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| Motivation Information |
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Make Fear a Nine Day Wonder - Motivate Yourself with Fun!
Have you heard something referred to as a "nine day wonder"? The phrase refers to something that causes a sensation for a brief period of time and then fades into obscurity. The origin of this phrase is usually tied to the nine-day reign of Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554) as Queen of England. This reluctant queen met an untimely fate. More on that later... I added a new Fun Commandment recently to address a very pesky and persistent nine day wonder we all face - fear as a motivator. Fear is a great motivator...for a brief period. Then it does worse than fade into obscurity; fear adds to our load of stress and pressure. So I'm calling for an end to this nine day wonder's reign with my Fun Commandment, Motivate Yourself with Fun Rather than Fear. Motivating yourself with fun rather than fear pays big dividends in myriad ways. Making this choice accelerates your ability to communicate, rests your brain, lowers your stress, increases your tolerance for pain, among other things. In this article, however, I am focusing on one incredibly important and impactful side effect of this Commandment - using fun to motivate yourself increases your creativity. Creativity is an ability highly sought by businesses and employees alike. Creativity is trumpeted in every mission statement and praised by every CEO for good reason - we know that creativity brings breakthroughs! Since the ability to create breakthroughs is both a highly sought after and also a highly marketable skill, creativity gets a lot of deserved attention. Yet there are still many myths to dispel about creativity. One of the biggest myths is that creativity is fueled by time pressure. Time pressure is an example of fear-based motivation because it involves trying to escape a negative consequence rather than moving toward a positive outcome. Deadlines are a reality, but using fear to fuel our creative juices has the opposite effect. The alternative is to use fun as our motivator. Theresa Amabile, head of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, has been studying creativity for 30 years. For the past 8 years she has collected nearly 12,000 daily journal entries from 238 people working on creative projects in seven large corporations. She and her team scoured journals for moments when people struggled with a problem or came up with a new idea. The following rules for using fun to motivate creativity are inspired directly from Amabile's research. 1. Deadlines are fear-based; if you want to be creative you must give yourself an "incubation period." Deadlines create distractions that rob your attention, the research indicates. Even with a deadline looming, to get creative you should focus on your work in an environment protected from distractions. 2. Competition is fear-based; collaboration is fun-based. If you want to amplify your creativity, the research tells you to foster the confidence to share your ideas with others. Be open to debate with collaborators and create a noncompetitive environment. You'll hit new heights of creativity! 3. Catching people doing things right, rather than punishing them for doing things wrong, is fun-based. Public celebrations, according to the research, of accomplishments are a boon for creativity. If you want to spark creativity, publicly recognize someone's work or contributions! 4. Sparking intrinsic motivation is what fun accomplishes when you use it as a motivator. Intrinsic motivation, the research proves, is critical to creativity. Anyone, it turns out, can be highly creative - when they become intrinsically motivated! Motivating yourself with fun clears away barriers and allows your experience, knowledge, and skills to foster new, creative ways of thinking. 5. You are more likely to have a creative breakthrough if you were happy the day before. When you are happy, which usually happens as a byproduct of fun-based motivation, the research clearly indicates a great chance of your happiness "incubating" overnight to show up as a creative idea the following day. How about that? I could not have asked for more compelling evidence that fun is a better personal and professional motivator than fear. Amabile's 8-year study clearly shows that today's happiness predicts tomorrow's creativity! So start getting happy today by motivating yourself with fun and then re-create your world tomorrow! By the way, Lady Jane Grey was reluctant to take the throne of England because she was only 15 years old and she held unpopular Protestant beliefs. Her reluctance was well-founded; the young Queen relinquished the crown after just 9 days, plead guilty to treason, and was eventually beheaded. Let's give fear, as our motivator, the same fate. Fear becomes a nine day wonder when we replace it with fun today! How to turbo-charge your health, success, and vitality! Clifford Kuhn, M.D., America's Laugh Doctor, teaches people and organizations to be more healthy and successful through the use of fun and humor. A psychiatrist, and the former associate chairperson of the University of Louisville's renowned Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Kuhn now dispenses his unique Fun Factor prescription from http://www.natural-humor-medicine.com/EZA7. On his website you will find tons of fun, free ways for you to maximize your sense of humor, and enjoy a life others will envy and admire.
