It had been years since I had any contact with my colleague friends and batchmates, hence i was super excited to be at the alumni function. It was very nostalgic to be among our teachers. There were faces around me who seemed familiar but out of my recall for their names. Suddenly I hear heavy voice from behind, taking my name. Waiting for a surprise I got rewarded soon with my long lost friend Atul.
We had lots to share since we were meeting after ages. He was now a working professional in an IT firm and was earning good. But perhaps he didn’t sound very excited sharing his professional story. I asked him about is long term plans to which he excitedly told that he is working towards setting up his own consultancy business. He looked very happy and energetic about sharing the idea he was willing to introduce in the market. But i saw a drop in his tone when I asked him about the date for go-live of the project / business.
He went into a very defensive mode saying, i know i’m in the right direction but don’t know why at times I’m not able to gain the momentum I need and eventually slow down with my plans. He seemed struggling with the sustainable motivation for his project and the sad part was that he was not able to figure out the cause for his pulsating motivation.
Being a life coach, I thought of helping him finding the continuous source of motivation. So I asked him one simple question – “Why do you want to Start your own Venture?”. His reply was not a surprise to me, as many of us are running in the same way. Atul said – “I’m done with living on boss’s mercy”. Hence i want to start my own consultancy.
Types of Motivation
Fundamentally his reason and purpose of starting the new business was based on what we call as a “negative motivation” i.e something that makes you run away from a situation or response. Hence whenever the degree of its negativity will decrease, like whenever he is having peaceful time at office or with his boss, his subconscious mind will pull him back due to the accomplishment of the core purpose i.e “running away from the boss’s mercy”. This leads to the drop in the levels of motivation and hence the effort.
The sustained levels of motivation can only come from a positive motivation that is directed towards “what you want” NOT on “What you don’t want”.
Making him understand this it was important to re-frame his purpose to starting the venture. Since the time was limited there to discuss it all. We concluded the discussion with the realization of negative and positive motivation. To which he is now working on defining his new “WHY” for life and business.
Simon Sinek mentioned in his work that always begin with the WHY. To have a sustained motivation it should always be stated positively to have a continuous motivation and energy.
Sending Love, Laughter and Joy…. Parth