Hi Srinaren
3 Ps of Motivation
"Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action."--Ecclesiasticus 38:33
Motivation is
Motivation is not a goal. Motivation is not a desire. Motivation is not a wish.
Motivation is action towards a goal. Motivation is persistent action towards a goal.
Motivation Comes from
Motivation does not come from feelings, goals, dreams, desires, wishes, wants, or waiting.
Motivation comes from effort towards a goal that gets you closer to that goal. Motivation comes from good stress.
3 Ps of Motivation
1. Praise Goal
2. Practice Goal
3. Persist Goal
1. Goal Praise: desire goal.
2. Goal Practice: work on goal.
3. Goal Persistence: stay encouraged.
1. Goal Praise: You must see the goal as good and desirable. You must reinforce the desirability of the goal by persistently praising it: making yourself aware on a daily basis of the benefits of achieving the goal.
2. Goal Practice: You must put effort towards the completion of the goal. You must work and push yourself to work on the goal. Good goal practice is doing something every day towards the completion of the goal.
3. Goal Persistence: You must overcome obstacles and persist in praising and practicing the goal. You must not give up, quit, give in, get discouraged, let laziness win, surrender to procrastination, believe in low frustration tolerance (LFT), or otherwise self-defeat your goal.
"It is a mark of much folly not to have one's life regulated with regard to some End."--Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics
Motivating Questions
"A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:"--Proverbs 1:5
What am I willing to do right now to improve my life?
What am I willing to do with the resources that I have right now (current living conditions, current finances, current relationships, current education, current employment, etc.) to improve my life right now?
What things, of all the things that I already know that it would be wise to do (eat better, sleep better, exercise more, manage my finances better, curb my spending, listen more, act kinder, practice acceptance, pray more, etc.), am I willing to do right now?
What is in the way of my choosing to make these improvements?
What am I willing to do right now to remove the obstacles to my success and happiness?
Who and what am I willing to use right now to help and support me in my positive thinking, feeling, and behavioral changes?
How can I use my negative emotions and-or stress to do better instead of worse?
What am I thinking or doing to maintain the problems?
What thinking is preventing me from taking corrective action?
What thinking is preventing me from coping with the situation?
What thinking do I need to change to do better?
What needs to change in me so that I can either problem-solve or cope better?
What could I tell myself to do better?
What negative evaluations am I making that are making the problem?
What am I sacrificing in order to keep the problem and is it worth it?
While life is NOT some magical school that creates problems for me to learn from, I will choose to use my challenges to develop my character, coping skills, and problem-solving skills.
How is your negative attitude supposed to either help or correct their negative attitude?
Do you feel that because you think it or because you experience it? Do you know the difference? How?
Would you want to repeat your life over and over again for eternity? If not, then why not?
Are you as keenly aware of what is there as you are of what is not there?
How do you relate to your experience? From what role? For instance, do you relate as victim? If you relate as victim, then why should life not relate back to you as victim?
7 Questions to Ask Yourself
1. What do I think about that?
2. How does thinking that way make me feel?
3. Feeling that way--what do I want?
4. If what I want is NOT to feel that way, then am I willing to change my thinking to change my feeling? Or do I need the bad feeling or pain to: motivate revenge, keep drama going, keep power over others, manipulate, emotional blackmail, sympathy, get rescued, procrastinate, laziness, avoidance, escape, quitting, act out, maintain pride, demanding, sell out, phoniness, ego, or another payoff? Or am I so identified with the feeling, pain, and-or problem that Ill lose my identity or sense of self if I surrender it?
5. What do I do about the way I feel? What am I sacrificing to do that? Is doing it worth the sacrifice?
6. If feeling that way is healthy for me, then what work am I willing to do to get what I want? Will I problem-solve and work on a solution or just lazily whine, blame, and damn?
7. What will I do to cope if work won't get me what I want? Will I accept it peacefully or whine, blame, and damn until I make it worse and get myself more problems and conflicts?
Questions to Ask Yourself
Will it cause a world-wide disaster? Then why make such a big deal over it?
Will my children remember me more as scolding or motivating?
Will my children remember more fun or pain from being with me?
On my death bed, will I regret not working or not living?
On my death bed, will I regret not playing or not loving?
On my death bed, will I regret not saving or not spending?
Must I try to control it?
Can I control it or only make it worse?
Can I control myself instead of it or them?
Is it so important that life will stop if I don't say it?
If I lighten up, then what disaster will occur?
Who gave me the power, authority, and responsibility to fix it?
Will my negative attitude help them to have a positive attitude?
Will my making them feel like a devil help them to act like an angel?
Will my making them feel bad help them to act good?
Will my convincing them that they don't love me get them to love me?
If I act like a porcupine, then why do I expect them to want to hug me?
Does my damning them help me to problem-solve or cope?
Isn't trying to run my own mind enough of a task without my trying to run anyone else's?
Will my whining make it better or worse?
Will my nagging make them love or hate me?
Will my hate hurt me or them?
How long do I think others spend thinking about me rather than themselves?
Will my negativity hurt my soul or my enemy's?
Garden Your Mind: Recognize, Remove, Replace
"Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end."--Proverbs 19:20
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OBJECTIVE: Learn to manage your thinking by relating the management of your thinking to the management of a garden.
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MOTIVATION: Wouldn't you agree that it would be nice to have a clear and easy way to understand how to improve your attitude? Don't you agree that by improving your attitude, you improve your life by improving at least your problem-solving and coping abilities?
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GARDEN: The first thing that you must understand in order to be an effective gardener is the difference between weeds and plants. Else, how can you make good use of the soil?
Therefore, the first principle is RECOGNIZE. If you cannot recognize the problem, you certainly cannot either problem-solve how to fix the problem or learn to cope effectively with the problem.
Once you can recognize the difference between weeds and plants, then you need to remove the weeds. As any gardener can tell you, weeds steal the resources that your plants need and weeds will even choke out and kill your plants.
Therefore, the second principle is REMOVE. If you cannot remove the problem, you certainly cannot keep from having the problem over and over again.
Once you have recognized and removed the weeds, you then need to replace the weeds with plants. There is not much point to having clean soil if you are not going to plant in it. The fact is, if you do not plant in the clean soil, then the weeds will find their way back into your soil.
Therefore, the third principle is REPLACE. If you do not replace the weeds with plants, then the weeds will gradually come back.
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ANALOGY REVIEW: The weeds are the self-defeating thoughts and scripts. The plants are the helpful and productive thoughts and scripts. The clean soil is the quiet and empty mind. The recognizing is the awareness of the short- and long-term results that your thinking provides: "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."--Matthew 7:20. The removing is disputing or talking yourself out of the stinking thinking. The replacing is the planting and nurturing of practical, factual, logical, positive, problem-solving, coping, risk taking, etc., thinking that helps you to achieve your healthy goals. The replacing is making good use of your mind by devoting it to healthy and helpful thinking styles.
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BRIEF SUMMARY: You need to RECOGNIZE the weeds in your mind, to REMOVE the weeds from your mind, and to REPLACE the weeds in your mind with productive plants. That is, recognize and remove your hurtful thinking and replace it with helpful thinking.
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SELF AND GARDEN: You are the garden NOT the weeds or plants in the garden. You are the mind, NOT the weeds or plants in the mind. The weeds and plants come and go, but the garden remains constant. The weeds and plants grow, develop, and change, but the garden remains the same.
QUOTATIONS GARDENING
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"In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful."--Abram L. Urban
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"You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt."--Anonymous
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"There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling."--Mirabel Osler
regards
Arun K Mishra