(If you haven't read The Motivation Files, Part I, click here.)
After reading last week's post, The Motivation Files, Part I, you may be asking yourself: Crimson, how do you know about motivating people? Do you have a degree in life coaching? The answer: I have a degree in piano performance which led me to have tons of practical experience.
When I was working in Michigan, I had a studio of over 50 piano students. Yes, you read that right, five-zero. While more than mildly insane, I learned a lot, in short order, about how to motivate people to attain their goals. I not only worked with the students themselves, but their parents, because most 5-7 year olds do not have the ability to use abstract thinking, i.e. they cannot see a larger reason to do something other than their immediate wants and desires. This is where their parents came in: to help their child(ren) achieve their first goal, so they could see, in concrete means, why practicing and working towards goals have value.
Big thoughts for the little guys, I know. By having great success with the majority of my students on this, I not only had an amazing studio recital, but my students' focus, concentration, work ethic, motivation, and overall behavior improved in school and at home as well. It was more common for the parent to start nodding and groaning when I spoke to the parent about a behavioral concern, and say something to the extent of: I just spoke with Student A's teacher about the same thing on Friday, than look at me like I'm talking about someone else's kid. It was equally common when we worked and improved on any of these concerns in lessons, the next parent-teacher conference would have glowing reviews.
To be able to do this, I not only had to be able to motivate the students, but motivate their parents to help with practicing and following through on assignments. This is not easy when we live in a culture where everything is based on negative reinforcement: bad grades (and in many cases, inflated, meaningless good grades), fines, punishment, loss of privileges, etc. To switch gears to positive reinforcement of goals, especially in our own heads, can be mind-boggling, and feel impossible at first. However, in my own experience and in working with others, it is one of the most positive things you can do to improve your life, and the lives of the people you hold most dear.
So, you completed the steps from last week, and you're looking for the next steps this week? Great! Here we go...
WARNING: This may be painful. Seriously. Don't do this on a day when you are already low energy, your boss yelled at you, or you just want to shoot something. You may find that nothing in your life is helping you achieve more time to do your favorite thing, that instead, you are focused on doing everything BUT your favorite thing. From personal experience, I give you my most empathetic: OUCH!
The positive: knowledge is power. Once you know that you are making the choices about how you spend your time, you can change it into the life you imagine, with way more time to do your favorite thing. Sometimes, making these changes will happen slowly, to tie up loose ends, or incredibly quickly, because you have known but not acted on a change you've wanted to make and known about for a while. It all depends on where you are now, and how aware and mindful you have been up until this point.
Once more for emphasis: this. might. hurt. There, you have been warned. However, today, you don't have to act on anything. You're just obtaining information. Let it sink in. Breathe. I'll talk more about acting on what you find next week.
Easy peasy: write numbers (1-x) along your list based on your personal value of each item.
Write letters (A-Z) along your list based on how helpful they are in allowing you to have more time to do your favorite thing.
Do they line up? Are there items in your list that are both a 1 AND an A? These items are probably a big deal, and you should try to prioritize them to have the most time.
Are there items that are a 1 and a Z? Or a 10 and an A? Items labeled 1 and Z are items that you may enjoy and are important to you, that don't at all help you have time to do your favorite thing. Items labeled 10 and A are items that you hate doing that will definitely help you have time doing your favorite thing.
If the former and there are a lot of instances of this in your list, decide if you have a secondary favorite thing, and if you do, make a new list to support time to do that favorite thing as well.
If the latter, decide how important that thing you hate doing is to further doing your favorite thing. Ask yourself: Is it important because someone else or I believe it is? Can I pay someone else to do this to still obtain the benefit, but not have to spend time doing it? Is it actually that important if I hate it that much?
Do you have two (or more) distinct 1 and A items?
This is probably the most exciting part about your list: you may have two favorite things (or more)! That is totally cool. It means your focus won't be quite as one-pointed as someone with one favorite thing, but it will still improve your life quickly by prioritizing your time to spend on your favorite things.
