How do YOU Stay Motivated?
May
2022
Motivation. Now there is an emotive word, evoking different responses from everyone.
An actor may ask ‘what is my character’s motivation’ for a forthcoming big scene.
The police may be looking at a suspect’s motivation for a particular crime.
Someone starting their journey to better health and fitness needs motivation.
And politicians’ motivation? Best we forget them!
The dictionary definition says motivation is the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
Certainly, in business (as in life) there is usually an event or a realisation that sets us on a certain path. But there also needs to be a reason to keep going.
A business usually starts with an idea, sometimes borne out of frustration with the way things are done at the time. ‘Surely, there has to be a better way?’ This is a common cry, just before the epiphany that sets us off on a new exciting journey. Sometimes, the motivation is negative and there is an understandable desire to create something good from a bad situation. If you have just lost your job, or feel you have no other choice, panic precipitates performance! Winston Churchill famously said ‘If you are going through Hell, keep going!’ Motivation can be found anywhere, from many sources, if you look for it.
Starting something is easy. Becoming successful is (relatively) easy, but sustaining success for any length of time is the challenge.
But how can we stay motivated? That is harder. Looking in the garage or spare room, there is the fitness equipment, that model boat, the painting by numbers kit, a guitar, the easy language course… The list is endless, and all suffering from lost motivation. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so what happened?
A wise person said ‘Life is what happens, whilst you are busy making plans’, and often events happen and life gets in the way. A shame if this is a hobby, but a potential catastrophe if it is your business. This is why business leaders spend so much time trying to determine how much stick or carrot is required to motivate their team. As a general rule, an incentive (carrot) works better with talented employees much more than the stick. The latter will only motivate substandard performers who are fearful, and only then for a short period of time. Try that technique on good people and employee retention and attrition becomes your next problem.
Focussing on the end goal is incredibly important, the ‘secret sauce’ if you will. What are you trying to achieve? That way, every day or every time you do what you need to do, you are a step closer to that goal. Break it down, and have the big goal (the destination) in mind and then plot the necessary steps (the journey) to get there.
Remember, if something is important enough you will find a way to make it happen. Otherwise you will find an excuse.
Here’s another one – The only thing stopping you from reaching your goals are the rubbish excuses you make to prevent making it happen. How’s that for motivation?
As an aside, I asked my daughter what she thought of this latest article. As usual, she was decidedly underwhelmed and that is my ‘motivation’ to do better next time!
Here at Assyst, we started with the simple idea that there must be a better way to keep track of client engagements. Unfortunately, there wasn’t, so we created client-Assyst. That was back in 1996, and ever since then, we have strived to be the software provider of choice for the discerning IFA. Our motivation is to be the kind of company we would like to deal with, if we were the customer. We continually challenge ourselves to keep improving, enhancing and embracing new ideas. We believed, and practiced, the Japanese concept of Kaizen before we even knew what that was!
About Assyst Software
Assyst is the client management software suite of choice for Financial Advisers. The Assyst platform empowers and inspires Independent Financial Advisors, Investment Managers and Paraplanners with the AssystAdvantage. Assyst enables Finance professionals to better run their business and help manage their regulatory reporting responsibilities.
For more information please contact@assyst-software.co.uk