It’s been some time since I had the chance to sit down and actively put my thoughts out there since I’d suddenly become swamped with work and studies. There are basically three things I learnt this week I’d like to focus on, and hopefully it will help you on your journey.

Procrastination Sucks.

If we earned a dollar for every minute of procrastination we experienced, we would be multimillionaires. I’m no exception. The issue comes when you’re pressured to get things done in the midst of so many additional things. On one hand, you know for a fact it’s good to do it. On the other hand, you give in to the temptation of lazing around.

In the midst of so many things happening, I realize how important a scheduled life is. While it’s a restriction, it can help organize one’s life. I’ve never been one to be bound by structure but I can see the incredible benefits it has. Over the last week, I’ve organized business development meetings, built a couple of business proposals, crafted my training material, worked on teleseminar transcriptions, replied to emails, helped a few friends, watched a movie, did some research, handled my accounts, planned for my next week’s worth of seminars and training sessions… and I still don’t have enough time for “me time”.

I’m not suggesting to ignore “me time”, but it is something I’ve grown to realize to be extremely important to schedule in and maintain awareness of that schedule. Instead of procrastination, then, you are focusing on you. That’s the point behind schedules – you are forced to know what you are doing, rather than whiling time away.

Conversely when time is used doing something that you have no clue why you are engaging in, then it becomes procrastination. Some of you even spend 10 minutes refreshing your screen to see status updates on FB!! If it’s autopilot and unpurposeful, perhaps it is time to relook how you are spending time.

Interests And Passion Rules!

Perhaps you saw one of the questionnaires I set up earlier last month. It’s about whether people know what they are doing in their life. The trouble is I’ve realized that 50% of people not being sure about their life purpose and direction is 50% too much.

Of course, there are times I wonder if I’m doing some things right. But I’ve never questioned my liking for speaking, training and education. It’s been a part of me so much that I gain absolute satisfaction of seeing someone grow and develop. If you’re any less passionate, you’d be stuck in a loop of unfulfillment.

How does one find this passion and purpose? I guess, putting your ear to the ground and really listening to what’s going on between you and the world. Are you fulfilling a purpose? Are people feeling you have helped them? That’s another reason why I am constantly connecting with people and hoping to see them grow. It’s what keeps me going, and revitalizes my soul.

Earnings Per Hour (EPH), Time Spent Per Mundane Activity (TSPMA) [hereby my own pet copyright phrase hahaha]

Talk about metrics, here are two of my own special ones.

I recently completed an NLP Teleseminar that answered questions about what NLP really is and I’m appalled to hear feedback from people that they had been told otherwise. Fortunately for me, NLP has been part of my education and success for the last 25 years of my life, and I had been teaching it since 1997. So I kinda understand why those who have any less experience will misrepresent it unknowingly.

Anyway, I realized I clocked 2.5 hours just preparing for the teleseminar transcription and that time gone was time that could have been spent doing other things. Fortunately, I’m not the one doing the actual transcription. So I had to calculate this time cost into a project that was meaningful for me, but not really a money spinner. This is a short term measure.

Conversely, I worked out a contract to run a training that topped my EPH to about $346. Not bad, considering the fact that I spent nothing on marketing.

Then, I realized something. Actually, I had done marketing, but in a sense it was credibility built up in the past: it’s just that the TSPMA was done earlier when I did not calculate this. It would have included carrying myself well in public so that others noticed me and were willing to recommend me. These things were activities that built my credibility over time. Now, I spend less on TSPMA and my EPH increases. This is a longer term measure.

A personal development plan helps you to target higher EPH by investing in some TSPMA and planning to reduce it through leverage in various ways. Increasing skills increases your EPH and reduces your TSPMA. Leveraging creativity helps you reduce TSPMA too.

