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

STAY MOTIVATED

When we set goals, we are excited. We start to pursue with zeal and make good progress for a few weeks. Then gradually, other things come up to distract us. After several failed attempts to continue, we get discouraged, abandon the project and don’t even bother setting goals anymore.

But goal setting is important in the school of success. It is God’s principle. Before He does anything, He says it. Check the bible; from the beginning, His goals were set, before He started to create the Heavens and the earth. All through the bible, God would always lay His plans out before He executes them.

We cannot achieve the kind of success we desire if we don’t make our purpose and goals clear before pursuing them.

The Truth About Willpower

Willpower is determination + self-discipline.

These two factors powers you to do something despite the difficulties involved.

Every day, we set goals and try to achieve them using Willpower. This is great, but Willpower, though very important in the school of success, is not just enough.

I read about the more than two hundred studies into human psychology and neuroscience, which revealed the limitations of willpower.

Cookies & Radishes

Here is one out of the many experiments carried out at the University of Albany. 

They presented two bowls to a group of students. One contained warm, freshly baked cookies and the other, cold radishes. The first group is to eat the cookies and ignore the radishes. This did not require any willpower because it was very easy to do.

The second group was instructed to eat the radishes and ignore the warm cookies. Now you and I know this will require a lot of willpower.

Afterwards, they gave a difficult puzzle to the students to complete. The result was that the students, who had already used up their willpower trying to resist the cookies, gave up on the puzzle much more quickly.

The researchers concluded that the students resisting the cookies had already used up their willpower and didn't have any left to work on the puzzle.

Limited Human Effort

Willpower is a very limited resource and it quickly runs out.

I’m not surprised at this conclusion because anything generated by human effort is limited.

This is why many of us (studies say over 88% of people) give up on our goals. When you have used up your Willpower in one area, you are likely to give up on the rest of your goals. For example, if you have a hard day at work or a tiff with a loved one, you may likely break your fast, your diet or abandon your plan to write that one chapter.

So if willpower is not enough, what is?

We discussed this recently in my writing group. Here are some proven ways we arrived at that will help us stay motivated this year and achieve all our writing goals.

The God Factor

We all agreed that these scriptures would be our greatest motivation.

“… A man can receive nothing (he can claim nothing, he can take unto himself nothing) except as it has been granted to him from heaven. John 3:27 AMP

“I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me (I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency) Philippians 4:13 AMP

“…apart from Me (cut off from vital union with Me) you can do nothing. John 15:5 AMP

Paul said in Acts 26:22, “Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day…”

No matter how strong your will, we all need the help of God. Every other thing will work, when we are in God’s Will and Plan. We must daily commit ourselves and our goals into His hands. Only then can we receive the grace that we need to achieve them.

Next article, I will share with you the other ways my Writing Group will stay motivated this year.

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace

10 WAYS TO GET YOUR CREATIVE JUICES FLOWING

Grace Olumayowa Aideloje 
Sometimes I can’t just light up my writing fire. The deadlines are deadly close. Yet the ideas swim lazily in my muddled mind. I strike the match. Put it to the wick. They touch. I expect the flame to kindle. It doesn’t. I rack and delve, but can’t get through the first sentence. I squeeze my eyes in frustration. It’s like getting juice out of a dry orange. If you are a writer, you know what I’m talking about.

One of our struggles is getting the creative juices flowing especially when we need them most. Here are ten proven ways to break the block, light the candle and keep the creative juices gushing most of the time, if not all the time.

1.        Keep an Idea Diary or Journal.

Almost anything can trigger creative ideas anywhere, anytime. You must write down all ideas that come to you. You never can tell when you will need them.

2.      Write about the familiar.

It is easy to write about things you know, things you enjoy and things that come naturally to you.

3.      Take time out every day.

Every writer needs brief solitary periods of rest and quiet to unclutter the mind, relax and think.

4.      Consider your experiences.

Writers write out of the abundance of their daily experiences. Bring your past and present encounters to mind. Relive them. Evaluate them. Analyze them. It won’t be long before you start writing pages.

5.      Discover what inspires you.

Knowing yourself and what works for you is essential. Some writers are fired up by reading other people’s works, some by watching a movie or taking a walk. What inspires you? Do it always.

6.      Create your own workspace.

Apart from setting up a place conducive to writing, you should identify things that aid you and make them part of your workplace. A painting, soft music, white wall, nature; whatever makes you feel like writing. I like to write sitting at my office desk. What’s your best writing spot? Your garden, a library or the old chair by the window?

7.      Break away from routine.

Do something unusual from your daily schedule. Take a trip or an adventure. Visit an orphanage or a farm market. The unusual gingers up creativity.

8.      Take on some writing challenge.

It makes a demand on your intellect and creativity. Get involved in a writing competition or take on a job with a tight deadline.

9.      Join a writers’ group.

Nothing stimulates creativity in a writer better than rubbing minds with like-minded writers. Get into a critique group or just a chat over coffee and cookies can set the juices flowing. The Christian WAR Forum is a good one to join.

10.   Attend a writers’ conference.

That’s one of the best places to go for a rich dose of creativity apart from honing your writing skills and networking.

Creativity is the fuel that keeps your writing going. It is a risk to run low on it. Keep your creative tank full of juices and write on!

©2012 PenParables

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Want To Be An Accomplished Writer?

Keilah Gold

Of course your answer is, ‘Sure, who doesn’t?’

Every writer wants to be only one thing; An Accomplished Writer.

Well, here is the first thing you must know - Writing is not easy.

Try writing when the juices are not flowing. Try working against the writer's block, when you have a deadline to beat. Writing is hard work and harder if you are aiming for excellence. It is difficult to revise a book repeatedly. It's hard to search and research for needed information. It's not easy to sit on a chair for hours on end sometimes forgetting you’ve not had your first meal for the day. I can go on and on.

Writing Is Rewarding

Nothing compares with the joy and satisfaction of a finished work, knowing that God worked through your mind to write something that makes a difference in the life of someone. You can never tell where your work will get to, and it will still be available long after you are gone. Nothing satisfies more than living a purposeful life and making a difference in other people's lives.

Keep these in mind if you want to make a success of writing.

You Must Be Humble

Humility is a quality every great writer must possess. Be meek, teachable, correctable and approachable. Everyone makes mistakes, and it takes humility to let other people see them. 

Humility makes you surrender your work to another to read, and make inputs.

Humility makes you take healthy criticisms healthily.

You Cannot Go It Alone

Join a writing group. Take writing classes. Post your work for others to see. Share and take. You need other people's contributions to be a better writer. Getting feedback on what you have written is more important than any temporary fear or discomfort. Writers all over the world help themselves with advice or criticism. No writer can do without connecting with other writers.

This is the primary focus of the Christian Write and Read Forum. It gives us a platform to network with other like-minded writers.

Keilah Gold is a member of the Christian WAR Forum.

She is a Copy Editor and works from home.

Contact: penparables@gmail.com