Self-Motivation

Motivation is a concept right up there with "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "to each his own" etc. What moves one person may not get as much as a blink of an eye with the next.

A few years ago a sales contest was held to give a boost to a particular product group. Polling the sales guys revealed that most would be interested in a vacation trip for two. The grand prize ended up being a four night, five day stay in the Bahamas - company paid and no personal vacation time required to be used. It was wildly successful with exposure and sales for that product line more than tripling over the previous quarter. The winner didn't want the prize and only asked that he be able to take the 5 days as extended weekends over the course of the year. A quiet man, his only goal was to show that he was the best.

While many seminars on motivation seriously motivate some people, most attendees that I have talked with admit that the surge lasts only a few days. My question to them then is "Have you learned anything that you can use to motivate yourself when you need to achieve?" Most say they know what to do and they just have to make themselves do it. This is where goal setting blends with motivation - set a goal and take the steps to do it.

When I young in the sales game, I blazed away for a while and then I "blazed away" like a piece of charcoal. Still hot but the bright flame was hard to see. My manager, an "old" guy who at the time was younger than I am now called me to his office as he could see some of my frustrations.
After admitting that it was difficult getting "up" to see some accounts he put it very succintly - "Do your job and then some and you'll pick back up very quickly. If you don't do your job, it WILL very quickly become a real chore and you will fail". How right he was! If you at least do the job and a little bit more, the bad times will be in the past and you'll get moving again.

As Zig Ziglar says "the auto-university" is an excellent way to listen to motivational people and to learn. The big sellers are big for a reason; they speak well, they speak to you and they speak to success. Invest the money to listen to the best like Ziglar, Napolean Hill etc. I'll go through my audio library soon and will give you a list of some that I like.

My son makes fun of me for this but I like to listen to music that inspires me before I go into a big meeting. "1812 Overture", Theme from Superman, "Hall of the Mountain King", "Star Wars", "Impossible Dream" etc. Do what it takes if you require a little mental boost. Put a picture on your dashboard of the person you want to impress, read a great speech, listen to a motivational speaker or to music that wakens your soul. BUT BE SURE TO DO IT.