Conclusion

We need to know where we are going but we need to apply the right devices in achieving what we want and knowing for a fact that we have arrived there. If you’re keen on seeking your direction by understanding more about yourself, do join me in one of my events and learn to develop practical and psychological skills so that you will be far more effective and productive in your quest for your dreams

I’ve read with some amusement a lot of these ads on FB and other places where people tell you to trade or start a business as though that were the only thing that mattered in making a decent living. Mind you, there are a lot of successful people out there who do not have business or do not trade but still make a fantastic living.

Unfortunately, some members of the public are asking for it, and therefore “shortcut” methods keep coming up. These methods may be fantastic for those who are already experienced, but for the naive and uninitiated, it just doesn’t work. I remember some people coming up to me with the excitement of starting a website to make online money. Well, let’s put it this way. If you invest enough time and effort with the right kinds of strategies, you will make money. But a lot of it is not properly structured and individuals do not understand it well enough to know that there will be personal sacrifices that need to be made.

I recently spoke to an internet marketing professional who was really excited at the prospect of helping people set up their websites. Apparently he makes an easy $2k for one site. Unfortunately, he has so many clients now that he finds it difficult to cope with the demand. On bad days, he wonders why he got himself into this kind of mess. He now has little time, has to do lots of overtime, and recover from excessive stress. Sounds like he just landed himself a job in his very own “business”!

That’s not a business.

A business needs to be able to operate without your presence. Entrepreneurs chase this dream, but end up in the spot just like this friend of mine. So what’s really missing?

Creativity and Innovation
I think the first step is to develop creativity effectively enough to generate a product or service that people really truly desire. Few people actually have learnt this capability because they thought they were either the “type” that is creative or not. Listen, you don’t get “born” to be creative. You become creative through finding a way through constant challenges and restrictions. Entrepreneurs must have this dynamic or else fail when they are stuck when faced with challenges to their market leadership. If the iPod and iPhone and iPad were all created because of cost leadership, then Androids would have taken over the market a long time ago. Instead, the appeal was focused a lot on customer desires, not following the crowd.

Change Evolution Know-How
Companies evolve through the years. The problem is few people actually keep tabs on the evolution of the company. This is particularly the case when they fail to ascertain their values. Values are the moral compass that keep organizations from making decisions that turn giants into gnomes. If a company was originally focused on creating customer value in year one, it would make no sense to focus on new revenue generation in year two. Without values clarity, the change would have been moulded thorugh needs of the environment rather than firmness of values. As a result, many companies fail to make an impression – they are merely chasing the dollars and economic value rather than impacting people in a meaningful way. You see, when you chase the dollar alone, it becomes easy… so easy for people to see what they are getting versus what you are providing. It is tangible. Hence, you always end up utilizing more resources with people demanding lower prices all the time. You can’t change by setting a quota. You change by making the change meaningful and valued to employees.

An Inner, Not Outer Journey Toward Leadership
Whenever people examine corporate financial metrics, they make a journey to the inside. It’s like a basic, surface medical checkup. You know if you are bleeding or not. However, we all know that health goes way beyond that. What’s your cholesterol level? What’s your blood sugar level? You need deeper levels of analysis to figure this out.

The founder or entrepreneuer needs to begin on a meaningful inner journey. You have to resonate who you are to the outside world, and not just pander to the wants and desires of the outside world. If you are always giving what a customer wants, you will always be working for someone. Conversely, if you are constantly working on yourself, you will attract people to desire whatever it is that you want to deliver. Sure, arguably, what you deliver needs to ultimately have some value. But I believe strongly that something that drove value in your life will inadvertently have some spillover effect into someone else’s life, thereby sparking the possibiliy of value in the person’s mind.

A good driver knows what to do with a decent car. A bad driver has no clue how to use such a car. One might say it would be a waste to leave a really powerful car in the hands of a bad driver. Likewise, as an entrepreneur, you may have a solid business idea. But sometimes, you have to ask yourself if you have upped your leadership and personal skills to be able to guide this business to the next level. And, ahem. Sometimes, the business is doing badly not because of the environment. It’s doing badly because of you. Hard truth, but realize this: transform yourself, and transform your organization.