Motivation - Google News |
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Business Management Do The Hardest Thing First And The Rest Will Be Easy Have you ever noticed that in life we almost always choose the easy road, the path of least resistance when it comes to challenges in our way? Motivation: Small Changes, Big Results When I was 8 years old, my parents let me go to the toy store with my buddy Mike and his Mom. Raising The Bar One of the most popular events in the Olympics is the pole vault event. We all watch with amazement and anticipation as the competitor runs full speed down the track with a long pole in his hands. Then the jumper hangs on for dear life as he lowers the pole downwards into a hole that propels him high up in the air, high enough to clear the bar just in front of him. The jumper then has a soft landing on his back ready to jump even higher the next time. Get Things Done: Take 21! Ever begin doing something that you do for a few days, and then simply stop doing it? Why are You Living? It was 4,O'Clock in the morning, my regular time to leave my bed and prepare myself for the day's activities. But today, it was special?some thoughts were troubling the peace of my find. Why are we living? What is the purpose of this life? For whom, I am living? For my parents, my spouse, my kids, my country, my religion, NO, I am and in that manner we all are living for ourselves. If today anything happens to me, will my spouse, my parents, my kids, stop living? No, they will not. Then, what is the purpose of living? Why are you living? You are living for yourself, your name, your growth, and your happiness. The purpose of this life is: "You in Particular and others in General". Hanging On In There - How To Carry On When Your Motivation Is Flagging "I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.... I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking." Correct Your Mindset and Expel The Fear The main problem with many of us is we loose our direction in life. We have great aspirations upon leaving school or college but then just loose direction or do not know how to achieve our dreams. We are all taught the academic basics needed to function in today's world. We may then study further to achieve a qualification in a particular field. But we are never taught how to achieve real success. You need far more then just qualifications to make a success of your life. It's a fact that many people have left school with very few or no qualifications, but have still been very successful. If The Fear Fits...Dont Wear It! Undoubtedly one of the most challenging tasks we can face everyday is fighting the fear of failure. At one time or another every single person has had to face the fear of stepping out into an unfamiliar area and leaving his comfort zone and entering the twilight zone. Don't Let Motivation Cause You to Fail Yesterday my teenage son Matt came home with a less than stellar report card. (Yes, even peak performance experts sometimes have trouble motivating others.) Now Matt is by no means stupid. The reason he got poor grades is because he did not do the work that was required for some of his classes. Why did not he do the work? According to him, he did not feel motivated to do it. After having a loud discussion with him (translation: I was ranting and raving), I realized that Matt is no different than many people in his erroneous idea about motivation and success. Get The Man Right One Saturday morning, a minister could not think of a sermon to write. He simply could not get inspired. He stared out of the window, at the birds splashing in the bird-bath. His mind was blank, as was the sheet of paper on his writing desk. Unleash Your Unlimited Power Your Non-Conscious Mind is 98% of your full power. Your Inner Knowing is at least 986,743 times more powerful than your non-conscious mind. The reason is because this inner knowing has direct access to harness the infinite powers of the universe to produce results. The Road Less Traveled Can someone please tell me why it is that men who have nothing substantial to offer continually approach me? Do you have anything of benefit to bring to MY table? Do I wear a sign on my forehead that reads: WANTED. UNEMPLOYED MAN WITH NO MOTIVATION, NO GOALS OR ASPIRATIONS. GROUNDED EMPLOYED, SUCCESSFUL R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-L-E MEN NEED NOT APPLY? Mind Power King Solomon said "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he as he continues to think so he remains. Aristotle said "What we expect that we find. Demosthenes said "What we wish that we believe. The modern theory " He can who thinks he can. You have the power to control your destiny. Every thing that is happening to you emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually is what is happening in your mind. You can choose any thought you like. Every moment, every second there is a choice. You cannot live a choiceless life. You can choose the kind of life you want to lead, the kind of companion with whom you want to associate. Procrastinator No More! Procrastination is when ever we postpone a task or duty intentionally without a valuable explanation. It is a natural tendency in people. Let's face it, sometimes we are tired or a specific task is unpleasant to perform and we respond by putting it off until later. If it happens only once or on something of not much importance it is okay. But, what happens when a student keeps putting off the school work. At the last minute he may want to make up for the lost time but fails the class. So, can you see how procrastination can get in the way of your success and objectives? Therefore, it is crucial for people to learn how to avoid this negative tendency and manage it effectively. Below I have added some tips that can convert anyone in to a procrastinator no more! Quit Pretending - You Have To Live Whats In You To Succeed Some people, after they reach their mid and upper adult years seem to go through their lives just existing. Oh! They work at their jobs as best as they can. Some may even pursue higher positions in their jobs but they still don't seem to stay satisfied with whatever position they have. They are usually the ones just waiting until it comes time for their retirement. Be Action-Oriented Are you a melancholic online business owner by nature? I have something to tell you. How Poor Are You! Do you want to know your poverty graph? You are poor if you: Procrastination Strategies: Boost Your Productivity by Getting On With It We all suffer from procrastination from time to time but rather than fight it, think of procrastination as a gift. This gift allows you to get clarity on what is important to you and what you should work on next. Change your thinking when it comes to procrastination. Seven Aspects of Making Brilliant Decisions: The Relationship Between Work and Self Workweek: an opportunity for discovering and shaping; the place where the self meets the world. Finding the Easy Way For the last hour I have been sweating over what I will write about in "Roy Bits." I have been laying in bed trying to conjure up something in my head. After I made my morning pilgrimage to the washroom, I sat down half asleep in front of the computer slumped over my desk with my head resting on folded arms and eyes closed trying to imagine what I would write about.
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