What gets you into action?  Most people don’t know what motivates them into action. Yet it is worth discovering – as it can help you make your dreams come true.

We are not all motivated in the same way.  Some of us are MOVE TOWARD people. We make a change because we want something and moving towards it, gets us into action.

Others of us are MOVE AWAY FROM people. We make a change because we are sick of how things are. We don’t want to have “what we have” anymore and are motivated by the idea of moving away from our current situation or current path.

It doesn’t matter which type you are, but it is easier to achieve your goals if you know. Knowing helps us focus on the right things.  Change becomes easier when we focus on the things that match our natural style.

If you are a MOVE TOWARD type person, you need to keep your focus on what you will get. This is the source of your motivation. This gets you out of bed.  If you want to go for a morning run, keep your focus on the healthy body you want. If you are putting your CV together, focus on the amazing job you are preparing for. Keep your eye on what you are moving toward.

If you are a MOVE AWAY FROM type person,  you need to keep your focus on how bad things are right now. Or how bad things will be if you don’t take action. Focus on what you don’t want, as getting away from this will be your source of motivation.  Say to yourself, I don’t want to keep working at this job I hate, or I don’t want to keep feeling sick and unhealthy. It sounds negative, but it’s not negative at all. All you are doing is stimulating your motivation to get going, to get up and do something about your situation.

Over the years of coaching I have noticed that although most of us have a dominant motivational type, there are quite a lot of us who have learnt to use different action triggers for different situations.  This can make our dominant type less obvious to pick.

The best ways to discover which focus gets you into action, is through experimenting and self-observation. Try this.

1/ Take a guess which motivational type you think you are based on past things you have achieved.

2/ Then, set a small goal and experiment by focusing only one of the the two focus areas – either only on “what you will get” or only on “what you don’t want any longer”.   Start with the one you think will work best for you.

3/ Then, experiment with the one. See if it helps after you initial burst of enthusiasm.

It helps to start the experiment without a set idea of which type you are.  Sometimes people discover that they have been using the wrong focus for years and with a little shift in their attention, suddenly change becomes easier.

It’s a fun and fascinating experiment to do on yourself. And you have everything to gain. You might even achieve a goal of yours, while doing your experiment!

I always love hearing your feedback! So let me know how you go… 

Email   info@michellelandy.com