Speaker 1: 0:11

Welcome back to transformative change. Today's topic is a topic of motivation. We've all struggled with it sometimes. Well, I'm pretty sure all of us have. I know at least I have a couple of times in both my professional lives and also done my private life, struggled with motivation. Why is motivation so important? Well, this is also once more going to be a personal reflection.

Speaker 1: 0:43

If you look on motivation and you look at it's the drive behind, you are doing things. Of course, we can go to the office every day without a big motivation, but somehow somewhere motivation it drives us. We go to the office to get a paycheck, where at least many others do. I've been a part of that for many years. What is the motivation behind that? Is it so you get money, so you can pay your rent, you can pay your groceries, child support? The motivations can be many. Or is it that you want to be able to do something outside of work? It can work in itself, be a motivation for itself. You contribute to a higher purpose. If I look at motivation and if I look at my own background, I can see that lack of motivation has made it harder sometimes for me to get up in the morning. You're in bed, the alarm goes off, you snooze a little bit more and just a little bit more. You don't really want to go to work and yet you manage to get there on time most of the days. But when you're motivated, when you're working on a project that's really contributing to something that you think is fun, when you're learning, you can't wait to get to the office. At least this is true for me. I get up early. I want to be there first of all, and I'm excited to get started. My motivation is high. For me, the drive has always been to contribute, to learn, and when I'm in the middle of that, when it's not just a gray everyday task, then I get motivated. When I have the opportunity to learn, to be a part of something bigger, those are the days where I really find and I strive and I become better and I'm happier. But first a short introduction to why we are here today.

Speaker 1: 2:55

This is the podcast transformative change. This is a cross cutting podcast where we bring up topics that covers many different fields. It's really about driving a change in the world. It can be through your work, it can be in the personal life, but we want to create long, lasting impact in society and we want to be the drivers of this. So in this podcast, the purpose is really to give you tools to manage everyday life, to become happier, more driven, to make a sustainable change to the positive in our society.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Motivation what motivates you? How often do you think about it? I'm sure I don't think about it enough. That's one thing, but now, recording this episode, it always gets my head spinning a little bit and it always makes me reflect, and I love these reflection parts because it's a luxury that we usually don't do.

Speaker 1: 4:03

We get up in the morning, we go to the office or the work or whatever it is that we're doing, we are. Afterwards, we go home, we make dinner or we go out and we eat dinner, we make the household chores and every once in a while we go on a vacation, we meet family and friends, and this is our life and it's ending one minute at a time. If we can find joy, if we can find drive, if we can find motivation, for me life becomes so much easier. So sit down, think about what gives you this type of joy, what makes it easier for you to get up in the morning, what is the change that you want to see, because when we are motivated, we influence and we drive change much more efficiently than when we are not, and this is worth noticing. How are you ever planning to make a positive impact in the world, or even in your family, with your closest friends or the other circle of your friends or at the office?

Speaker 1: 5:13

If you are not motivated by yourself, you won't. You need to find something that drives you, something to strive. It could be an ideal, it could be a change, it could be a goal. The motivating factor is really what pushes me over the edge, in a positive sense. It makes me go the extra mile. When I see motivated individuals contributing, I get inspired. I'm pretty sure that inspires you too. When you see somebody and you can see they have joy in their face, they are determined, they are showing up that makes me really think to myself. That is inspiring. I want to be like that too. I find joy in seeing people that have found their purpose and it drives their motivation.

Speaker 1: 6:15

Motivation needs to come from you, so the work really starts with you. Have you done your homework? Do you know why you are at the office? Do you know why you are showing up every single day? And sometimes the easy answer is no, because most of us have no idea, and I'm one of us. I had no idea for so many years why I was showing up, and I think we really need to work on that together.

Speaker 1: 6:50

So where does motivation truly come for and how do we increase these things? Well, some of the easy parts is motivation fosters motivation. At least that's how I think it. If you create a healthy habit of constantly evaluating and setting goals, defining something that you want to get to, that's the first step. However, goals by itself might foster your own motivation, but it can't be the entirety of it, because when you reach your goals, what happens then Most of the time? What I have seen and what studies have shown is that motivation dies off when you reach your goals and your happiness levels by reaching your goals. They are not fulfilling and long lasting.

