Motivation vs Habits

As you may know from previous blogs, I like to read about how others make themselves better and get on with the important things in life. I have taken this on by pushing myself to write a blog every morning. Good or bad, every morning…..

Today, I really did not want to sit down and write. Not because the writing doesn’t tend to flow, but I didn’t feel that I had anything to write about. Because of that, I didn’t feel like I could be bothered to think about something to write about, so I thought, I would leave it for today.

What happens if I do that again tomorrow and the next day? Soon I won’t have a habit of writing every day, so writing every day will be harder and harder to motivate myself to do it. Normally, I try and write about someone and that is always easy. The people I meet are so amazing and have done so many things, it is easy to motivate myself to research and write about them. Today, I wanted to write a more thoughtful piece.

http://thisisindexed.com/2015/02/miles-miles-small-steps/

Then TaDa! I thought that writing about motivation would be a good subject. So here it is!

If you haven’t heard about or read Scott Adam’s book How to fail at everything and still win big, I would recommend that you give it a go. He is the man behind Dilbert. It talks about motivation in a way many self-help/business gurus/coaches don’t talk about. It talks about making habits and ticking things off every day. Scott himself talks about how that has made him great at what he does and he talks about how Jerry Seinfeld hones his craft in a similar way. Quick wins and being a success overnight are not the norm for most successful people. They have worked hard at their craft, learned many lessons along the way. Just because you haven’t seen them do it and they jump out in the media all a sudden doesn’t mean they haven’t spent years getting to that point.

You can read the “top 10 what successful people do in the morning”, “6 things successful people never do”, “How Mark Zuckerberg has his breakfast so that he can make millions, so you can too” articles all you like. But if you are not putting the work in, doing all that reading isn’t going to help you. What is going to motivate you to get to where you want to be. Scott Adams recommends, not goals, but plans. I have been working with that concept now for about 2.5 years and I like the way it works. I am one of those that likes to tick things of a list. Marking off the days of a calendar also works for me. I know when I missed and I know that I am not going to beat myself up if I do. But equally, each day, I get better with the habits I am creating. I have a ‘point’ I can focus on. This is my motivation. So today, when I didn’t really want to write anything, forcing myself to just get on with it, so I didn’t miss a day, caused me to write this!

I hope you find something helpful to take away to determine what habits you want to build into your life today.

Hope it is a great one!

Ghilaine

@LadyGhilaine

What do you do with what you know?

Sir Francis Bacon (1597) said that “knowledge is power“. That term can, no doubt, have so many meanings. Governments use it to keep their citizens in the dark or the more enlightened know that by providing good quality education, it can make a country a great place to live, with civilised and caring citizens. If anyone knows a country that has cracked it, please do let me know. I would very much like to experience it!

In the western world, basic education is given freely, whether it is valued is for another post, but what do you do with all that you learn along your life journey that they don’t teach at school? Do you hold on to it because you want it’s power or do you share it with as many people as possible to help them shine?

There have always been great scholars and teachers that have shared their research, knowledge and experience. Historically, that meant that they had to be part of a religious order or could only pass it on to small groups of local people who had the time and inclination to learn.

With the advent of books and now the internet, we can learn about pretty much anything. So how is it that we keep making the same mistakes? “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” George Santayana.

Humans seem to have this amazing capacity to believe that their way is the best and even though countless people have come before, they can do it better. This often stems from people who feel they can be successful alone. Those that manage to achieve change or make great things happen, know full well, that it takes a team and complementary skills to achieve their goal. They learn from mentors, they reach out and ask trusted advisors, they call on others’ experience to make their solution better.

Often, those with a great wealth of experience and knowledge know that there is always more to learn and by sharing their knowledge they gain even more by learning from those they are ‘teaching’. As Phil Collins stated “In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”

Tech Talkfest benefits greatly by having members who share their knowledge and experience with those that value it, to enable others to shine. We pride ourselves on the generosity of our members and it is the overriding factor in deciding who we invite to join. Together we are busy learning and teaching and sharing the wealth of experience and knowledge we have within our membership.

Let us know the greatest lessons you have learned by tweeting with #Ihavelearned, some of them may feature in future posts!