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An important element of motivation is feeling that you are making progress.  The only way to do this is to find some measure for your progress. This is really hard to do in a lot of cases because measuring progress in something that is not easily measured is going to be difficult. Without this measurement, though, you are going to struggle to stay motivated at a task.

Let’s take the losing weight example we have used before. Most people use weight as a measurement of how well they are doing on a diet. However weight is a bad measure of progress (or at least it can be). Most people lose weight on a diet on an ever decreasing scale – that is they lose weight fast to begin with and then it gets slower and slower to the point that they may feel they are making no progress at all. There are several ways around this. The first would be to recognise that this is going to be this way and then adjust your targets accordingly. This is a bad way to stay motivated though because you will still feel that your progress is slowing. Another way would be to increase the times between weighing yourself so that you can stay on track with weight loss but it will just take longer to lose the weight. Probably the best approaches though will include either measuring yourself or checking your body mass index.

However what about if you are trying to become more relaxed or happier. These are hard things to measure. Well in these cases you have to try and work out a scale for measuring and then set certain times to think through the scale. For instance you could have a stress scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is relaxed and 10 is breakdown and then every day before you go to bed you think about how stressed you are on that scale. It’s then a question of setting the appropriate targets.

Now without any target you will soon lose enthusiasm and your goals become a slog. You need to measure progress – not just at the end of a task but (probably more importantly) during the task. If you know you are making progress on a regular basis then you will feel enthusiastic about continuing.

So measure your progress and work out how you are going to do it before getting stuck into a task.

To keep motivated for something it is important to spend some time thinking about the goal and not always about the task.

I’ve met a lot of people who seem to spend all their time on making sure that a task is going well. There will be lots of measurement and lots of planning but also there will be lots of times when it is hard to get motivated. Leaders who concentrate on the task and forget about the people who have to accomplish the task or the ultimate aim often find that their workers have lost interest. But this is also true for self motivation.

I think that how a task is to be done can be as important as the goal itself but a goal-less task soon turns into grind.

So take some time to think about why a task is necessary. Take some time to refresh the people who are working at the task. Give yourself a planned break to give your mind a chance to understand why something is necessary.

I want to add my own tribute to the people who worked on the moon landings – not just the people who got to walk on the moon but everyone else as well.

This is one of those stories that should fill every person (regardless of nationality) with pride in the achievements of people. Those who made the landings possible were just ordinary men and women who found themselves in the position of being able to work on this incredible adventure.

We would be wrong to assume that they were somehow superhuman and different from ourselves, they were people just like us. They had been to school just like us, had been told off by parents, just like us. No doubt they had fallen in and out of love, been excited and disappointed just like us. They faced big setbacks and made some amazing advances but all with the same brain that we have. They even had the same kinds of tools that we have – in fact we probably have better ones today.

It is amazing what people can achieve when they apply themselves and work hard to overcome all obstacles. I often hear people comment on how amazing the animal kingdom is but I want to say how amazing people are. This is a day to celebrate being a person and then to allow ourselves to dream of what might be possible for us.

Go on have some dreams and then make some plans to bring them about – after all people have been to the moon so is your dream really that impossible?

Path to nowhere

We always seek the path of least resistance to achieve our goals. However this tendency means that we seldom actually achieve our goals. It’s this search for the ultimate path of least resistance that makes us do nothing. You might also call this laziness I guess.

You see when we are faced with a problem to solve or something we want to get we tend to settle for the least amount of effort to get it. Then when we don’t get it we persuade ourselves that we did try but it just didn’t work.

In sports there are plenty of people who play sports who take the easiest path to prepare for the sport. They do the very least amount of exercise and attend the fewest number of practices and then wonder why they don’t win.

This has always been the problem with setting targets. You see when you set targets people automatically work towards the target and put the least amount of effort in to reach them. It’s not that setting targets is bad – it is necessary – but the target needs to be a guide and not a reward.

So how do you avoid this path of least resistance?

I suggest the first step is understanding that it exists. That the next time you set out to do something recognise that you will be tempted to take the easiest route and not necessarily the best or most rewarding route.

Personal development involves learning to seek out the best route and commiting yourself to achieving it. When you set your goals think hard if you will be pushing your limits, if not then set them a little higher.

I was sad to hear the news about Michael Jackson today. I’ve grown up having him around and it’s going to be strange now that he is gone.

I’ve heard lots of people describing how he had a tortured life but I tend to think a little differently. I think he had quite a lot of happiness and success in his life.

We all have things that we wish were different. Things that have gone wrong or where others have treated us badly. Some of us have to face much tougher times than others but that should never be an excuse for giving up or letting your life collapse into something tortured and sad.

I’ve sign Michael smile and laugh on more than one occasion – in fact I guess most of the time he has come across that way. His friends always talk very highly of him – people who are miserable and sad tend not to have too many friends.

Of course his death was full of drama just like the rest of his life.

He was a very gifted musician who found satisfaction when he was on the stage. He got to realise his own dream.

Now the problems are passed and I hope he has found peace.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

It seems that your gran might have been right after all because it seems that happiness is not related to success in work or with having lots of money. In fact achieving goals does bring happiness but only when those goals are related to: growing as a person; having loving relationships; contributing to your community. Wealth, fame and good looks just won’t do it.

A new study by three University of Rochester researchers demonstrates that progress on these fronts can actually make a person less happy.

You can read more on this at:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090514111402.htm

On a training day this week I was challenged over what personal effectiveness actually means. What does it mean to be personally more effective? I think this was an important question that forced me to think things through again about what I think personal effectiveness is all about.

You see the person asking the question had spent a lot of time working with her team to get them to be more effective in the workplace. They had examined proceedures and how they interact with customers etc, they had even spent time working out what paperwork was not necessary. All of these things are very valid ways of making an organisation more effective.

However I want to say that personal effectiveness goes much deeper than simple proceedures. I could teach you how to use your time more effectively but unless you see the point in manageing that time you won’t adopt the system. I could spend my time spelling out a system for goal setting but unless you understand that goals are important you won’t bother setting any.

Often we get so would up about the system that we forget the purspose of the system.

I happen to think that systems are very important (read this blog to find out more) but if all we do is slavishly follow the system then we lost sight of why we follow the system which will render the system useless.

I’m often asked why it is that people start self improvement full of entuhsiasm but after a short while they just give in and go back to the same old ways. The answer lies deeper than the system. The system is just a means to an end but unless you are fully committed to the end the system is pointless.

Which leads me back to my question about personal effectiveness. I believe personal effectiveness begins with knowing yourself. You have to know what motivates you and what doesn’t. You need to understand your values, your hopes, your dreams. Without knowing your self you will never find a system that will make you more effective.

I just read an interesting article about a study on the differences between men and women and their goal fullfillment. Men tned to see their goals realised more than women and so later in life they are happier and more content. Of course there are ways to see goals fulfilled (this is what this site is all about) and sometimes the only answer is to change your goal to suit what is possible.

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If you lack confidence or your self esteem is low then you proabably don’t need me to tell you to improve yourself. You need to understand that you are better than you think you are – the vast majority of us underrate our abilities and how much people like us. You also need to understand that it is important for everyone to build a habit of self improvement because no one is perfect.

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There have been many models of change over the years and they all seem to offer something different. More recently a model has come to the fore known as TTM or Transtheoretical Model. It’s used in the treatment of addiction. This model offers us a way that anyone can use to make changes in their life.

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