Distractions
In many cases, you can get distracted from your mission because you’re chasing the value of the dollar. How about this. Chase the value you provide instead. It’s easy to talk about it, but difficult to drive it because in many large companies, the person who espouses it is not the person who enacts it. In a smaller business, you may find that your words are incongruent with your actions but the good news is that you can choose differently.

Instead, entrepreneurs should be focued on developing the business and acting upon it. You probably have heard a million times to work on the business and not in it. Well, if you thought it was easier said than done, think about it this way. You must gather the right amount of input first before you can do any onput. It points to your ability to learn, glean ideas and then turn the idea into a profit-generating machine. To do this well, you must develop learning capabilities that outstrip your competition.

Is this a promise? Well, science has shown that learning has a growing effect size over time. It’s basic common sense. You receive training, implement it and you get better and better. However, that requires a lot of effort. Some people just don’t like effort or they think they can outsmart this. Personally, I suggest that you stop thinking about the effort and start thinking of it as the necessary investment that grows over time.

Stop hunting quick money spinners in your business.
Focus on who you serve, and serve them using your innovations well!

Some students recently asked me about whether I enjoyed my work.

I love my work!

As I thought about this, I started to wonder what made my work great and satisfying. After all, there are so many people I know who do not enjoy their work at all, or want to leave their jobs because it’s drab work or the culture/boss/colleagues of the organization weren’t as expected.

The world isn’t drab. It’s beautiful in many ways. The world becomes drab when we look through drab psychological lenses. I’m like an optometrist – I open up your psychological (in)sight so that you have the capacity to do more.

I strongly believe that the first step to understanding your passion is to become skilled in one area. The first dilemma you will face is, of course, “what kind of skill”. There’s a gazilion skills out there! Yet, when you stop and think about what you enjoy, particularly if there are opportunities to challenge your skill level, there’s a prety good answer there.

Think of computer games, for example. Many gamers are drawn by the challenge and excitement. The more you play, the better you get. The better you get the greater the sense of satisfaction upon completing each stage of the game. Eventually it can really get addictive.

Whether it is singing, drawing, dancing, writing, or, speaking, entertaining, marketing, leading, socializing… each of these are skills you can develop. As you take a look at the world forward, I encourage you to learn the skills that have to do with interpersonal contact. As long as you work in a career next time, you will be with people. So why not build that muscle now? Eventually, you want to be multi-talented by putting in an effort to keep on learning.

The more you know, the more it will connect with you as a person — and that’s what I find eventually brings you back to the question of *who you are*. You see, people can speak or dance or write but they will always do it for different reasons. Personally, I speak because I know that after a session, there will be a renewed energy in my participants. I literally live for that! It’s that magical feeling when you know you have helped someone discover something about themselves and transform their experience of the world.

So…What is passion really about?
It’s about the connection with the thing that you do skillfully such that you and that thing you do become one and the same. Time disappears and you go into the flow. After you’re done, you chase perfection in that flow, benefiting others from your state of peak performance, and gaining immense satisfaction after that.

In studying the whole idea of the ability to create action, my previous article alluded to a concept known as personal power. However, just defining personal power as the ability to take action is insufficient. I can take action, but why should I if I know that it will end up in failure? The most common theme in success training is simply that “you can”. It’s great and inspirational, but fairly limiting if you don’t have accompanying skills.

Actually, the problem with such an approach is that you might end up with greater anxiety. By getting oneself hyped up alone without sufficient building of skills often causes more problems in the long term than you think. It becomes a vicious cycle because it will influence future decisions. For instance, you may attend a retreat that is a “team building” session that gives you a high after, but the fact is you start picking on challenges where you really have no skills to handle.

In many cases, then, to build willpower is to build not just the drive and determination to move forward, but also to be able to create the “pathways” or the possibilities. In many cases, therefore, those who are good with contingency planning will often find the different ways to achieve their goal, giving them a higher likelihood that they will achieve their outcome, rather than sit there and do nothing. In a sense, the level of creativity and willingness to tolerate ambiguity comes into the picture.

