Using Your Motivations

Often, people approach self-improvement by visualizing who they want to be and then developing a series of steps, or goals, to reach that objective. That method can be successful, but only when the goals are in alignment with one's true motivations. A more sensible route to creating a better life is to start with the internal and to let that guide the external objective.

That's why we started by uncovering our most deeply held motivations. Those are going to help guide your decisions as we visualize a better life.

Let's say your motivations consistently relate to helping other people. You noticed that right away and a quick check of your past accomplishments underlines just how powerfully the chance to be of service affects you. As you look for ways to reach your maximum human potential, you will want to build goals that have that motivation in mind. You will want to strive to reach personal objectives that will allow you to use that motivation consistently.

This approach runs contrary the usual technique of deciding where you want to go and then devising a means of getting there. A motivations-based strategy begins by asking why you want to go somewhere and then organically creating that destination based upon your motivations.

This method does require a little more introspection than some self-help techniques, but it is well worth the extra effort. When your goals are in line with those things that motivate you strongly, you are far more likely to succeed. You stop trying to force your individual square peg into an imagined round hole that has little real relationship to what you value the most.