I have just put together a list of motivational blog posts that I have found lately. I hope you will enjoy these posts as much as I did. I do also recommend you to visit the main blogs where these articles are posted, as they are just not single great post, but they are a part of good blogs. I hope you will find these posts useful as I have tried to compile different kind of posts about motivation to provide you with different views on the topic. Enjoy!

This is a rather long blog post, but absolutely worth reading. Defining how to schedule hard and soft deadlines seems like a good idea. Do not let the minor things in your life take over for the major things in life. Pick the Brain is also recommended reading as it is a great blog.

Who doesn’t need a kick start on those darn Mondays? This list from Lee Iwan is great. This post is already written back in 2006, but hey, who cares, Mondays are still the same, at least if you have not read this before. But Mondays might change in the future after reading this one.

The moral of this story is to get out into the rain. This is a great article about, when you need motivation, and when you need discipline to succeed in your daily quests. The best part about this is that you can almost feel the joy the author have in writing this article after his bike ride in the pouring rain

I do like this blog post, because it includes a lot of great quotes. The quotes alone are good enough to get on my list today, but it is also a great blog post. Swedish Henrik Edbergs blog is a new discovery for me, so I am going back to read more, it is a great blog as well and I will spend several hours at his blog in the future.

This is a fun to read and useful motivational post about the morning routines of Alan Mong, spiced with a couple of great links to motivational videos as well. A good motivational video is always helpful. And this might help you to change your attitude in the morning.

This is just a short video, it takes about two minutes and some seconds, it is actually a great tip on how to act when you just don’t feel like doing it. The tip itself is short, simple and easy to do. The video have only one great tip, but it is a good advice, so it makes the list. Just step into it. I like it.

I need to include this one from David Burkus’ blog, as we are trying to motivate you here, try to avoid the big changes in your life; do rather implement small achievable goals, one at a time. Good advice from David. Check out the rest of David’s blog if you have some spare time. It is good.

This is a great question from Simon Sinek; How many days do you have to live? I think this blog post is very motivating and it is different, it gets you thinking. Take a look at what is left of your life today. I do like the view this post presents, anything that makes me think is great! Good work Simon.

If you can’t get motivated by any of the above, there is yet another link here, this time you might learn something from squirrels. What is it Psychology Today is picking up from squirrels? Well take a look yourself. This is learning from animals, and that can prove to be wise.

The last one of the day is one of my own recent posts about motivation. This is one of my most read blog posts of all time and you can read about different kinds of motivation, actually learning about motivation, more than being motivated, but that can be helpful too.

Have you ever tried to achieve a task and failed? What do you do when it isn’t working? Do you feel frustrated when you do not reach your goal? Is it something wrong with your goal? Should you settle with a C paper when you can get an A? How can you manage to reach your goal, when you have failed and failed again?

Confucius was a wise man and one quote that I do love is this one “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”

There is a lot true here, there is no reason to adjust the goals if you set them too high. As long as you are making progress you will be able to get a little bit closer all the time. But I do not want this article to be to wishy-washy and just throw you a saying without any tools on how to live according to this saying.

Long term goals vs short term goal

Is there coinheritance between your long term goals and your short term goals? Your long term goals should be your destination, your short term goals is directions to get you forward. Do not work with goals short term or long term unless you are able to align your path (short term) with your destination (long term).

Short term evaluation

I use short term goals as day to day goals to reach all our goals for the week. I use weekly goals to adjust for the month and so on. I evaluate several times at work to reach our daily goals before 4 pm. We start by evaluating at 10 am. Are we on our way to reach our goals? Are we falling behind? Should I prioritize differently? Are we managing just fine, or do I need help? What is my goal? What is the current status and how do I get there? We do not change the goals, but like Confucius’ saying, we adjust our actions.

Long term evaluation

Since I work at a call center the long term goals might only be a month. The length is not important, but breaking it down to short term goals is essential. For me it is to evaluate the week to adjust for next week to make sure that the result for the month is good, and month by month to reach the goals for the quarterly reports. If you fall behind one week you need to do equally better the next week, so you need to keep track, because if you fall behind just reaching your goals will not be enough, you will need to do better to compensate for the previous loss.

When do you evaluate?

