow the oooomph I have to help her, and co-opt it into my blog writing. Genius. See how it’s working?

The buddying approach to motivation works thanks to benign peer pressure and expectation (we all know we’re more likely to go swimming tomorrow morning if we’ve promised to meet our friend at the pool).

There are several variations, which can be modified for purpose and environment. In the past I’ve emailed a bunch of mates, telling them about the big hairy scary things I am going to achieve that week, and promising to report back at a designated time to declare my success. They were given full nagging rights if I failed to check in. Because they’re a supportive bunch they responded with encouraging missives. It worked a treat. An alternative is to meet regularly with a buddy and report progress, share challenges and cultivate focus.

So, with all this in mind, I declare that I will be blogging once a week henceforth. I’ll be back shortly with some thoughts on external motivators (which come from a source outside ourselves, see above) versus internal motivators (where we are self-sufficient in our ooomph, which is far more sustainable).

In the meantime I’d love to hear what you do to keep (or get) yourself motivated.

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