My worry in most cases is that motivational talks give a spur of the moment experience, but do not help with the development of confidence overall. It is therefore necessary for one to be put into a “possibility” mode, and given tools to carry out these possibilities.

There was a participant  I had once who was really good at coming out with ideas, but because of limited self-efficacy, was not able to push his ideas forward. Once his self-efficacy was better developed, and when he had a higher level of confidence in pushing his ideas forward, he was able to convince himself to embark on new jobs and projects. Still, his ability to push on with his idea was limited as he didn’t put in 100% of what he could have, largely because the options that he had were finite. When he realized, through coaching, that there were many other possibilities he could pursue to enhance his possibilities of success, he felt that he had better control over his choices and direction, raising his willpower to pursue this goal.

As you may realize, goal-setting is an extremely important tool that this person had to learn to build the capacity of willpower. According to the concept of “hope”, it refers not just to the average person’s understanding of “pray and hope”, but rather a sense of drive in action as well as choice of strategy.

Another thing that is necessary to build willpower is emotional resourcefulness. One simple way I often teach my participants to do is to begin revisiting positive emotional states. Most people tend to visit negative emotional states. I know many people tend to feel bad because their thoughts are on auto-pilot. They don’t know how to manage thinking. It’s not about just positive thinking – it’s about knowing how to interrupt negative thoughts, and also replacing those thoughts with more productive and directive thoughts. To learn how this is done, one should be certified in NLP with a qualified and experienced NLP Trainer. Without effective emotional resource-building skills, one’s ability to develop PsyCap will be limited.

To expand your emotional resource-building capabilities, write me at Facebook and stay notified about my next NLP Certification training workshop.

In my previous article, I had focused quite heavily on Psychological Capital or PsyCap. Today, I’d like to zoom into one major element of PsyCap known as self-efficacy. This has been highly validated in the research literature so this isn’t going to be an academic discussion. Rather, this is an attempt to put the science into practice and leverage the value of the research.

For the longest time, I’d been training people in advancing their self-efficacy and didn’t realize it. But what you don’t know also means you don’t really know what you are doing and how much more you can do.

Let’s first of all define self-efficacy. Another term is “confidence”. So it’s natural for people to think that confidence is simply a feeling you have or don’t have rather than a state you can develop. Self-efficacy has been a psychological construct that stems from Albert Bandura’s work in social psychology. However, the concept has been so applicable in the area of organizations, that it blossomed into a whole myriad of research papers in various areas.

While training my participants, a large number of my interventions are meant to increase confidence. First, through demonstration. Here… let me show you I can do it. Second, through guided exercise. Here… do it and let me give you feedback. Finally, to set a benchmark and stretch my participants to achieve goals. Interestingly, all of this is validated by the research science.

But what makes people want to achieve their goals in the first place? Some people simply talk about the idea of “personal power”, which is fine as a snazzy motivational rah-rah term. What it really refers to is the ability to take action which stems from one’s belief that they can do it in the first place. There’s something known as generalized self-efficacy (general self-confidence) and outcome expectancy (the level of confidence that you will reach your outcome). It seems that by gradually stretching someone increases the difficulty of that assignment. Shouldn’t someone feel more stressed out? Well, in this case, the interesting thing is that the more stress you have that you can cope with, while having performed an action to achieve your goal often leads you to a state called satisfaction.

Once you have a sense that this was a breakthrough or an achievement, you will realize that the breakthrough actually helps you to achieve more. You’ve become “experienced”.

The trick, though, is to get leaders to understand that there must be effective ways to enhance a person’s efficacy. Over the years, I’ve also come to respect the need for well-trained coaches. Most coaches have absolutely no background in psychology, let alone cutting edge craft. No matter what their skill level, it would be impossible for them to help individuals attain their goals effectively. On the other hand, with a clear psychological background, coaches will then have more tools in their arsenal to be able to bring their clients to a desired plane.

