Why Motivation Won’t Work

Why Motivation Won’t Work

Motivational speeches are meant for one thing and one thing only, to bring to life the courage you need to forge ahead. Of course some speakers give examples and illustrations that seem out of this world just to give you that feeling of “you can do it”. As phony as some of us (motivational speakers) sound, the truth is there are living testimonies of how people have moved from nothing to something by simply believing.

Now the question you may want to ask is, why is it that motivational speeches, texts and push don’t work for everyone? I will try to answer this question as simple as possible. (click on the hyperlinks for more explanation)

1. Doubts: When you doubt yourself there is hardly anything anyone can do for you. The ideals of motivation are predicated on self-belief. That’s why someone like me would first ensure a client believes in himself or herself before we start working on other problems or setting goals. People may try to make you see reasons why you should believe in yourself but the choice to do so would always be yours to make. If you doubt yourself, until you fix that, you can’t be motivated.

2. Hidden Facts: Most motivational speakers tell you all the good stuffs you want to hear like; you can do it, you are special, you can rise above anything and so on. All these are true but also true is that you would have to work for the success you seek, this is the hidden fact. In fact, motivation is meant to soothe your aching body from hard work and keep you focused on the rewards at the end of it all. So when most people get to the work part they lose their sense of motivation.

3. If you can’t answer the Who and the What questions motivation won’t likely work for you

A. Who are you: if you haven’t found yourself there is little a motivational speaker can do for you. You should be able to answer that question. “Who are you?”, goes beyond your name and gender, the answer tells you/us what you are capable of, how well you can do certain things, what scares you, what you feel are your limitations and what you think best gets you started.

B. What do you really want: When you can answer the first question, the second question only points you in the right direction. A guidance counselor might be able to help with answering these questions but not motivational texts. You need these things in place before you can be fully motivated otherwise a motivational text or speaker would only sound like an illusionist to you.

4. Preconception: If you already believe motivation is pointless then it most likely won’t work for you. Motivational text are designed to spark the plugs in you, in order to fire up your engine. Not believing in motivation is like having wet plugs, it is almost impossible to spark those. Where you put your faith really matters, some believe without huge sum of money you can’t start a business, while others believe without moving elsewhere the grass can’t get greener, there is hardly anything motivation can do to change such people’s mentality, their preconception won’t allow motivation to work.

5. Motivation is like bathing, you have to do it at least once a day. The moment you relent you become weary, you burn out, you start questioning everything you believe and you begin to feel like nothing is working. If you want to move faster, you will have to fire up the engine – (the coal engine train trick). You won’t relent if you are always reminded of the importance of where you are going. In fact you should have a routine which includes reading motivational text and listening to speeches in it on a daily basis, if you want motivation to work for you.

If you have any part of this text that you would like to discuss with me, you can drop your comment here or simply send an email to selahsgroup@gmail.com and I will be glad to get back to you.