Some people tend to evaluate after the finish line is passed. This is too late, and here is the key to live like Confucius say; evaluate several times during the run and pace your speed accordingly. The way we do it is by using a whiteboard with the current status at 8 am; we set our goals for 4 pm and have our first pow wow at 10 am. We write the current status on the whiteboard for all our different goals and we decide what to do next. What goals are doing fine, which are falling behind? What do we now need to do? And then we adjust, or try to adjust. When more people are the key, we are not able to clone, but at least we will ask other departments for help if necessary. We have a smaller dialogue at 12, and one last at 2 pm and if necessary one more at 3 pm. We reallocate resources and we try to do what it takes.

And what if you still fail?

An essential part of evaluation is to analyze, did we do great or did we fail? Why did we fail? Not enough people? Not enough effort among the people at work? Are the goals to difficult? (No, never… remember Confucius?) The sweet deal here is that you will most likely figure out why you failed. And the answer to why is what, so what can you do about it? If you fail to recognize this what, and still do what you use to you are working by habit. Embrace the answer to why and what and work with this systematically. This is your obligation as a leader to work with systematically. And if you do there is “not if you reach your goals”, it is “when”.

Being motivated equals the ability to achieve goals and completing tasks faster. Business leaders chase better results and need even more “motivated” employees. And the motivated employees provide even better results on paper. Motivation does not work as easy as we expect it to do. Have you tried dieting? Learning a new language? It is hard, and most likely you will fail. Motivational coaches are being brought in to provide more motivation and better results. It might work, but you need to know motivation is also about failure and resistance.

Motivational factors

Motivation is a multidimensional phenomenon. It is driven by inner motivation, extrinsic motivation and ego oriented motivation. It is also determined by your level of optimism and level of pessimism. On top of this we need to add knowledge and even support, influence and inspiration from your surroundings (environmental factor)

Positive Intrinsic Motivation

Positive intrinsic motivation is related to the will. “I want this” – Have you ever really wanted something and got it? Well this is the positive inner will. This is the main factor why people succeed and one of the most important drives. You really want it, but there are more factors to consider if you will succeed or not.

Negative Intrinsic Motivation

This is where you will do it, but really don’t want to. It is a compliant mode where you kind of do what you are told because you are formed this way. It is not fun, but you will get the job done.

Positive Extrinsic Motivation

Alright, this one is where you get paid or other benefits. This is a short termed motivational factor that is driven by a prize. It is good for the short run, but for the long run you need to move your motivation to positive intrinsic… There have been research on this topic, but we do not need a deep report to prove this point. Consider you are doing your job at 80 %, you suddenly get a $1000 extra to do your job 100 % per month for six months. And they remove the bonus you have been accustomed to, what do you think will be your effort percentage at work after the prize is gone?

Negative Extrinsic Motivation

If there is no price, there will be punishment. This is the fear motivational factor. You are driven by fear of losing your job or to be punished. Do it or you will lose your bonus, or get fired.
- These four factors are from Why Motivation by Pizza doesn’t work

So what is Ego Driven Motivation?

Isn’t Intrinsic Motivation an ego driven factor? No it is not. You can be altruistic. Some claim that even an altruistic drive is ego driven because you want to become a saint, a good father, a good member of society. But this is not what I mean about the ego drive. This is your level or ability to prioritize you in front of other. You want to get an education and you study at evenings, leaving your family, kids and friends out in the cold. The ego factor is how much you are willing to sacrifice to reach your goal. Your spouse brings home a lot of candy and two movies, expecting snuggling in front of the TV, your ego drive will disappoint the other and you will go to the gym all night. Working late hours and coming home to cold dinner is the result of a strong ego drive.

The optimistic vs. pessimistic view on life

Even more dimensions to motivation surfaces here. In good times you will have optimistic or pessimistic personality traits. In bad times you can also have optimistic and pessimistic traits. But there is more. You will also possess a ability of duration, how long will you be pessimistic? Is it never ending doomsday when you fail (pessimistic)? Or will it pass (optimistic)? Is your fortune time limited (pessimistic)? Or is fortune continuity in your life (Optimistic)? And there is one more dimension as well; does it spread? Is everything going bad when you fail a task? Is it affecting family life when work sucks? Is your work suffering when you got trouble at home? (1)

You can take a optimist/pessimist test here

(1) source: Dr. Martin Seligman’s book, “Learned Optimism”

Knowledge is a source of motivation

If I only knew, what I know today, ten years ago, I would do a lot of things different. Knowledge provides you with what is possible to do. What are your options? You will not try an option if you do not know about the option at hand. If you know what works you will try it. If you know a lot in your field it will be easier to get motivated and succeed. Education and studying is a key to know how to succeed. This is the map that will tell you how. You might stumble upon a solution that works, this is how you gain knowledge.

