Motivation Techniques

Self Motivation and Motivating Others

Motivation techniques start with the only two things that can motivate anyone to be motivated.

When I'm asked to define motivation my answer is:

...It is the influencing factors that move people to take actions that move them away from what they don't want, and towards what they do want..

How you put these two motivators into practice is the difference between success and failure with both self motivation, and work motivation for others.



Both motivational techniques have completely different effects.

The motivation effect of wanting to move away from a situation is very powerful but limited in its range.

It is only effective until a comfort zone is reached.

The effect of achievement motivation, desiring to move towards a goal, can be aimed at long term goals.

But its initial impact on motivation is not as strong. There is often no urgency as there is no pain to escape from.



The basis of all motivation

These two motivational techniques are the basis of all motivation.

Learn to use them for self motivation and for managing the work motivation of others. All your other motivation skills you build will fit into place around this model.

Become effecient at using it, and the goal setting techniques, and you will be a very effective motivator and reap the rewards.



Where to use these motivation techniques

Mastering both the move away from, and the move towards, motivators, will give you success.

Whether it's for self motivation, employee motivation, sales team motivation, motivation at work, or motivational sales training.

And it doesn't stop there. All the motivation techniques you learn here can be used in your personal life as well.



The moving away and moving towards motivation model

Let's start with the moving away from pain and discomfort and then we'll move on to the goal setting and positive achievement motivation techniques.



Moving away from is
A powerful motivational technique

To demonstrate and explain the motivational technique I'm going to talk right at you.

I want you to link motivation and emotion, and feel the effects so you experience the impact of situations and the emotions of motivation.

When the pain of a current situation increases, we are eventually motivated to move away.

Everyone has a level of tolerance unique to them for each specific situation.

It is not the features of the situation that cause the pain and discomfort, it is what those features do to us.

You would be amazed at how long some people can put up with painfull situations.

You may have seen some sales people struggling to hit performance targets, no work motivation, and a fear of losing their job.

...There is a theory that this is the origins of the word disease (dis-ease)...and when I see the stress some people endure before taking action I can understand why..



An example - Poor sales figures

If your sales results are poor, it's not the low sales figures that hurt you and make you want to move away from them.

It's the effect that situation has on you. Pressure from a line manager. Low income, threat of losing your job. Embarrassmnet in front of colleagues.

A fear of the perceived future.

When the effect of a situation reaches a certain level of discomfort you are motivated to take action.

Fight or flee response comes into play.

A positive action would be to fight the situation by investing in improving your sales skills, more sales activity, or seek help from an expert.

A flee action could be to get a new job.

That may not fix the problem and can just start the cycle all over again. If the solution to the problem is for you to change, then running away and hoping things work out better next time is not the answer.



Move away from motivation techniques

In whatever area of your life you are looking for motivation, we are looking now at the end of the scale where things are difficult and uncomfortable.

Let's use sales results as an example, but we could be talking about absolutely any part of your personal self motivation or your work motivation and managing others.

Typical areas where people look to apply motivation skills are, money, career motivation, relationships, education, physical health.

...How many of us need motivating to go to the gym?..

Using the low sales results example, you are in a position where the heat is being turned up, and pressure from yourself, and others, is increasing.

One of the best motivation tips that I have picked up and used is to ask yourself the question, What's good about this?

Ask it until you get an answer from yourself that you can use. In every situation there can be a positive.



Some examples of what could be good

You've made a decision

You are motivated and you've decided to take action

From your recent experience you may have a great list of what doesn't work in sales.

You have nothing to lose, things couldnt get any worse, so you may be motivated to take actions that you would not have taken before.

A typical example

A good example of such an action is being motivated to use strong sales closing techniques. Some people need to be under pressure before they will use all of their sales skills.

Imagine if you didn't like closing sales, or you felt closing techniques were too pushy. Picture not being confident when closing, and you wait for the buyer to ask for the order rather than ask them.

Now you're motivated by the pain of where you are

You can see the consequences of not taking action to change your closing techniques. The pain of the low sales situation is greater than the discomfort of closing the sale. This motivation technique works because people will take the path with the least pain.

To make full use of your understanding of this self motivation skill, start to visualise any situation you find uncomfortable. Then run it forward in time.

What will the consequences be if you do not take action to move away from this situation.



A non-sales example

You can use this motivation technique to move you to take exercise or to go to the gym.

Picture the reasons why you think you should go and the consequences of not going. Now move those reasons forward in time. Picture yourself with all the bad effects of no exercise.

Overweight, health problems, impact on relationships, and make it feel as bad as possible. Live it in your mind. What will you hear, how will you feel, how will others see you?

...Motivated yet?. ...Now consider all the benfits



The next motivation technique

We use the motivational power of moving away from to kick start us to take action. Then we link it with the next stage of the motivation techniques, goal setting, moving towards, and achievement motivation, to achieve the goals we desire.

The two motivating techniques together can be very powerful.

To learn the next stage follow the link and move from moving away from motivation techniques and open motivational sales training on positive achievement.



From moving away to moving towards with achievement motivation

You now know how to kick start motivation

Both self motivation, and work motivation techniques to help others, will succeed using both moving away from and moving towards motivation techniques.

You've used the pain of moving away from an uncomfortable place to motivate action.

This motivation technique is very powerfull but it only motivates people far enough to get to a place of comfort, where the pain stops.

The next stage of the motivating techniques is to keep the momentum rolling by goal setting. Moving towards achieving a goal.

To start setting goals and looking for positive achievement open Motivational Sales Training and start to achieve your goals.






Have you got a question about
motivation techniques

Ask a question that will help you with self motivation, motivating your sales team, or achieving your goals and objectives.

Make a comment about the motivation information in this section of the site.

Write a page and share your experiences, knowledge, and motivation techniques, and get it published on this site. Include brief information about you and your company, and add a link to your website or contact details. This will be a free advert seen by the many visitors to this site.

To ask a question or make a comment go to the Motivation comments and questions box and simply click and type, it’s that easy.






Motivating your sales team

There is a sales team technique I use to give my sales people a great motivation tool that gives them access to a resource that has proven very successful.

If you want to know what it is, and how it could benefit you, open the sales team training page.



More motivation techniques

To look for more on self motivation, work motivation, and how to achieve your goals, open the sales motivation page.



Start a new search for sales training

To start a new search for sales training move to the sales training home page.



Return to top of page



Search this site

Custom Search

Enjoy this page? Add a link from your site or blog...

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

  1. Click on the HTML link code below.
  2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.