Of the many things that can be done, allow me to mention three things that you can do to build self-efficacy in general. Firstly, you want to learn to set goals. Goal-setting theory is already one of the most well-founded bases upon which you can increase motivation and confidence. Setting goals, however, requires someone who can read you and stretch you effectively, without making it a traumatic experience.

Secondly, you want to consider the idea of mental rehearsal, or visualization. Most people who have watched the cult hit, “The Secret” will think it is some ritual that may be hocus pocus. While the movie brought the idea into the minds of the masses, it does not teach the proper way of visualization. It’s not just about vividness; it’s about bringing processes and familiarity into the mental frame. It’s really about visiting your actions in your mind and doing it so that you are able to walk through the steps confidently. And more importantly, it’s not just about an outcome, but also the context of the environment of the expected outcome! In other words, you have to be concerned not just about running that race and sprinting, but the various triggers in that environment that could spark off other counter-reactions to your success.

Finally, you have to consider coaching. An effective coach is a partner for success, but there are selective criteria by which you choose a coach. Coaching style is not the issue. The issue comes from your ability to work with the coach and have an effective relationship with him or her. Insight is not as important as your ability to engage within that coaching relationship.

This is one of many ways in which we can develop self-efficacy. For a more academic angle, you may want to get Albert Bandura’s 1997 publication on self-efficacy, where he does better justice to this topic. For the average person, though, this re-discovery of the roots of confidence should not surprise you. But mark my words: you won’t do anything about it unless you have hired a proper coach to guide you through the various elements of your personal development journey.

If you’re seeking a coach, contact me and we’ll have a discussion about what we can do together to achieve your goals.

I’ve been speaking with people who are supposed to be employed and supposed to be satisfied with their lot in life. But they are unhappy. I say “supposed” because when you make a fair and objective comparison, they shouldn’t have any problems and yet they are somehow not satisfied with their work, their environment or company direction. The company gives fantastic perks, the possibility of promotion, challenge and more, so you might be wondering what’s wrong with these people, right?

There was a time I had questioned the value of education until I started to reflect, not just about the value of the examination itself, but the psychological advantage it gave me. In the past, taking an examination was nothing but a chore until I learnt how to take advantage of the system and played it like a game. Soon, scoring good examination grades were nothing more than a predictable and controllable series of actions I could take. You could therefore say that aceing an exam was easier because I knew what to do.

Using this metaphor, you could say I gained far more from exams than my peers. Their view of the world remains that exams are a waste of time. My point is that things are a waste of time as far as you see. A quote I recently reviewed was “We don’t see things the way they are… we see things the way we are” and very succinctly sums up my point. People who view things as a waste of time, who see unfairness affecting them but still play to the tune of the victim and don’t rise up to the challenge often seem defeated even before the start of the battle.

The question is that we can have all the technology and physical resources on hand. But as they say, the flesh is willing, but the spirit is weak. The one thing that is missing is psychological capital, a concept that encompasses a higher self-confidence (technically self-efficacy), psychological hope, psychological optimism, and resilience. All concepts have been shown in academic literature to be related but not the same.

While we logically know this is useful, how important is it for an organization? Well, if you have a defeated set of troops, how can you fight? Basically, psychological capital is something you build in order to meet a challenge. In many organizations, people complain to me that they don’t really feel like doing something. So for instance, they might experience lethargy and procrastination. They have great excuses that nobody can counter (“it’s because the culture of the organization is like that” or “why bother meeting targets, we always end up suffering”). Even though the excuses are accurate, they are merely one facet on the multi-faceted face of reality. As we all know, gaining perspective allows us to interpret the same thing in different ways.

Strangely, people think of this as rah-rah motivation. In reality, it’s so well grounded in the academic literature. A person may be wealthy but when they are betrayed they have no sense of resilience to bounce back, they lose everything due to one singular event. A really bright student may be great but when she steps into a class where everyone is doing well, she compares herself against the class only to find her emotional state  uncontrollable and lapsing into performance anxiety and fails the class. A top sportsman stands in the court and completely loses it because of an inability to draw from psychological capital, maybe because someone they love had gotten into a terrible accident and their mind was clouded and distracted.

