“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain
Motivation is your drive and it’s a skill you can build. When it comes to your performance, motivation is one of the most important things you control. One of my favorite places to look for motivation practices is sports. After all, athletes depend on motivation to perform their best.
In the article The Power of Prime, Jim Taylor, Ph.D. outlines the three D’s of what he calls prime motivation:
- Direction – Consider three potential directions: stop, continue your level, or become your best.
- Decision – Decide on your direction (stop, continue your level, or improve.) This tells you how much time and effort to put in, based on how good you want to become.
- Dedication – Dedicate yourself to your direction and decision. It’s your level of dedication that will limit or enable your results.
It’s a simple frame, but I like how it lays out your options and puts it in black and white. It also helps you troubleshoot your thinking. For example, if you want to become your best, but you’re not putting in your time and effort, then there’s a mismatch. In an opposite example, you might not want to improve at something, in which case, you might trim down the time and energy you spend on it, so you can invest it somewhere else.
Photo by Iqbal Saggu.
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