Motivation – 5 Deadly Sins You Need To Avoid
October 26th, 2010 | 
Author: What are some of the reasons why you might not feel motivated about a task? You'd probably surprise yourself with your response, when you think about it. As you will see below, there are five barriers, which you need to avoid, that will get a poor result and lose your self motivation.
The five main barriers that will kill your self motivation are:
Fear of failure: This is probably the biggest limitation to success and great self motivation. This strategy means that you have limiting beliefs about yourself, e.g. "if I attempt this, I'll probably fail and it'll knock my self-esteem". This can lead to a continued loop "putting off" of the task. Remember though, that there is no such thing as failure- only feedback!
Identity mismatch: You might say something like "It's just not me" or "I'm not the kind of person that does this". This strategy will keep you locked away in the kind of thinking and behaviour that is comfortable for you. However, this comfortable behaviour will eventually damage your self motivation. This is normally due to a 'values conflict'. If the task you're doing has little value to you, you'll not want to do it, even though you may feel you want to.
Unclear outcomes: You can begin to lose focus on what exactly it is you're trying to accomplish.
Dislike the task: There is probably more than one reason why you're either interested or not interested in a task, like for instance, going to the gym. Your filters and internal representations, mentioned above, will determine that. When you attempt to do a task that you makes you do something that you're not used to, you get stressed and will very easily lose your motivation.
Unskilled: you may not have the skills to complete the task, e.g. You may not know how to count your calories properly or you may not know how to perform a bicep curl. Have you ever been in that sort of situation? I have. Once, I was asked to perform a task at work and no-one told me what to do. I managed to complete it but it was very difficult.
The actual strategy that you need to create to boost your self motivation is next.
Motivated: This is the strategy that you want. Self motivation. It comes from within and is very powerful. Ask anyone whom you feel is truly motivated and they'll express that their motivation comes from within, hence the phrase 'self motivation'. However, there are two types of motivation - towards-to and away-from motivation. And you results can be drastically different, depending on which strategy you use. This is discussed in another of my articles, which you can find on the site.
Internal Representations
We all have our own internal representations of the world around us. Each representation is different to any other, not better or worse, just different. From our representation, we create a behaviour, which in turn gets a result. This process is referred to as a strategy. We all have them and there are strategies for almost everything you do. For example, you have a buying strategy. And guess who knows all about your buying strategy...shop-owners. In fact, they spend a lot effort making sure that they cater for all their customers buying strategies. They know that some of you like to have a feel of the material, so they'll make sure that they'll have some folded items, so that you can pick it up in your hands. They know that some of you buy for colour, so they make sure their display is set out to attract your eyes.
The above five barriers are unhelpful strategies that will hamper your motivation. Get to appreciate these barriers and how to break them and you will soon be on your way to getting the results you really want.
So, needless to say that when you think of a task, like your health, exercise, relationships, work etc, there will be strategies that will not be helpful to you in getting the right self motivation and results. However, the poor strategies are fairly easy to change, and that's good news.
Chris Thomas is a Success Mind Coach who helps many individuals overcome their psychological barriers that prevent them attaining their objectives in life, work, sport, health, fitness and much more.
He helps people with issues like how to increase self esteem, quit smoking (and other habits), fears and phobias, sports motivation, weight control, dealing with historical mental memories, child behaviour, parent coaching, anger management, presentational skills and more. Visit the website for more details
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