Unbelievable, right? Just one incident (albeit valid and unfortunate sometimes) destroys the very thing we stand for. In such a situation, how is it possible to ever triumph? I think the concept of psychological capital or “PsyCap” (the measure, like “IQ” is the measure of intelligence) can help us to understand how to develop.

Researchers in the field already know that PsyCap is a predictor of future performance. If your PsyCap drops, so does your performance. If your PsyCap increases, so does your performance. The issue is the ability for organizations to raise the PsyCap. Sometimes, it happens purely by mistake. Sometimes it happens by rallying people to a cause. Often, it takes place whenever there is a crisis. Why does this happen? Basically, there’s no more excuse. There’s something worth fighting for. There’s a reason for existing.

Companies focus so much on corporate governance of money, they forget a lot about the corporate governance of the mind. Organizational inefficiencies, distrust, lack of openness, fear, anger and conflict can frequently cause extremely difficult situations in the minds of the person. And as we know, those who are not predisposed to share information either because of introversion or because they think their boss is an ass, such information goes undiscussed and everything remains status quo. SQ. Stupidity Quotient?

I’m not saying “rock the boat”. Look at the way your human capital is being developed. Is it really the skills and abilities alone? Just because someone can perform, does not mean that he or she wants to perform. If you force them (make it a must for them), you could get a backlash of consequences due to perceived organizational unfairness.

To build the psychological resources within an individual, one must go back and look at the elements that create psychological capital through proper measuring, planning and coaching… and, like a healthy individual going for a medical checkup yearly, one needs to measure PsyCap regularly.

For information about building your psychological resources, comment on this article for a discussion (remember to leave your email, which is not shown to the public).

It’s amazing how much I can learn from my clients and people I meet with. The strangely familiar struggle with work is an ongoing theme in many of their lives, and the whole idea of ‘work-life balance’ is nothing but a myth. I think I know the reason why. Work-life balance is about our ability to switch from one mode to another. It’s about balancing almost anything. For instance, when I run personality profiles for people, they realize that they really need personal development because their profile report reveals more about where their blind spots are.

I remember looking through the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) in preparation for my executive coaching client, as well as a life coaching client. On one hand, one profile indicated a preference for meeting people. The other profile indicated a stark preference for privacy. When I met them and asked why, it never dawned upon them that this was a limited view of the world. I have met clients who are very well adapted to flexiblty change from behaving in an extraverted fashion to being a good introverted listener. Both sides have their merits and it is really about developing the appropriate style. In both cases, they never thought of the merits of the opposite type; these turned out to be major blind spots in their lives.

Sure, people may be happy sticking to what they are comfortable with. I think we tend to be happier and more satisfied pursuing and meeting challenges. By doing so, I have a suspicion that we expand our capacity to live.

In this case, the most important thing to do is gain perspective and expand our view of our own world, something that I am challenged to do with my coaching clients as they continue on their journey of personal development, honing leadership and learning from that elusive journey into oneself.

I was recently in a certification training program because you could say that I have been “itching” to learn new stuff (and I think I learn pretty well). What surprised me is the kind of insight that comes from structure. I have known for a long time that people have needs. To the extent that these needs are met, we can determine “satisfaction”. However, I had not gone a step further as William Schutz did in 1958, where he discovered that needs can be expressed (initiated by self), but can also be a hidden desire (expected of from others).

The theory stems from the idea that different people satisfy their social needs through proactively initiating involvement with others, influencing others and connecting with others. Picard, in the picture, probably wishes to express an opinion and influence, while Data’s intent of seeking meaning is about involvement and learning. Yet, the satisfaction occurs to the extent that you are able to find the group that fits, or communicate your intention that enables people to adjust their expectations around you. There may even be situations where team dynamics are not compatible, and you might expect a lot of frustration.

This approach gives an individual a lot more flexibility to anticipate their levels of motivation from a needs theory perspective. Of course, this is just one dimension of motivation and satisfaction. At the same time, when applied to communication and interaction, it is something that provides a lot more insight into what one can do to build interpersonal skills. How do you know what someone wants? What new skills will you need when working with a new group, or when your spouse has “changed” due to challenges at work or with psychological circumstances?

By developing one’s ability to detect interpersonal differences and matching the capabilities needed in such a situation, one could become far more competent in achieving desired results with teams.

Most of the time, I don’t really bother with the news, except business news. Occasionally, some interesting articles catch my attention and I read in greater detail. The recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant meltdown in Japan was something that caught many people’s attention, and of course, I believe warrants a reflection.

What do you think people might do in a situation where multiple bad things happen to them? Unfortunately, when you least expect it, you will have to deal with bad things happening all at the same time. This is as true for nations as it is for companies and individuals.

Some people might accuse me of being pessimistic. However, I believe it is merely precautionary. The Japanese have been known to love their country so much that they would rather stay than to leave the affected/afflicted zones. I’m not so sure that people will always stick to their guns and persevere, but this is a great case of perseverance, and I trust can also be deemed inspiring. Are you prepared to do whatever it takes in the worst case scenario?

Two groups of people emerge from such an experience. The first group lives in doom and gloom. They don’t believe that anything they can do will influence anything. The second group is positive and optimistic. They have hope. Which group is right? Some might say that both are equally right, but the second group will enjoy themselves along the way. It is this art of enjoyment that I feel many of us lack in times where it is required. We enjoy ourselves when the environment allows us so. Yet, we fail to recognize on occasion, that it is our internal mental environment that enables us to feel positive or not.

Failing to do this results in us practicing the wrong things and accumulating habits that may not be useful for us. Such is the nature of your neurology: whatever you practice does not become perfect, it becomes permanent.

Nobody really knows when the disasters in Japan will be resolved, or whether they will be resolved at all. We can only look forward to a future that is worth creating, and work toward it, heart, mind and soul. The fruits of labor may not be enjoyed immediately, but at least we might lay the ground foundation for others who are important to us in the future.

Our prayers and positive wishes are with you, the people of Japan.

It seems that few people actually understand the notion of motivation. To most, motivation is a feeling. It’s the rush and the high that gets people excited, and all too often, causes disappointment because it didn’t last. But why have such expectations in the first place? Usually, people think of motivation as a harbinger of disappointment. The typical skeptic that sits in the audience with folded arms waiting to see how long this will last. Sadly, for such people, they will never get to enjoy the benefits of exhilaration of the moment. But that’s not even what this post is about. Motivation is a feeling. But for motivation to influence performance, it needs to be structured in the environment of performance. It is also cognitive (thought based), and requires a set of skills to be able to maintain.

EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT

It has been long known that the organizational climate tends to influence the way an individual performs. Some people call this culture. I’ve experienced cultural changes and I know that whenever the environment pushes an individual in one direction, it is often very unconscious. In schools, for instance, when a group of people appear to suddenly become very motivated, it may be shortlived. A proper way of sustaining motivation is through effective motivational coaching. This needs to be implemented within the day-to-day environment, very much like how you need a teacher to teach a particular subject.

INTERNAL (COGNITIVE) ENVIRONMENT

As a trainer, counselor or coach, I have to always bear in mind that the external environment has a certain level  of gravity of behavior. At the same time, such behavior can be shifted through an internal locus of control. By teaching people how to be better able to control their internal environments enables them to be far more independent in making their minds up about what is or isn’t possible. A few people I know tend to hold external loci of control because they are limited by their own beliefs. They do not think that their own capabilities will see them through. An effective motivational coach is able to handle these limitations and enable an individual to break away from this limitation.

Motivation is a way of life. It is just like the way you brush your teeth or tie your shoelaces. Once you learn to do it, you keep doing it until it becomes a part of everyday life. Anyone who mistakes motivation for just a mere feeling can still feel that exhilaration of the moment, but will not be likely to apply this to improving performance.