Why do we do what we do? What causes us to succeed, fail, procrastinate? Is it our environment? Our biology? Our New Year\u2019s resolutions? There\u2019s much debate why our motivation goals fail and how to resolve them. I believe we\u2019re addressing the wrong issues.<\/p>\n
WHY PROMOTING BEHAVIOR CHANGE CAUSES RESISTANCE<\/p>\n
Everything I\u2019ve read on resolving \u201cmotivation\u201d issues focus on behaviors: why, how, when. Courses, keynote speakers, books, attempts to pump up, stimulate, and otherwise inspire. All trying to cause the ineffective behaviors to change to effective ones. But change doesn\u2019t happen this way. Motivation involves both shifting beliefs, and creating new habitual behaviours, that our unconscious status-quo will accept and adopt over time.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why: A behavior is the action \u2013 the representation \u2013 of a (largely unconscious) belief. Lasting behavior change occurs only when there is first a shift in the beliefs responsible for the behavior (Complex, due to the habitual and systemic nature of our belief\u2192behavior connection).<\/p>\n
So: a belief change will trigger a new behavior to match the new belief.<\/p>\n
Trying to change a behavior, without changing the underlying beliefs first, causes pushback because our status quo is being disrupted and threatened. So new behaviors to respond to Commit! Achieve! will create resistance without the necessary buy-in from the foundational beliefs that caused the problem.<\/p>\n
To effectively motivate ourselves and others, we must facilitate an unconscious shift from the ineffective beliefs to successful ones, and then introduce new commensurate behaviors. While there are certainly helpful training and coaching approaches to accomplish this, one way to get there is by listening to our Internal Dialogue.<\/p>\n
A CASE STUDY IN MOTIVATION<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to use myself as a case study, as I have had a continual issue motivating myself to get to the gym. Basically, I trigger my healthy beliefs whenever I hear my Internal Dialogue rationalizing why I don\u2019t need to go. \u00a0Motivation is an inside job.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how I do it. I deeply believe I\u2019m a healthy person, and that the gym is a necessary evil to maintain my identity. Whenever I hear my inner voice making excuses [\u201cIt\u2019s so cold outside. You really would be better off staying inside where it\u2019s warm.\u201d] I have a trigger that pings me to shift me over to my higher-level beliefs Self, Health, Excellence – who I am<\/i>. \u201cNo, you idiot. You\u2019re a healthy person because you work out, so shut up and bundle up and get out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, by listening to my Internal Dialogue in many situations, I\u2019ve trained myself to automatically counter non-motivating behavior with my higher-level beliefs that will then motivate me. [I have written a chapter on how to shift from behaviors to beliefs in my new book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? <\/i><\/b><\/a>]\n MOTIVATING OUR TEAMS TO EXCELLENCE<\/p>\n We can adapt this for our teams. Right now, we tell them \u2018how\u2019 and \u2018why\u2019 to succeed. We are hiring keynote speakers to \u2018Motivate\u2019 our sales forces and leaders, bringing in consultants to \u2018Motivate\u2019 more success. But all this is accomplishing is pushing new activities into the habitual status quo and merely getting some meager shifts that last a brief time. Then we blame the failure on our staff or the training.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s motivate by teaching folks to listen to their own Internal Voices. Here are a few pointers (and again, my new free book has an entire chapter on how to accomplish this):<\/p>\n It\u2019s more complicated than merely attempting to add some new behaviors, of course. But the change will be permanent. And you can use the skill any time change is required.<\/p>\n Begin the process of listening to yourself more closely and more often. If you want to learn more about bridging the gap between what\u2019s said and what\u2019s heard (www.didihearyou.com<\/a>) The digital book makes sure everyone has the capability to communicate, change, and motivate by truly listening. Or go to www.sharondrewmorgen.com<\/a> to learn more about facilitating change in sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why do we do what we do? What causes us to succeed, fail, procrastinate? Is it our environment? Our biology? Our New Year\u2019s resolutions? There\u2019s much debate why our motivation goals fail and how to resolve them. I believe we\u2019re addressing the wrong issues. WHY PROMOTING BEHAVIOR CHANGE CAUSES RESISTANCE Everything I\u2019ve read on resolving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,29,24],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n