Motivation

1. HOW (AND WHEN) TO
MOTIVATE YOURSELFBY PETER BREGMAN
FROM-HBR ASCEND
PRESENTED BY- SHUBHAM SINGH
42381
M.B.A IV
ISBM GYAN VIHAR

2. A SHORT STORY
• I woke up this morning to pouring rain and temperatures in the low 40s. I had
planned on going for an early bike ride in Central Park but now I wasn’t so sure. I
like to get some exercise every day and given my commitments for the rest of the
day, this was my only opportunity. But did I really want to get so wet and cold?
• I decided to go for it, though I continued to question myself as I put on my biking
clothes and got my bike out of the basement. I paused under the awning of our
apartment building, as rain streamed down on either side of me.

3. • A friend of mine, Chris, happened to be dashing home to avoid the rain and
stopped under the awning for a second.
• “Great day for a bike ride,” he said, before running on.
• He’s right, I thought, this is dumb. I stayed under the awning for a few more
minutes as I considered retreating into the warmth of my apartment.
• Finally, knowing that I’d feel great after a good, hard ride, I got on my bike and
took off, pedaling hard. The initial sting of the cold rain had me questioning
myself again but I kept going.

4. • When I got back to the apartment building — drenched, a little muddy, and with a big
smile on my face — one of my neighbors commented on how motivated and
disciplined I was to be out on a day like that.
• But he was wrong. My ride in the rain taught me a good lesson about motivation and
discipline: we need it less than we think.
• “I didn’t need to be motivated for long,” I laughed. “Just long enough to get outside.”
• Because once I was already in the rain, it took no discipline to keep riding. Getting
started was the hard part. Like getting into a cold pool. Once you’re in, it’s fine.
It’s getting in that takes motivation.

5. • I write at least one post a week. Does that take discipline? Sure. But when I break
it down, the hardest part — the part for which I need the discipline — is sitting
down to write. I’ll find all sorts of things to distract me from starting. But if I can
get myself to start a post, I don’t need much discipline to finish it.
• Need willpower to work on something difficult? Ask yourself when you need that
willpower the most. Received feedback that you should talk less in meetings?
Figure out when are you most susceptible to blabbing on. Trying to maintain a
commitment to yourself or someone else? Identify the times when you are most
at risk of violating that commitment.

6. • Then, whatever you do, don’t give up in the moments when you’re most
vulnerable. Don’t give up the bike ride while standing under the awning watching
it rain. Even when your friend tells you you’re crazy to go out.
• We waste a lot of time, energy, and focus second-guessing ourselves. Am I doing
the right work? Is this project worthwhile? Is this employee going to work out?
That moment-by-moment deliberation is a distraction at best and sabotage at
worst. If you keep asking yourself whether a project is worth working on, you’ll
reduce your effort on that project — who wants to spend time on something that
might fail? — and doom its success.

7. LEARNINGS
• Motivation- a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way.
• Motivation is a powerful, yet tricky beast. Sometimes it is really easy to get
motivated, and you find yourself wrapped up in a whirlwind of excitement. Other
times, it is nearly impossible to figure out how to motivate yourself and you're
trapped in a death spiral of procrastination.
• Failures- But failure, as much as it hurts, is also a necessary part of life. It's the
pathway to our goals. In fact, the most successful and famous people in the world
have endured the most failures in life.

8. GOALS AND CLEAR OBJECTIVES:-
• 1. Find what you love doing.
• Most people work a job they don’t like. They invest all their energy (in the most
productive stages of their life) into doing the same thing 5 days a week, and
feeling like they haven’t really done anything better with their time. . . This is one
of the biggest regrets of those who never pursued ‘something more.’
• At the end of your life, you may look back and notice many things you secretly
wanted to do, but never did. You may then realize that you never asked for what
you desired, never enjoyed a day at work, and never fully did your best.

9. • 2. Start taking care of yourself.
• Most people never think about self-care. Even if they do have some healthy
habits and are purpose-oriented, they neglect their mental and spiritual
health. Physical health means nothing without these two.
• So let this be one of the personal goals you set: to finally make more time for
yourself, to take it easy. To stop judging, blaming, lying to, or expecting too
from yourself.

10. • 3. Contribute beyond yourself.
• Another one of the examples of life goals worth setting is about giving, because
it’s true that the more you give, the more you get in return.
• The sad truth is, most of us live pretty egoistically: we make ourselves feel good
and do what makes our life comfortable, but that also means putting the
happiness of those we love aside, and never considering helping those around
in any way we can.

11. • 4. Enjoying life more.
• Out of all of the ideal goals to set, this is perhaps the most important one.
• As general as it may sound, you can personalize this idea, and start enjoying
life more by defining for yourself what that means. If done right, you may realize
you want a great family life and anything else is much less important. So, if you
dedicate yourself to being a great partner and parent, you’ll be waking up
blessed every single day.

12. • 5. Leaving your comfort zone.
• Life becomes pretty boring and lacks fulfilment if you stay in one place,
both physically and mentally.
• Traveling is one way to get out of the rut and explore more of what’s out there.
By traveling, you put yourself in a new environment and see how you react. You
learn to become adaptive and grow in countless ways.

13. LEARNING FROM FAILURES.
• Failure is supposed to be a great teacher. But if that’s true, why are so many of us
unable to acquire the knowledge this “great teacher” has to impart? Why do we
keep failing?
• The problem is failure might be a great teacher, but it is also a cryptic one. Figuring
out its lessons is no easy task, especially when we’re still nursing a bruised ego and
swimming in frustration, disappointment, and demoralization, not to mention the
occasional embarrassment, resentment, and hopelessness.
• To be able to learn from our failures, we need a way to decode the “teachable
moments” hidden within them. We need a method for deducing what exactly those
lessons are and how they can improve our chances of future success.

14. HOW TO TACKLE?
• 1. Reevaluate your planning: The vast majority of us spend little if any time on
this kind of planning, despite the likelihood of our running into obstacles and
unexpected circumstances. In the future, make sure to plan your general strategy,
consider potential setbacks, and figure out how to overcome them, before you
begin.

15. • Reevaluate your preparation: For example, consider someone whose goal is to
get healthy by joining a gym and going three times a week. Her plan can easily
get derailed if the babysitter cancels and she has no alternate childcare
arrangements. Preparing backup childcare ahead of time would allow her to get
to the gym more consistently and to get into the habit more easily, which in turn
will increase her chances of persisting toward her goal.

16. • 3. Reevaluate your execution: Was your effort consistent, or did you experience
lags in your work ethic, motivation, or your general mindset? Go back and
when and why any drops in effort occurred. Identifying when you got
demoralized or demotivated, and which external circumstances derailed your
efforts, will allow you to anticipate such events and plan how you to address
in the future

17. • 4. Focus on variables in your control: Failure can make us feel passive and
helpless and lead us to believe that we’ll never succeed no matter what we do
try. However compelling such feelings are, they are no more than perceptual
distortions — tricks our minds play on us after experiencing failure.

18. BE A WINNER, ALWAYS BELIEVE IN YOURSELF.