In last month’s article, we began discussing re-motivation and this is something we have all experience through the pandemic in 2020 and through 2021 presently. This has been the highlight of my work with my clients recently at the Hypnotherapy clinic in Hertfordshire. We confirm that some people need a reason ‘why’ to do things that they want to do and we also confirm a little bit about our own personal drivers in getting motivated. In this month’s article, we are thinking about our levels of motivation. Is whether what we’re doing; is it for ourselves if we’re doing it? Is it for other people or is it a combination of both?
When we talk about goal setting we talk about making sure that your goals are quite selfish, that you’re doing, what you’re doing for yourself only. However, very often, our motivation to actually do those goals may well come from a place of knowing that what we’re doing will actually make some kind of positive difference to others as well.
If you can feel motivated to do something because it gives you the buzz because it is going to pay off for you, in some particular way, then that is definitely going to be useful for you but failing that then definitely dig deep and start thinking about the ripple effect of what it is that you’re going to be doing on the wider world and we call that the study of ecology. That ‘digging deep’ is something we can explore together in our hypnotherapy and NLP sessions in my Hertfordshire clinic.
The study of ecology is when you think beyond yourself and say “is this good for me? Is it also going to be good for others? Does it serve the greater good in some way?” Potentially the answer could be ‘yes’ to all questions above. If we asked these questions in the context of getting a new job, a really hard job. For example, I have a funeral directors building across the street and something tells me that that, you know, it appears to not be a very good job to have to do. It might be a little bit depressing at times so imagine if that was going to be the new job that you were going into then you have to start thinking ‘well, how is this going to be good for others?’
Potentially, you’re going to be helping people in their time of need. You’re going to be making sure that you’re providing something that really honours and respects people that have passed on, that was loved by friends and families alike. This means you are considering the wider picture ‘how does what I’m doing actually help others in some way’ and normally you can find something.
I remember when I was doing a key-note speaker for Lloyds Bank which isn’t too far from the hypnotherapy clinic in Hertfordshire and it was at their education conference and so I had a room filled up with bankers. There were a bunch of bankers in the room and they were listening to me rambling on about this whole idea of ecology and how what you’re doing is in some way serving the greater good. I’ll be honest that when I was planning this particular presentation, I did have to dig deep to think about what good is it that these people are actually doing for the world. How are they contributing because obviously, they’re in quite a privileged position so what I ended up proposing is that actually, these guys are providing a service that enables other people to be able to maximise their money?
These bankers were specifically working with schools which made it relatively easy to make that connection because I was able to say:
“As a result of you going into a school and selling your product to them, you know, that you are either saving that school money or that you are helping them to be more productive with their finances in some way because you believe in the service that you are offering to them and as a result of doing that those schools are maybe financially free up. Perhaps they are just financially more robust or more financially competent. As a result of that, they’re going to be serving their children, families and communities in a much better way than they may have been able to do if they’d worked with the competition. In some way, you are helping those children and their families and their communities to be able to access more support from that school because you sold them the service that you offer now.”
It’s a little bit of a tenuous link to serving the greater good but if we want people to be able to tap into their motivation levels, to their optimum level, then we may need to do that extra bit of digging deep in order to, you know, really help you to see that what you’re doing actually has some positive ramifications beyond you and sometimes that’s where the real source of motivation is going to come from very often people will do more for others than they will be motivated to do for themselves.
By Gemma Bailey
