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This video is part of the Ginger Career Shifter programme. If you would like to get out of a rut in the workplace get in touch.

Staying Motivated Part One - Building a Magnetic Future

The nights are closing in and with more economic gloom looming, it's easy to find yourself sliding down the slippery slope of demotivation. "What's the point?" "Why bother?" and "Ugh, if I have to..." might be phrases you find yourself uttering from time to time. But when there are so many exciting things to do and achieve in the world, we don't want pesky demotivation to get in the way, do we? Here's the Ginger take on how to keep yourself trim, sharp and motivated.

Part 1: Build a Magnetic Future
Have you ever heard of a walker who accidentally one day stumbled to the top of Everest? Just taking a stroll and "Whoops - what a lovely view"? Me neither. Likewise, if you don't know what your own mountain peak is, the chances are you'll wander round in the foothills without ever reaching the summit. Yet, as soon as you know which mountain you're aiming for, you can start to prepare your ascent.

Building a Magnetic Future means having a strong, detailed and compelling idea of what you want from life. Figure out what your really want and you'll find a deep connection to what keeps you going- otherwise known as your motivation. When something has to happen in your life because you want it so much, it has become a Magnetic Future.

Most of us at some point in life have experienced the pull of a Magnetic Future. You may call it being 'On Purpose,' 'At the top of my game,' or just 'Having a really nice time.' It's the feeling that nothing can get in the way of what has to happen - what's going to happen, because we believe in it so much. So how do you build a Magnetic Future?

1. Start from the end, not the beginning
Forget about what's 'possible' for a moment and think of what you would like to do in your life if you had no constraints. No money issues, no people issues, no place issues, no time issues. What would you like to do in your life? Fill a page of A4 with ideas, words, drawings, images.

2. Find the magnetic force
Take a look at your A4 sheet of paper and see which are the parts of it that really stand out to you. Which are the words or ideas that make you tingle with excitement - and possibly even nerves? If there's nothing on the list that makes you feel that way, go back to your sheet of A4 and think "what could I do in my life that would be outrageous?"

The parts of your paper that stand out to you are the magnet. This will be your driving force to keep you motivated.

3. Turn up the power
Now, ask yourself what would would be different if your magnetic words or ideas became a reality? What would your world look like? How would you behave? What would you achieve? What and who would you interact with? What would you be doing and how would you be doing it?

What would all of this make possible on a broader scale?

What you're doing here is to actually start creating your magnetic future. If you're on the right track, you'll already feel that exciting, motivational pull that shows the magnet is starting to work. Work more on this and you'll hit upon a compelling vision of your future that has to happen. When you really hit that, you'll be unstoppable.

For some people questions like this get their juices flowing instantly, whilst for others they need a different style. That's why I coach people 1-2-1 through processes like this. If you're interested in this technique, but need a helping hand, stop by the Ginger coaching page to find out more about what it involves.

Staying Motivated is not only about building a Magnetic Future - it also has two further steps I call:

Part 2. Getting off those Sticky Floorboards
Part 3. Vanquishing Vampires and Ducking Demons

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This article is a snippet of the Ginger Training & Coaching Staying Motivated programme for organisations. It's already worked well for groups of lawyers and accountants, so it will work for many more groups. Please email biscuits@go-ginger.com or call 0207 3888 645 if you think your organisation would benefit from Staying Motivated.

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Further reading:
How Dreams learn to Fly
Give yourself authority to dream.
What's your point? Focus & One-pointedness in action

How dreams learn to fly

I wrote recently about my friends Mark & Denise who entered a competition to live their dream lifestyle for six months. Did they win the Ultimate Job competition? Have a look here to see their journey and my thoughts.

Mark & Denise's efforts inspired me to think more about how dreams become reality, particularly because this is something I help my coaching clients with every day. So, just what does it take to make your dream fly?

1) Before you reach a peak, you need a mountain to climb
If we don't know where we're trying to get to, how can we complain when we don't get there? One of the biggest challenges is to work out what you really want from your life. I started to ponder dreaming based on Mark & Denise's example in this article: Give yourself the Authority to Dream. What I learned was how much we restrict ourselves to the habits of our current reality; a path we chose perhaps many years ago and perhaps without conscious choice.

If Psychologists are right in saying that 90-95% of our thoughts today are the same as our thoughts yesterday, what impact does that have on our capacity to dream up changes in our lives? Ask yourself this;

- When did I last do something that felt thrilling?
- What was the last thing I wished for?
- When I wish for things, how often are they in my usual range of habits and how often are they big, or even scary wishes?

There are plenty of techniques to help you dream outside of your habitual patterns, or comfort zone. One of my favourites that I do with my clients is to help them visualise a fantastic future, based not on their logic, but based on their deep internal desires. That, incidentally, is where Ginger came from. You can use vision boards, positive affirmation, work on personal meaning and even a shopping spree to help you strengthen your dream. By creating a rock solid dream- a future that's so utterly desirable - anything else that gets in the way will seem insignificant.

2. Build your confidence muscle
We're afraid to dream because of the risks. What if I fail? and What if I lose what I already have? are two big ones, but I believe they hide an even bigger fear - What if I get what I want?

Whatever the fear, we can train ourselves gradually to have confidence in our ability to succeed and our ability to cope with success. That confidence, of course, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, like any muscle, your confidence muscle needs training. Of course you may not have the confidence (or opportunity) to run for Prime Minister right now, but if you set yourself tiny goals to achieve, then celebrate and reaffirm your success, you'll find that over time your self confidence grows and your ability to dream strengthens. And with your strengthening confidence muscle, bigger and more powerful dreams are possible. Not to mention the connections and possibilities you naturally come across that help you on your way over time.

Start really small and focus on your power to make something happen in your life. If you're building trust in yourself, fulfil even the tiniest of promises you make to yourself. Get up when you say you'll get up; call home when you agreed and follow up on that person asking for your help. Achieve all the goals you set for yourself in a month and you'll see the difference in your confidence.

3. Give yourself time & space
Ever given up on an idea half way through, thinking they're not working, only to find a few weeks later that if you'd kept going you would've succeeded?

Remember to build your confidence and your dream over time, without being put off. If you climb a few metres up one mountain, then decide to change to a different mountain because it looks easier, you may never reach a summit. Recogise that it often months and years to reach dreams. Here it's important you have that rock solid dream, so that you can cling on even when times get tough. And you can prepare yourself for those tough times by acknowledging the following:

- Your mind will play tricks on your to try to put you off (we call it the saboteur, the inner critic, the gremlin...)
- You will get there if you keep going
- What happens in your life is nobody's choice but yours

And finally, don't forget that it is you who makes your dreams happen, by making your dreams happen.


Related articles
Give yourself the authority to dream!
What's your point? Focus & one-pointedness in action

How to make any job your dream job

My partner Luke works for a local council. He spends most of the day listening to members of the public fretting, complaining, protesting or 'trying to cut a deal' over Council Tax payments. Not exactly top 10 in one's list of dream jobs. Yet we've come up with a way to make his average job into a Dream Job.

In a way, so many of us end up in that less-than-perfect job. Even if we finally landed a spot in our dream company (the one with the pool table in the canteen and handcream in the loos), reality quickly bites when the routine grind of repetitive work hits in. I've known a number of bubbly idealists who joined ethical companies that should've been 'the one,' yet eighteen months down the line they're looking again for something... better.

So what's going wrong here? Is it that our managers don't know how to design jobs that are fulfilling? Could be. Or it could be that we don't know how to find fulfilment in our job? If we blame our managers, there's not much we can do but shift jobs and complain about the next boss. But if we take responsibility, it really is possible to make any job our dream job. Here's how.

A few weeks ago Luke and I developed a technique that has radically changed the way he faces his customers. We call it the Customer Award of the Day.

The Concept: Every day Luke hunts out candidates for his Customer of the Day. For each person he speaks to, he notes down the positive (and only the positive) qualities that he notices in them. The Customer of the Day is then given the fine award of, well, nothing, apart from Luke picking them as his favourite person for that day.

Meaning that the guy Luke had previously see as the "petulant business man" becomes "diligent, focused and an excellent communicator," and the "disorganised, emotional woman with three children who's shouting at me" becomes "caring, nurturing, protective mother who is passionate and expressive."

You get the idea. By focusing on the positive qualities of those around you, their positive side is exactly what you experience. Just think about the difference it makes if you pick up the phone and hold your breath for the first good quality to shine, rather than holding your breath in anticipation of a fight.

"But isn't that just deluding yourself?" a number of Luke's colleagues have asked. I suppose you could see it like that. But if like me you see truth as more dynamic than objective, you'll realise that in life you see what you want to see in people. And the qualities you chose to focus on are the ones that will stick in your memory.

More than just positive thinking, this a way to learn. Every time you recognise a quality in someone else, you can implicitly compare your actions to theres and think - "Am I being as generous today as customer #3? Or as straightforward as customer #7?" If you're surrounded by good examples your own development becomes easier.

Even if your job is not as repetitive as Luke's, you can still keep a lookout for your Person of the Day. What qualities did you admire in your colleagues, clients or people in the street? What did you learn today from people around you? Who struck you as inspirational, unique, clever, peaceful, and so on.

The choice really is yours. And in this way, it's your choice whether you have an drab job or a Dream Job. Ask yourself this: would you prefer to focus on people's 'bad' qualities, or would you prefer to work with an endless supply of exciting, impressive people that you can learn from?