Balancing your personal life with your professional life is key to sustaining your motivation. Your home life and work life must balance perfectly. Make sure that what you’re going for in your career complements your home life. Make sure that what goes on at home complements your career. One won’t work well if the other doesn’t.
For example, a woman gets into work early in the morning and is the last one to leave every night. This goes on week after week, month after month. It doesn’t seem like she gets that much more accomplished than anyone else. As a matter of fact, it seems like she’s using the office to escape from home. Something’s wrong there. Something needs to be fixed. Chances are, whatever is bothering her at home is affecting her work, too.
There’s a list of reasons for doing well called “the nitty-gritty”–those little reasons that can really affect your life. Sometimes it doesn’t take much of a goal to start you in a brand-new life direction.
I (Jim Rohn) now carry a few hundred dollars in my money clip at all times. It’s only a few hundred dollars, but the story behind why I do it reveals one of those situations that greatly affected me.
Just before I met Mr. Shoaff, I heard a knock at my door one day. When I opened it, there was a little girl selling Girl Scout cookies. She gave me one of the finest sales presentations I’ve ever heard. A special deal… many varieties to choose from… and only two dollars. With a big smile, she very politely asked me to buy. And I wanted to. But there was one big problem: I didn’t have two dollars. And to this day, I can still clearly remember the pain and the embarrassment. I was a father, I had been to college, I was working, and I didn’t have two dollars.
We need all the motivational help we can get. But of course, different people are motivated by different things.
I (Jim Rohn) have read a number of studies on motivation, and the ones that I’ve found most convincing have isolated four main factors as the most powerful human motivators. I’ll go through them one by one, and I urge you to read them carefully. Think about how you can put them to use to help you accomplish your goals. If you’re in a managerial or leadership position, think also about how you can use them to help motivate the people you’re supervising. These are the real factors that make people get off their behinds and do things. These are the things that work when “wanting to” just isn’t enough. These are the true reasons for believing something is worth doing and then actually doing it.
How can you identify the habits that are working for you and those that aren’t? How can you make sure that you are reinforcing your positive disciplines? If it isn’t apparent–if what you’re doing is happening in such small increments that you’re not sure if you’re on the right track–then you need to be writing it down. You need to keep a written record. You need to write down everything that may be relevant from each day: what you did, who you saw, what you feel, how it may or may not affect you now and in the future.
The best way to track your activities of the day is to write them down. The best way to track your activities of the week is to write them down. The best way to analyze your progress through the year is to have written it down. Why? So you can look back at your notes. Because by keeping a written record of your life, you will be more accountable. By putting into writing the steps that you have planned, you will easily see what works and what doesn’t.
When you are doing all that you can possibly do, and you are successful at reaching your expectations, keep doing it. Success is one of the best forms of motivation. Psychologists call this positive reinforcement.
We all know that positive reinforcement. That’s how we train our dogs. That’s how we teach our kids. That’s how the trainers at Sea World can get a killer whale to do tricks, follow commands, and work side-by-side with humans.
When you bring home a new puppy and try to teach him not to mess in the house, what do you do? You reward him for going outside or for scratching at the door. When you’re trying to get your toddler out of the diaper stage, what do you do? You reward him with special presents. You make him feel special for learning something new. When you’re trying to get your older kids to crack the books and study, what do you do? You reward them when they get good grades. You teach them that the skills they are developing now will have positive effects on their lives later. And you do that by rewarding them now.
Sometimes, the best ideas can be found in the creative depths of your own mind. These ideas are often reluctant to make an appearance on their own. So how do you bring them out? You need to develop the ability to brainstorm. What is brainstorming? It’s just what it sounds like. You let your mind wander. You free yourself from all inhibitions, objections, and negative thoughts. You just put an idea into your brain and let it take off. You engage in free associating. Instead of planning a train of though, you think freely.
If you’re planning a brainstorming session with your colleagues, let me (Jim Rohn) give you a little hint. Effective brainstorming can only happen if you disassociate from your ego. You can’t be worried about saying something stupid, or silly, or totally off-the-wall. Your silly thought may trigger someone else’s brain to take it one step further. Brainstorming in a group is an experience of collective thought. It’s an experience of developing one idea, or several ideas, through a variety of thought processes.
One of the keys to making the most of ideas is developing the ability to reflect. Reflect means to go back over; to study again. Go back over your notes. Go back over your thoughts. And go back over your day.
There are some particularly good times to reflect. One is at the end of the day. Take a few minutes to go back over the day. Whom did you see? What did they say? What happened? How did you feel? What went on? By answering those questions, you capture the day. Every day represents a piece of the mosaic of your life. You need to capture the experience, the knowledge, the sights, the sounds, the panorama, the color, and the emotion so it will serve you well for the future. Don’t miss a day.
If you’re serious about becoming a wealthy, powerful, sophisticated, healthy, influential, cultured, and unique individual, keep a journal. Don’t trust your memory. When you listen to something valuable, write it down. When you come across something important, write it down.
I (Jim Rohn) used to take notes on pieces of paper and torn-off corners and backs of old envelopes. I wrote ideas on restaurant placemats and long sheets and narrow sheets and little sheets and pieces of paper thrown in a drawer. Then I found out that the best way to organize those ideas is to keep a journal. I’ve been keeping these journals since the age of twenty-five. The discipline makes up a valuable part of my own learning, and the journals are a valuable part of my library.