If you have two (or more) favorite things, decide how much time, ideally, you would spend on each one. Do you want to do each one every day? Once a week? Once a month? Once a year? What will give you the motivation to keep going every day on all the other things you do in life?
This is indeed the big question. There are two broad schools of thought on this: 1. If your work is something you love, you never work a day in your life. 2. Find a lucrative career you like, that pays for the hobbies you love. Either of these can be right for you. It all just depends on if you enjoy the careers offered in the fields you love, and if the job associated with your favorite thing, is actually your favorite thing to do.
In my case, I tried option one, and it didn't work for me. Teaching is not the same thing as practicing, nor does it have the elements I love about practicing. Teaching is working one on one with people to help them improve. Practicing is working alone to improve yourself. While I am a good teacher, and was very attached to many of my students, I would come home every day from work completely depleted. I did not have the energy to do my favorite thing after work. I had the energy to eat a microwave dinner, curl up in a ball on my bed and watch Netflix. I wasn't writing. I wasn't practicing (well). I wasn't creating or improving on myself. I was existing-ish.
I don't wish that sort of life on anyone, yet I know many of you reading this have been there, or are there right now. If you are there right now, hang in there. Try to find your way back to your favorite thing to do. It will change. Life always does. It's one of those constant things that we can't escape, and in this case, it is almost always positive.
So, lots of things to think about this week... My post next week will be the third and last post of The Motivation Files and will be about letting go and being ready to make the positive changes happen.
See you next week!
As always, if you have any questions on any of the steps, or you would like a blog post devoted to something specific that did not make sense, please, please, please comment below! I'd love to hear feedback about anything and everything related to these posts. Paying it forward doesn't help if you aren't listening to what people want or are speaking in a manner they don't understand. So, help me help you! Speak up!
After reading last week's post, The Motivation Files, Part I, you may be asking yourself: Crimson, how do you know about motivating people? Do you have a degree in life coaching? The answer: I have a degree in piano performance which led me to have tons of practical experience.
When I was working in Michigan, I had a studio of over 50 piano students. Yes, you read that right, five-zero. While more than mildly insane, I learned a lot, in short order, about how to motivate people to attain their goals. I not only worked with the students themselves, but their parents, because most 5-7 year olds do not have the ability to use abstract thinking, i.e. they cannot see a larger reason to do something other than their immediate wants and desires. This is where their parents came in: to help their child(ren) achieve their first goal, so they could see, in concrete means, why practicing and working towards goals have value.
Big thoughts for the little guys, I know. By having great success with the majority of my students on this, I not only had an amazing studio recital, but my students' focus, concentration, work ethic, motivation, and overall behavior improved in school and at home as well. It was more common for the parent to start nodding and groaning when I spoke to the parent about a behavioral concern, and say something to the extent of: I just spoke with Student A's teacher about the same thing on Friday, than look at me like I'm talking about someone else's kid. It was equally common when we worked and improved on any of these concerns in lessons, the next parent-teacher conference would have glowing reviews.
To be able to do this, I not only had to be able to motivate the students, but motivate their parents to help with practicing and following through on assignments. This is not easy when we live in a culture where everything is based on negative reinforcement: bad grades (and in many cases, inflated, meaningless good grades), fines, punishment, loss of privileges, etc. To switch gears to positive reinforcement of goals, especially in our own heads, can be mind-boggling, and feel impossible at first. However, in my own experience and in working with others, it is one of the most positive things you can do to improve your life, and the lives of the people you hold most dear.
So, you completed the steps from last week, and you're looking for the next steps this week? Great! Here we go...
Step 1: Write down the reasoning chains you thought about most in the last week.
WARNING: This may be painful. Seriously. Don't do this on a day when you are already low energy, your boss yelled at you, or you just want to shoot something. You may find that nothing in your life is helping you achieve more time to do your favorite thing, that instead, you are focused on doing everything BUT your favorite thing. From personal experience, I give you my most empathetic: OUCH!
