A no-brainer part of any system designed to help you maintain your momentum is the simple question, "What motivates me?"
In your career, part of the answer will be, "the work itself," and, "the end result" (see my thoughts on passion and meaning for more about this). But beyond that, what else motivates you?
Here are a few ideas to ponder. The list is by no means exhaustive. It's simply a place to get your thinking started.
Competition
I always like to use a non-work example to illustrate the power of tapping into your particular source of motivation. A few years back a friend and I both started studying Spanish about the same time. She was taking a class, and I was teaching myself.
We're both pretty competitive (ding!ding!ding! Anyone see a motivation source coming up here?) and at one point early on we made a bet on who would be more fluent by the end of a year. We planned on hiring a Spanish teacher to test both our written and oral fluency to settle the bet.
The hardest part of learning a language is the very beginning, when everything is new and confusing. It's easy to lose momentum and let it drift off. But our bet kept me hyper-engaged in it. Every time we saw each other, we would needle each other on how our Spanish was going. There was no way I was going to let her pull ahead in it.
As it turned out, we never did hire a teacher to test us, so to this day we have no idea who actually won the bet. But the motivation that our little competition gave me is one of the reasons I was able to stick with it to the point where I could actually use my Spanish.
Public goal setting
Goal setting can be a great source of motivation. Even better, public goal setting. When I wrote my e-book, The Occupational Adventure Guide, I posted in November of that year that I intended to have it ready for the New Year. I described it as throwing my hat over the fence so I would have to climb over and get it (of course, the following week as I realized how monumental the task really was, I wrote, "Ummmmm...could someone throw my hat back over to me?")
But it did the trick. I worked incredibly hard on it, and finished it on time.
Think about the goal-setting from a long-term and a short-term perspective. It's great to have a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) to inspire you, but a series of smaller goals along the way can give more immediate gratification and a sense of accomplishment.
Rewards
Are you motivated by rewards? Maybe you set your own rewards, ranging in size according to what they're for. For example, "When I reach my goals this month, I'm going to treat myself to a concert, or a dinner at an especially good restaurant, or a day at the spa." Or, "When I reach my goals for this year, I'm going to treat myself to that dream trip, or that personal development retreat I've been wanting to go to."
Those rewards might be external as well, like working towards getting a special certificate or license.
Recognition
Perhaps it's recognition that motivates you. Are there ways you can incorporate the potential for recognition into what you do that would inherently support where you want to go?
Seeing the outcome
It might be the tangible reinforcement of the difference you've made along the way that gives you that motivating spark. It certainly is part of it for me. One of my favorite things in the world is getting random e-mails or comments from people whose lives were impacted in a positive way by some aspect of my work.
The motivation factors I described here are just a smattering of all the possibilities. You may share some, all, or none. I'm not here to tell you what your motivation factors are - I'm just here to ask the questions...
What motivates you? How can you incorporate that into your journey?
[Go here and scroll down for a compilation of my momentum maintenance system posts.]
Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide
Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst TM
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