Speaker 1: 7:49

So try to aim to goals as a way of achieving a purpose. That's why it's important to define your purpose, and you hear this sometimes in motivational speeches. You hear this sometimes when people are saying how do you get started? Oh, find your purpose, but it's not as easy as that. Finding a purpose is a higher vision Once you've defined your purpose and I've done another podcast on purpose which you can listen to. You set clear goals and strive towards achievable goals with clear, defined steps makes it easier. But the steps isn't and shouldn't be outlined too clearly. They are directive towards your purpose, and why you break it down into goals is because that's the first step towards achieving and driving a purpose, the journey towards it.

Speaker 1: 8:44

It's a compass direction and you should be able to pivot because sometimes, when you achieve a specific goals like I want this position and I think that's a very clear goal I want to be the head of and I hear this constantly and I was one of them I wanted to be head of AI, head of data, I wanted to run large teams. When you achieve that goal and I can tell you that when I achieved it, I realized no, this doesn't align with what I want to do long term. I want to drive change for real and I don't want to have a company behind me because that is taken away from my higher purpose or I declined the large promotion and I set up to do my own thing. So you can pivot, but by setting goals that are achievable in a reasonable timeframe. You have time. If you say I want to be the CEO of a large multi conglomerate somewhere. That's a long journey, but if you start by saying I want to be the head of this or this and then you take it into manageable steps, you're able to evaluate what did this give me towards my higher purpose, and that drives motivations. It's okay to be wrong some of the time, as long as you write most of the time. So it's really about establishing this vision and also rewarding and evaluating constantly, and this is something I realized when I worked for large organization, when I worked for H&M, when I worked for Vodafone, when I worked for Nordea, when I started achieving higher positions with more accountability and responsibility in budgets, what happened was that my calendars or well, I say calendars and plural because, yeah, I had multiple they was filled with meeting from morning to afternoon.

Speaker 1: 10:37

I was so unmotivated of showing up and spending time in another meeting. Come on, how many meetings can you have in a day? My record 35. 35 meetings in one day. I'm not kidding you. How motivating is that? Because where was my time to reflect? The reflection part was started to drive my motivation and it wasn't until I resigned, I sat down and I evaluated, and I do that much more.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Now. I have air in my calendar that allows me the possibility to reflect, and the reflection is what guides my next steps, setting goals that are aligned with my purpose, and that's what I think is so crucial and we forget constantly, because life it is not a sprint. Well, actually it is sprints. People say it's a marathon, but I say it's sprints, and then you constantly work towards a marathon and you need to evaluate how am I becoming better? And better in this case is happier most of the time, because when you are happy throughout the journey, you're motivated. You're motivated to do the things that you want to do.

Speaker 1: 11:56

So motivation is really about seeing the bigger picture and it's about finding those activities, those goals that excite you. We talk about purpose and it should be something that you are interested in, and I think this is also interesting that we have to be prepared to be worse before we are better. That's a little bit contradictory, but, for instance, if you are interested in I don't know a particular sport and you watch it and you want to try it, you will be terrible, most likely, before you become better. But it's about visualizing the goal, visualizing the success and then creating clear routines, step by step, working towards that goal, having a schedule, getting time Just 10 minutes per day, practicing or visualizing until you get to a state, and then you'll become more motivated when you can see the end target. So, reflection and also making sure that you are with people or peers, pairs that are positive towards driving this change.

Speaker 1: 13:23

Because, in my opinion, either you are a very highly motivated individual and you don't care what people around you say. There are those people. In moments in my life I've had it. I don't care what anybody says, I want to do this, but then I've been super motivated and super clear what I wanted to achieve. How often do we do that? Not often. It happens to all of us. Sometimes Well, at least the people I've talked to it's okay. But the majority of time we are lazy. Oh, I've been so lazy in my life and the smallest setback or comment from somebody that stands close to me has really just crumbled my world and the motivation has gone down to zero. But if you also surround yourself with positivity, with people who inspire you, that's why I also say be with people that love what they're doing. Be with people that, if it's a sport, you want to start trying be with people that loves this sport, because they will be positive, because they've been where you are so you can get to where you want to be and they'll motivate you and inspire you and they'll create a drive for you. So, staying positive, seeking inspiration, find role models, and that's just around surrounding yourself with people. But role models can be those people, but it can also be somebody that's achieved the highest amount of goals, if it's goal, for instance, I'm not a golfer, but you surround yourself with people or role models.