The positive: knowledge is power. Once you know that you are making the choices about how you spend your time, you can change it into the life you imagine, with way more time to do your favorite thing. Sometimes, making these changes will happen slowly, to tie up loose ends, or incredibly quickly, because you have known but not acted on a change you've wanted to make and known about for a while. It all depends on where you are now, and how aware and mindful you have been up until this point.
Once more for emphasis: this. might. hurt. There, you have been warned. However, today, you don't have to act on anything. You're just obtaining information. Let it sink in. Breathe. I'll talk more about acting on what you find next week.
Step 2: Prioritize the things you do in a week based on how important they are to you.
Easy peasy: write numbers (1-x) along your list based on your personal value of each item.
Step 3: Prioritize the things you do in a week based on how they help you achieve more time doing your favorite thing.
Write letters (A-Z) along your list based on how helpful they are in allowing you to have more time to do your favorite thing.
Step 4: Look at your numbers and letters.
Do they line up? Are there items in your list that are both a 1 AND an A? These items are probably a big deal, and you should try to prioritize them to have the most time.
Are there items that are a 1 and a Z? Or a 10 and an A? Items labeled 1 and Z are items that you may enjoy and are important to you, that don't at all help you have time to do your favorite thing. Items labeled 10 and A are items that you hate doing that will definitely help you have time doing your favorite thing.
If the former and there are a lot of instances of this in your list, decide if you have a secondary favorite thing, and if you do, make a new list to support time to do that favorite thing as well.
If the latter, decide how important that thing you hate doing is to further doing your favorite thing. Ask yourself: Is it important because someone else or I believe it is? Can I pay someone else to do this to still obtain the benefit, but not have to spend time doing it? Is it actually that important if I hate it that much?
Do you have two (or more) distinct 1 and A items?
This is probably the most exciting part about your list: you may have two favorite things (or more)! That is totally cool. It means your focus won't be quite as one-pointed as someone with one favorite thing, but it will still improve your life quickly by prioritizing your time to spend on your favorite things.
If you have two (or more) favorite things, decide how much time, ideally, you would spend on each one. Do you want to do each one every day? Once a week? Once a month? Once a year? What will give you the motivation to keep going every day on all the other things you do in life?
Step 5: The big question of the week: Would making money doing your favorite thing make you happy?
This is indeed the big question. There are two broad schools of thought on this: 1. If your work is something you love, you never work a day in your life. 2. Find a lucrative career you like, that pays for the hobbies you love. Either of these can be right for you. It all just depends on if you enjoy the careers offered in the fields you love, and if the job associated with your favorite thing, is actually your favorite thing to do.
In my case, I tried option one, and it didn't work for me. Teaching is not the same thing as practicing, nor does it have the elements I love about practicing. Teaching is working one on one with people to help them improve. Practicing is working alone to improve yourself. While I am a good teacher, and was very attached to many of my students, I would come home every day from work completely depleted. I did not have the energy to do my favorite thing after work. I had the energy to eat a microwave dinner, curl up in a ball on my bed and watch Netflix. I wasn't writing. I wasn't practicing (well). I wasn't creating or improving on myself. I was existing-ish.
I don't wish that sort of life on anyone, yet I know many of you reading this have been there, or are there right now. If you are there right now, hang in there. Try to find your way back to your favorite thing to do. It will change. Life always does. It's one of those constant things that we can't escape, and in this case, it is almost always positive.
So, lots of things to think about this week... My post next week will be the third and last post of The Motivation Files and will be about letting go and being ready to make the positive changes happen.
See you next week!
As always, if you have any questions on any of the steps, or you would like a blog post devoted to something specific that did not make sense, please, please, please comment below! I'd love to hear feedback about anything and everything related to these posts. Paying it forward doesn't help if you aren't listening to what people want or are speaking in a manner they don't understand. So, help me help you! Speak up!
No comments:
Post a Comment