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

Environmental factors

I have trouble identifying motivation to genes. But there will be a bunch of support from parents, friends, spouses, fans and so on. It is a known fact that kids pick education upon the choice of friends and family. It is also known that some people are keeping you down, and some are supporting. You might be inspired by some people; you are influenced by other people. If I would follow the advice from my parents, I would be a fisherman by now. I might be very happy, I might make more money…but I hate to put my feet on floating objects. So if anybody is unmotivated at work? Could it be environmental factors?

Working with goals.

This is also a factor, or a trap at motivation as I like to call it. All your skills and motivation are being tested when you work with goals. My approach is to identify the goal as a vision and leave it there, just to focus on the way. If you want to be an athletic champion you will fail if you set your goal on olympic gold. You will fail if you set your goal on becoming the next CEO on your company. You need to work with the way, because you will fail and fail again before you eventually get close to your vision. But this is still the way you are headed. If you can learn from failures, identify what needs to be done to get back on track and enjoy the trip, you might not become an olympic winner, but chances are that you might become a national or local champion on your way. But if you connect failure with not being able to reach your goal, you are being trapped. I am still trying to lose weight, but I did not lose a fly’s weight in space after ten days with intensive exercising, and I am not been exercising the last 14 days. Still I am not failing to lose weight I am merely figuring out how to reduce the time between exercising moments.

So how can you possibly be motivated?

Chances are that you do not match all the necessary factors to succeed. This is why I cannot connect motivation and success to genes, because you can change and influence these factors. And they are all connected somehow. To be highly motivated you need to sit down and evaluate what factors need to be changed. You need to know what is holding you back. You will not manage only on strong positive intrinsic will, if you lack the necessary ego drive and support in your environmental factor. Still you might need knowledge to know how to succeed, unless you want to fail and try over? You can even change your pessimistic view on life and learn to be an optimist. I am actually a moderate pessimistic person, because I possess the ability to stay very optimistic if things work as planned. But if I get a punch in my face, it might bring me down all over the place, and it takes a while to bounce back (pessimistic). Still I know that I can change my view, and so can you. Slow down, relax, analyze, seek help, and do not rush it. There is more to motivation than just a pep talk or a prize. – Good luck.

I am sure that you might be able to identify what is holding you back from being top motivated. – You are amazing and you can do it.

Fun at work is essential for success, results are essential for fun to appear. I bet you will agree that results won’t surface in a hostile environment. This is why hard work and fun is the true Romeo and Juliette at the office. I have been to some seminars about fun at work and just a few touches the importance of results. Good results give you the power and confidence to stand tall in everyday life. And one more thing; it starts at Monday morning.

Monday Morning Blues

I don’t like Mondays – A major hit at the end of the 1970’s by Boomtown Rats, vocals by Bob Geldof inspired by a tragic shooting. Mondays are considered a reasonable falling down day. The rain stops somewhere between Sunday and Monday morning, the weekend is to short and it is back to work. So how can we make work fun fast on Monday morning?

Monday Morning Kick off

Start the day by writing down two different goals, one goal for Monday and one goal for the entire week. These goals must be measurable. Put them down on a sticky note or on a piece of paper that you can attach to your computer screen or somewhere else your eyes tend to focus. (No! Putting a sticky note on a hot co-worker is not acceptable!) Do not worry too much about reaching the goal yet. Check your score against the note when the day is over. Maybe you did not reach your goal? Maybe you did? Now write down your “high score” you will keep this number for the rest of your week, and your goal is to beat your own high score.

Cherish you co-workers

Grab the can of coffee from the coffee machine and walk around pouring coffee with a smile to your fellow sleepyheads as they come in to work. Talk to people you meet.

I have given my blog a brand new design. – I have just finished the redesigning of my blog. I hope you enjoy my new layout. What I want to achieve is a blog that makes it easier for you to find interesting articles. Sorry for the interruption, keep reading…

Get up to speed

Get into first gear straight after your goals are set. Strive for the results first. You have made every coffee addict happy, now it is time to play ball. Give it your best to get the results that will provide you with a great day. If you reach your goal it is time to celebrate. Figure out your way of celebrating, it might be anything from a walk away from the desk, a short break or anything you can think of that can make you smile.

Have a happy Monday, anybody have any great tips for Tuesday?