Speaker 1: 15:01

You read the books, the self biographies. What did they do? What would their hardship see that they've also struggled. That will motivate you more and I can't find this more enough. But if we take it back a notch and we talk about our everyday life, where do you find the motivation so you don't give up? How do you make sure you go to the office every day and do Well? I'm not sure you should. I think it's important to do the self-evaluation and be motivated is also finding your place in the world. Yeah, you can try to motivate yourself constantly. Oh, it's going to be so good that I get the paycheck this month, but you come home every day off to work and you just look yourself in the mirror and it's like is this what I'm going to do until I retire and then I'm going to die? No, don't do that. I did it for so many years myself. It's about finding your place in the world. What is your skill? What is you good at? Where do you derive happiness from?

Speaker 1: 16:07

I come to see that the best professionals I meet are the ones that also love what they do. Of course, you can be really good at something without loving it, but those that love what they do regardless if it's some IT type of task, like programmers that are super good they love what they do. The most talented programmers I met they programmed even before they were at university, if they ever even went to university. Some of the best ones didn't even have to go because they were so talented and talent came from. They found their passion early age and then, yeah, of course, you can go to school and you can learn the trade, but you're never going to be the best one because you really don't love what you're doing. You can learn to love it and then you can go very far. Or if you are in IT, you're an architect, you love those things. The best ones I've ever met. Like IT architects, they also love what they're doing. They want to stay in the forefront, they want to talk to their parents. It's amazing. And the same thing goes for sport the best one. They love what they're doing. My brother, for instance. He was a footballer. I was so amazed over the motivation that he had. He showed up every single day and you could see that he really enjoyed what he did. I never had that, not with sports. At least I come to find my passion in my work, what I'm doing, what I'm contributing to, and I think that's important.

Speaker 1: 17:44

Motivation is not something you can just invent. You have to find something to attach it to. That makes it worthwhile. You read the stories about poor parents that show up to low paying jobs. They have three of them just to support their kids, to be able to give them everything. Their motivation are their kids, their family, to give them a better life than they had. They might not love their jobs, but they love what they're contributing to, so they're motivating to show up to do what they have to do to give their kids a better life. Motivation is really, in my point of view, so attached to a purpose, to a love. It's so much easier when you see what you're doing. So that's why you need to reflect on yourself initially.

Speaker 1: 18:31

If you find yourself in the morning, unmotivated just to show up to the office, well, you need to have a conversation with yourself so showing up. I think we all go through this in life. Motivation comes and it goes. Sometimes we're just motivated because we're in a good mood, we see the good things, we're motivated to do these things, to learn a new skill, etc. We want to be better, but we can hack this, and that means we can also contribute and build a better life for ourselves, and in this case I mean a better life from terms of happiness, not from monetary value, because if you connected to something like money, for instance, do you think always those that has the most money are the happiest? No, absolutely not. Their motivating factor didn't contribute to their happiness.

Speaker 1: 19:23

And then at one point, you need to ask yourself what do I want to do? What is important for me? We might not all have the luxury to work with the thing we love or spend time at exactly what we do, but find a motivating, connecting factor in order to do so, and I find that that's so fascinating. So we have to look at ourselves, we have to set clear goals, we have to evaluate and we have to drive forward, because we only get what 80, 90, if we're lucky, 100 years, and of those, how many are good? And what do we guys want to spend the time on? The things that motivate you are the things that are going to give you happiness, hopefully. Otherwise it's fake motivation. So this became a relatively deep conversation, I think.

Speaker 1: 20:22

But once I started analyzing and talking about this and I didn't really go deep in the preparations for this because I wanted it to be more of an ongoing analysis in this podcast I think, in summary, it's all about you, of course, and it's all about you having a conversation with yourself. If you're lacking motivation to do what you have to do, look at the bigger picture, take one step backwards and adjust the course towards what you want to do and be prepared. It might be a little bit worse before it becomes better, but if you wake up with a smile every day to go to whatever it is, you're going to do that day well. I think you made the right choices. That's my point of view and I hope you find some motivation just by listening to this and it creates some ideas and thoughts in your head. Thank you for listening to Transformative Change. We'll be back next week with another podcast episode. If you have any feedback, feel free to email me at infoarallsc or keep on listening. Subscribe and like to support this podcast? Take care.