STAY MOTIVATED - CLARIFY YOUR MOTIVES

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.

-Scott

We hardly do anything without a Motive. That’s what drives us and defines who we are. Mimi’s story shows that our motives have the power or energy to drive us to achieve our goals. Motive Power is the driving force behind an action or activity. The force pushes you. It puts pressure on you. It keeps you aflame and committed, even in the face of challenges.

This is why it is crucial for us to consciously identify the reasons for our goals and pursuits.

I mentioned in the last article that my Writing Group decided that for us to record more writing successes this year, one of the things we have to do is purify our motives.

CLARIFY YOUR MOTIVES

We need to make the reasons we want to write very clear by being specific and explaining it in detail. Mimi’s initial reason to become a successful author was imprecise and general. Everyone wants to be a successful ‘something.’ You must have a reason more personal and relevant to your need.

Personalizing your motive means, you are not doing it because someone you know succeeded at it. That’s a warped reason to pursue a goal. That your friend won the annual writing competition and got a huge prize for it does not mean you can. You have to discover what God created you for and the gifts he deposited in you before you can rightfully chart a path to your future.

The weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which worthily used, will be a gift to his race forever.

-Ruskin

PURPOSE DRIVEN MOTIVES

There is no road to success but through a clear, strong purpose.

 -Munger

Your motive must leave the realm of want to a realm of need. It must leave the realm of indifference to a realm of passion and obsession. It must be a do or die matter.

Until Mimi got to that point, she didn’t take her dream serious. At the slightest distraction, she abandoned her goals, because she had not understood the purpose. This brings to mind, Myles Munroe’s saying that when purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable.

More men fail because of lack of purpose than lack of talent. Don’t you think that if Mimi had realized early enough that pursuing her desire to write would be her saving grace in future, she would have been more assiduous?

VALUE ADDING MOTIVES

No one is happy or free who lives only for himself. Joy in living comes from immersion in something one recognizes to be bigger, better, worthier, more enduring than he himself is.

-McGeehon

Your reasons for writing must be beneficial, not only to you, but firstly to others. Until you have a tangible, valuable motive for doing something, you may not succeed at it. Our goal must be people oriented and selfless. It is in investing in others that our profiting appears.

Mimi eventually decided that her book will help her increasing patients and others gain necessary knowledge on healthy diet. This is a clear value-adding motive than being a successful author

God has given us two hands - one to receive with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for sharing.

-Graham

In coming up with motives that are value adding, you must also have very clear self-ideals. What do you believe in and stand for? Until you define this and stand by it, you will continue to compromise your aspirations.

I have personally found out that when your purpose is for yourself, you can easily give up, but when it is people focused, you are motivated to continue, because of the many lives that depend on it.

Do you need to re-assess your goals and aspirations?

Do you need to clarify your motives for better productivity?

Let’s do it together. Drop a comment please.

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace

STAY MOTIVATED - MIMI’S STORY

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles/ freedigitalphotos

Still talking about staying motivated, you need more than Willpower, you need a strong motivation.

What is motivating you to do what you do?

If you want to write a book; why?

If you want to go to school; why?

If you want to get married; why?

You should not decide to do something because others are doing it, you need a stronger motive than that or you will quit before you finish.

 Mimi is a dietician. About seven years ago, she told me of her desire to write a book on Healthy Eating. I asked her why and she said she wanted to be a successful author.

 Do you think her motive was vague and weak?
She started with so much zeal, and wrote the drafts for five chapters in a week. Then she met Paul and this hot romance started. She soon put the desire to be a successful author on the back burner. For two years, her job at a high profile hospital and her love life with Paul were enough to make her forget her goal.

What happened to her aspiration to become a successful author? 
The affair broke up and she was devastated especially by the fact that Paul left her for a well-known former beauty queen. That dealt a fatal blow on her self-esteem. When she recovered, the desire to be that successful author came back with full force.

Why did the desire return with a vengeance?

How long can the steam last? 
At an amazing speed, she finished the first draft of the book and sent it to me for editing. Her goal was to get the book published in a month. I was so busy then I didn’t have time to see her manuscripts and she harassed me so well I had no choice but to leave every other thing to look at her job. I made some corrections and observations, sent it to her, expecting to get it back in a few days. But it didn’t come. Two weeks later, I called her and was surprised at her response.

She and Paul had reconciled and she had been too busy to see the manuscripts.

Why and how did her desire evaporate so fast? 
Four years and two kids later, a sack letter and divorce papers from Paul, Mimi became a shadow of her former self.

Faced with raising her two kids alone, no paid employment and not only a broken heart but a shattered self-image, Mimi had a strong need to pursue her abandoned dream of writing a book.

She had converted the ground floor of her duplex to a Clinic and started a private practice as a Nutrition Specialist.

As her clientele increased, she found it necessary to finish her book to help her patients and others gain necessary knowledge on healthy living. 

How would you compare this motive with to the first one? 
So, she updated the book and within a few months published it. It was an instant success. She started a blog on Healthy Living that soon began to thrive. This increased her clientele. She wrote two other books within a year and became a co-host for a television health show.

What motivated Mimi to eventually realize her desire to be a successful author? 

What motivates you to do something is what keeps your Willpower on. The stronger your motive and desire, the stronger your Willpower.

The first assignment we have this year in my Writing Group is to purify our motives by making it clear, personal, purpose-driven and value-adding.

I will talk more about this next.

In the meantime, why don't you work on purifying your motives for some of your goals.

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace