David Rulli

A common challenge leaders and managers face in today’s work place is the question of, “How do I keep my team motivated?” Over the past seventy years motivation has been the topic of much research. From Maslow’s needs-hierarchy to Skinner’s reinforcement theory, the question has remained the same. “How do we as leaders create a feeling of interest, a reason for doing something or behaving in a certain way?”

Many factors have been taken into consideration when looking at motivation theory. However, the general conclusion has been, motivating factors vary from one person to the other. Something that highly motivates one individual may be of no concern to another individual. None-the-less, I have chosen to discuss one motivating factor that seems to be fairly uniform in the work place. This factor is feedback.

In most facets of life people seek to feel valued, and it should come as no surprise that the work place is not an exception to this phenomenon. Thus, leaders must know how to properly bestow feelings of value in their employees through the use of feedback. In order for feedback to be effective the message must be relevant, specific, timely, valuable, and accurate. To provide a basic example, have you ever tried to train a puppy? If so then these five aspects of effective feedback should not seem foreign to you. When the dog performs the desired behavior, reward or feedback must be specific, relevant, accurate, and timely to insure that Fido is still aware of why he is being rewarded. We also want the reward or feedback to be valuable, meaning the feedback is something that Fido finds gratifying. Due to our effective use of feedback, the next time we tell Fido to sit, he is going to be much more motivated to repeat the action. Let’s not get confused; human beings are much more complex creatures than animals. However, very similar principles apply when it comes to using effective feedback with people.

Let’s now look at an example in the work place. Jane Smith is a valuable asset to your team. She is always on time, exteriorly creative, gives exceptional customer service, and has great employee relation skills. You, as Jane’s manager, recognize Jane’s exceptional work and determine she should receive a “pat on the back”. How do you insure that this “pat on the back” is indeed effective feedback? First identify exactly which area of Jane’s exceptional work you are going to commend. A statement such as, “Jane, you are doing a great job” is not nearly as motivating as “Jane, you really set the bar with your customer service. You received six compliments from customers this week!” Next, provide the feedback soon after Jane has acted in a commendable manner. Finally, provide the feedback in a genuine style that you have determined to be valuable specifically to Jane. Jane has now received relevant, specific, timely, valuable, and accurate feedback. She can now return to work feeling appreciated, motivated, and prepared to continue working at a commendable level.

In short, feedback can be a very powerful motivator as long as it is administered effectively. Although each industry is going to be different it is still beneficial for employees to know their work is noticed and appreciated. When feedback is used motivation should increase thus, so will productivity.

Rich people have small TVs and big libraries, and poor people have small libraries and big TVs.

Zig Ziglar

Motivation can take you far, but it can take you even further if you first find your vision. Your vision will motivate and guide you on your journey to success and personal fullfillment. Trying to succeed at anything without first having a clear vision of what it is you want to accomplish will only lead to you going around in circles and eventually giving up in frustration.

To develop your vision, you must look inside yourself. Vision comes from within, from the spirit or subconscious, whatever you choose to call it. Every one has a vision that is uniquely their own, and you are no different. the hard part comes in understanding your personal vision and how it applies to your personal motivation plan.

Your vision will most likely not come suddenly like some bolt of lightning out of the sky. Instead, it will grow from your experiences, talents, dreams, and desires, so don’t try to rush it. Instead, keep your motivation and allow your vision to reveal itself through you.

Here are five steps you can use to effectively find your vision:

1. Learn to listen to your inner voice. Since your vision starts from inside you, you should learn to listen and feel what your mind and heart truly desire. What stirs you? What is your greatest desire? What kind of dreams do you have? If what you think you want does not really come from the inner depths of your heart and soul, then you will find it difficult, if not impossible, to not give up before you achieve it.
2. Prepare yourself mentally. Your vision begins in your mind and heart. It is something that burns within your soul. it should be greater than your all of your past memories, mistakes, and accomplishments. If you know what your vision is, you will have a purpose and won’t get lost on your journey. Discouragement is the outcome of not having a ditinct vision. If you don’t know where you’re going or how to get there, the journey will seem a lot
   longer and harder. In order to seek your vision, retreat to a quiet and tranquil place, a place that will allow your mind to think creatively and concentrate on your vision.
3. Seek out other motivated vision seekers. Greatness breeds greatness, and it is for this reason that you should seek out the company of others who can appreciate and support your vision. Hang with the winners and it will keep your motivation high.
4. Keep a notebook and pen handy. All too often, when seeking a vision, it is easy to forget that it is 90 percent inspiration, as American inventor Thomas Edison said. With that in mind, you never know when your vision is going to come to fruition, so keep a small notebook with you at all times, even on your nightstand when you sleep, and write down whatever comes to mind, no matter how silly it seems at the time. You may write down a hundred crazy ideas but number one hundred and one just might be the vision you were searching for. Don’t try to edit right now, just write down everything that comes to mind.
5. Don’t try to fully understand your vision. The vision you are seeking will most likely come to you in ways that you won’t fully understand at the moment. That’s okay. Just follow as much of your vision as you can right now, and more will be revealed to you as time goes on. All truly successful people have a vision that they follow, no matter what challenges they may face, to it’s eventual outcome. Begin following the above steps to seek your vision today and remember that true, lasting success will never come to you until you know what your vision is and how you will follow it. And you will be unstoppable if you combine your personal vision with a healthy dose of motivation.

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”

Zig Ziglar

Pain may sometimes be the reason why people change. Getting flunked grades make us realize that we need to study. Debts remind us of our inability to look for a source of income. Being humiliated gives us the ‘push’ to speak up and fight for ourselves to save our face from the next embarrassments. It may be a bitter experience, a friend’s tragic story, a great movie, or an inspiring book that will help us get up and get just the right amount of motivation we need in order to improve ourselves.

With the countless negativities the world brings about, how do we keep motivated? Try on the tips I prepared from A to Z…

A – Achieve your dreams. Avoid negative people, things and places. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

B – Believe in your self, and in what you can do.

C – Consider things on every angle and aspect. Motivation comes from determination. To be able to understand life, you should feel the sun from both sides.

D – Don’t give up and don’t give in. Thomas Edison failed once, twice, more than thrice before he came up with his invention and perfected the incandescent light bulb. Make motivation as your steering wheel.

E – Enjoy. Work as if you don’t need money. Dance as if nobody’s watching. Love as if you never cried. Learn as if you’ll live forever. Motivation takes place when people are happy.

F – Family and Friends – are life’s greatest ‘F’ treasures. Don’t loose sight of them.

G – Give more than what is enough. Where does motivation and self improvement take place at work? At home? At school? When you exert extra effort in doing things.

H – Hang on to your dreams. They may dangle in there for a moment, but these little stars will be your driving force.

I – Ignore those who try to destroy you. Don’t let other people to get the best of you. Stay out of toxic people – the kind of friends who hates to hear about your success.

J – Just be yourself. The key to success is to be yourself. And the key to failure is to try to please everyone.

K – keep trying no matter how hard life may seem. When a person is motivated, eventually he sees a harsh life finally clearing out, paving the way to self improvement.
L – Learn to love your self. Now isn’t that easy?

M – Make things happen. Motivation is when your dreams are put into work clothes.

N – Never lie, cheat or steal. Always play a fair game.

O – Open your eyes. People should learn the horse attitude and horse sense. They see things in 2 ways – how they want things to be, and how they should be.

P – Practice makes perfect. Practice is about motivation. It lets us learn repertoire and ways on how can we recover from our mistakes.

Q – Quitters never win. And winners never quit. So, choose your fate – are you going to be a quitter? Or a winner?

R – Ready yourself. Motivation is also about preparation. We must hear the little voice within us telling us to get started before others will get on their feet and try to push us around. Remember, it wasn’t raining when Noah build the ark.

S – Stop procrastinating.

T – Take control of your life. Discipline or self control jives synonymously with motivation. Both are key factors in self improvement.

U – Understand others. If you know very well how to talk, you should also learn how to listen. Yearn to understand first, and to be understood the second.

V – Visualize it. Motivation without vision is like a boat on a dry land.

W – Want it more than anything. Dreaming means believing. And to believe is something that is rooted out from the roots of motivation and self improvement.

X – X Factor is what will make you different from the others. When you are motivated, you tend to put on “extras” on your life like extra time for family, extra help at work, extra care for friends, and so on.

Y – You are unique. No one in this world looks, acts, or talks like you. Value your life and existence, because you’re just going to spend it once.

Z – Zero in on your dreams and go for it!!!

“Hope is the power that gives a person the confidence to step out and try.” Zig Ziglar

What is it that makes you get out of bed in the morning, stumble to the shower and get dressed for work? The answer is motivation. This is what keeps us going through life, coping with all the daily stresses, pain and suffering. We are constantly motivated to make our lives better by doing whatever we can to make improvements.

That’s fine for adults, but what motivates children, you might ask. Just think back to the days when you were in elementary school.

What was it that made you go to school each day, besides your parents waking you up and making you go? The motivation of meeting your friends and socializing was one of the reasons. The other is that even then you knew that you needed an education to get you through life. The promise of a new bike or the teacher’s praise kept you working at your studies and passing the tests.

The type of motivation we have depends on what you want to do in life. This is the reason we have so many different occupations. It accounts for the people who do the mundane tasks that make our lives better and for those who aspire to greatness by inventing new technologies and medicines to improve the world as a whole. Every person works together to make the world a better place and each one is motivated in different ways. Even if you are working at a job you don’t like, the fact that you receive a paycheck at the end of the month to help pay your bills keeps you going.

The pay off for motivation comes when you reap the benefits of hard work. If you have extra pounds, the sight of a new suit in the department store may spur you to action. You want to fit into this suit for a special occasion and therefore you start a regimen of diet and exercise as a method of self-improvement. When you do achieve a goal, you enjoy an immense feeling of satisfaction. In the end however, the only true motivation comes from inside.

“Don’t let someone who gave up on their dreams talk you out of going after yours.” Zig Ziglar

For any aspect of self-improvement, there has to be a reason for you to start and keep going. That is your motivation – the reason for doing what you do. In order to attempt any sort of improvement in your life, you need to be motivated in some way to get started. Strategies for self-improvement start with defining what it is you want to achieve and then charting a course through which you can effect the improvements or changes. These do not have to be drastic changes. They could be something as simple as making time for yourself to write in a journal each day or something to improve your health, such as quitting smoking.

Motivation comes from within. It is something that you want to do for you. This is what keeps you going, getting up each day and going off to work. Children are often the motivating force behind parents saving money, when they would ordinarily blow it on something frivolous. You know that you will need money for your children’s higher education or to give them the extras that they want, such as toys and brand name clothing. This is the reason that you work each day, maintain a home and spend time enjoying each other.

If you don’t have something to look forward to or see some sense of gratification in what you do, then there is no motivation to get doing it. Just meeting with colleagues helps you get a sense of who you are and your place in the world. Socialization, confidence and improvement are three main aspects of life. When you enjoy life, you can be motivated to achieve great things. Achievement does not have to be something that everyone recognizes. It can be something as simple as learning to make a quilt or to use a saw to create beautiful woodwork. The end result is the feeling of accomplishment that you have in yourself.

A goal properly set is halfway reached. Zig Ziglar

You may be a skillful, effective employer but if you don’t trust your personnel and the opposite, then the chances of improving and expanding the business you deal with, are extremely limited.

You may be a skillful, effective employer but if you don’t trust your personnel and the opposite, then the chances of improving and expanding the business you deal with, are extremely limited.

It’s not critical for the employees to like the boss, but they have to trust him or her. If not, he won’t be able to lead them and the workers will have little motivation at work.

Truth and trust are connected together. You could be honest for years but one lie can destroy the trust you have built all this time and there is no doubt that regaining that trust is very difficult.

You have to be honest. Do not say “I don’t know” when you know. Be straight and say exactly what you have in mind. When you say “No” mean it. We have to realize that the work place is not a popularity contest . Tasks need to be completed and work’s goals should be accomplished with success.

Therefore, trying to be pleasant all the time will build obstacles to your job and disorientate you from your real goals at work.

Open your ears and accept criticism from employees or colleagues. It’s hard for every person to accept comments – especially negative – but in order to lead you will have to. Always listen to other ideas, suggestions and encourage open discussions. That doesn’t mean, in case you are the manager that you don’t decide according to your facts.

Demonstrate the trust. Just saying “I trust you” is not enough. You have to show it by assigning responsibilities and providing all the tools they need in order to succeed in the tasks you assign to them. When we say tools we mean training, information e.t.c

Recognize the well done job. People need to be appreciated especially at work. When an employee is productive, and finishes the assignment successfully show your appreciation directly. People need the approval to be in public and the negative comments in private. It’s in human nature, we can’t change it, and so it is important to follow that rule.

Recent research analyzes that workers do not care only about the money. They want to be educated at work, to take initiatives and also play a part in resolving problems that occur.

To sum it up, you have to do what you preach, and be clear with your actions. When you say “No” or “Yes” mean them, and of course you have to give the example. If you enforce a rule at your company but you are the only one who breaks it, don’t expect the rule to last for long. Especially the trust will vanish, and leading your team will become extremely difficult task.

Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes. Zig Ziglar

One of the important aspects in our life is motivation; we tend to loose our energy for many reasons quickly. Lack of energy diminishes efficiency, affects productivity, creates frustration, develops stress, makes you short temper and ends up with depression; all these affect both personal & professional life.

What is motivation?

Motivation is a force which drives character to overcome conflicts or is a set of forces that cause people to behave in a certain way.

Why Motivation?

I’ve specified answer for this in the start of the article, anyway we need to be motivated to consistently perform well at work, develop a better relationship with parents, siblings, friends, wife etc.

How can we be motivated?

I cannot answer to this question specifically because motivation differs from person to person. What motivates one person may only make another person angry. So, we have to understand what makes us motivated & do things that make us motivated. If you are a good reader read biographies of personalities who have made it big, watch our inspiring & motivating songs/movies. Always be optimistic, move with positive minded people.

You can make your hobbies in doing motivating things. I made a New Year resolution to collect 365 motivational quote for this year & I make it a point that I fid one new motivational quote a day. Wake up & read one motivating quote before even brushing your teeth. I wake up by read these quotes daily

A. Fortune favors the bold.
B. Failure is not the end of road, but victory postponed.
C. Success doesn’t come to you, you go to it.
D. The road to success is lined with many tempting parking spaces.

This psychologically helps me to stay motivated the whole day.

Another important factor for motivation is to lead a disciplined life. Life discipline matters a lot for motivation, following things will help you to raise your energy & keeps you motivated,

1. Have a good Sleep – human body needs 6 hours of rest.
2. Eat at regular intervals – Don’t skip breakfast, lunch & dinner. Overeating leads to obesity & stress.
3. Humor – Humor is a best medicine to reduce stress & helps you to maintain you motivation.
4. Exercise – Regular exercise makes body & mind fit.
5. Stop Over Working – Over working makes mind tires & over long run brain stops working. It even affects your health.

All these 5 points helps you to reduce stress & improve motivation. Lots of inventions have happened when people where are exercise & on sleep. So when we reduce stress, automatically our motivation level goes up.

If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. Zig Ziglar

Most children need little motivation to learn when they are young. Everything is new and exciting. So what happens when they get older? This article explores ways in which students can be motivated to learn.

As children get beyond the preschool/ kindergarten stage, many of them lose the joy in learning that is the characteristic of those early years. They may have had challenges in the classroom, or have been exposed to older children and heard some of their “school is boring” comments. The savvy parent can help to counteract this behavior by encouraging children to develop their interests and hobbies and by finding out more about the things in which they ARE interested. One method of motivating students to learn is by using articles in magazines or newspapers.

If you get a daily newspaper, teach your child to use it. There is no doubt that they will be motivated to learn to decipher the television and movie listings, but what else do you take for granted? All local newspapers have “Around Town” sections – draw your child’s attention to articles of importance to him. If he is a railroad buff, let him read about the model train show coming up next week. If he’s interested in space, read to him about the latest from the Hubble telescope.

Magazine articles are another good motivation tool. You can find whole magazines dedicated to your child’s hobby, whether it’s rock collecting or dance. If your child loves dinosaurs, reading about a little boy just like him who grew up to be a paleontologist can be very rewarding. Someone who loves animals will be motivated to learn all they can after reading about veterinarians.

One thing that motivates almost everyone is money. If your child is fascinated by reading about the lives of people whose salaries make them able to travel, drive expensive cars and live in luxury, perhaps he will be motivated to get a great education and get rich himself. Even People Magazine can be useful in motivating students to learn!

You don’t have to be great at something to start, but you have to start to be great at something. Zig Ziglar