The Trigger Overlooked When Goal Setting: Motivation

Last updated on March 29th, 2024 at 11:29 am

You begin each year with the best of intentions. You write down your goals, vowing that this will be the year yet—only to arrive at the other end and ask, “What happened?” All your best-laid goals have stalled. You face the last part of the year wondering what it takes to make your big dream come true.

There is a trigger that is often overlooked when people set New Year’s resolutions: motivation. When I say “motivation,” I mean the spark that gets you going—the motivation to work toward goals.

There is a misconception about successful dream achievement that you have to be in the right frame of mind, think positive thoughts, and cheer yourself into bliss to motivate you to achieve your goals.

Lesson#1: Motivation is not about positive thinking.

Motivation is simply the gasoline to your success engine. It’s not positive or negative. It’s the ability to get out of bed when you must go to work in the morning. It’s starting your day whether you feel like it or not.  It’s showing up whether you are happy or sad. Sometimes, it involves working when you are sick.

You perform tasks daily without thinking about what motivated you to do them. You drive your car across town to buy groceries–not because shopping at the grocery store makes you dance in the middle of the aisle, but because of your need to eat–whether or not your life is terrific, essential, or messed up.

Too often, you believe you have to feel a certain positive vibe to change, or you think, “If this thing is right for me, I’ll wake up one day and feel like doing it.” I call bullshit (sorry mom).

Lesson#2: Motivation doesn’t work because of feelings. It’s Triggers.

Motivation is a lot more complex, and its basis is rooted in your childhood experiences and how those experiences shape you as an adult. I am not kidding you when I say that dream achievement is about getting to know yourself, learning, not being afraid to understand your strengths, and embracing your weaknesses. Who you are at the core of your being determines your ability to create real change.

The good news is that you don’t have to see the world as full of rainbows, sunshine, and unicorns to motivate yourself to achieve your goals and resolutions.

The truth is our childhood experiences form our style of motivation.

If any of the four most influential people in your life while you were growing up used guilt as a successful means of getting you to do something, then shame is most likely still a motivational trigger for you in your adult life. You haven’t achieved your big dream thus far because you probably haven’t modeled your motivation after what triggers you to take action. Triggers aren’t always positive, and understanding how you were motivated as a child offers you the key to motivating yourself as an adult.

I am not here to argue whether or not you can change negative motivation triggers through therapy; I am only trying to get you to figure out what your triggers are so that you can successfully create real change in your life.

I have a friend who doesn’t like people to see her house as a mess, but she has difficulty motivating herself to do a deep cleaning.  Whenever she complains about this, I advise her to throw a big party. The idea of a bunch of people hanging around her house, opening cupboards, and using her bathrooms is the motivation she needs to get that deep spring cleaning done. Her parents used the shame of how her bedroom looked as a motivation to clean before the guests they entertained arrived at her childhood home. They threatened to show everyone her room.

What happened?

She learned that her biggest motivator was her fear of what other people think about her in public. You can think this is wrong, but the most important lesson is to know that this type of motivation is your motivation trigger. Once you recognize it, you can choose to change it.

One of my favorite ways to discover what motivates you comes from Barbara Sher’s book Live the Life You Love: In Ten Easy Step-By-Step Lessons. And I’m going to share it with you.

You’ll need some quiet time, a pencil, and at least two pieces of paper.

Discover your Motivation Triggers

1. Think back over the years and list your successes–going back as far as possible. Were you the first girl to accomplish hopscotch without error? Did you read earlier than any of your siblings? Did you ride your bike faster than anyone in your neighborhood? Did you always get an A on your English papers?

2. List all of your life’s accomplishments that make you the proudest up until this point.

3. Get out a second sheet of paper and write the following:

METHOD OF MOTIVATION

GRADE/COMMENTS ABOUT

Spirituality
Scolding
Guilt
Lecturing
Competition
Revenge
Fear
Shaming
Taking a class
Praying
Dares
Positive thinking
Financial reward
Praise from family
Praise from strangers
Reincarnation
Affirmations
Avoiding pain
Being in control
Getting help
Earning attention
Starting small
Being right
Proving others wrong
Getting even
Independence
Creating excitement
Other (list ways that you remember for reasons why you did certain things and accomplished certain goals)

4. Now sit down with this list, go back over your accomplishments growing up, and look at your motivations. Did your mother threaten you with punishment? Did you have an older sibling who always said you couldn’t do it?

5. Grade the motivations on the left side of the list with A (works), B (worked sometimes), C (hardly works), D (never works), or F (worst motivation on earth). Then, make notes on your successes using the motivations marked with an A.

6. Carefully consider each one; by the time you finish, you should have an idea of your motivation blueprint. Maybe there was a lot of shaming in your family growing up, but you’ve completely eliminated shame from your adult life.  Now you can’t figure out why you won’t make the one phone call that will change your life. You’d rate Shaming with an “A” to the right because it always seemed to work for you growing up–even if you think you’d hate it now.

Just because you may not like how you were once motivated or think you have eliminated the type of people who imposed awful motivations on you (like shame) doesn’t mean that their influence or the memory of it still isn’t a strong motivational trigger for you. The grades are about whether that motivation worked for you or not—not if you liked it or not.

If shaming turns out to be a big motivation trigger for you because you accomplished a lot during those years, remember that shaming motivated you to complete specific tasks. Then, think about a way to create shame as an adult around the big goal you keep putting off.

It’s the perfect way to test if it is still a motivation trigger for you.

Maybe you can tell someone you admire to call you on a certain date and ask if you have achieved your big goal. If you will be ashamed to let this person down, then it’s the perfect test for your motivation trigger around shame.

Maybe the problem with your goals in the past is not the tasks themselves but that you didn’t understand how to motivate yourself. Motivation is not about lovey-dovey thoughts and soft teddy bears; it’s about the real emotions that drive you to take action.  Your triggers won’t make sense to anyone but you.

If affirmations never motivated you as a child, how can you expect them to motivate you now? You’d have better luck working with what your motivation trigger is, create a system around the trigger, and forget about writing, “You will do XYZ today” on your bathroom mirror.

Recently, I started working out again, and I’ve become like a woman obsessed.  Since I study dream success every week, I had to look at why I waited so many years to go back to working out and what was causing me to arrange everything to accomplish it. My son, Brian, is now in college. Just after he was born, until he entered first grade, I participated in an exercise boot camp (butt-kicking) class every day.  I worked out just about every day for five years.

Then I stopped working out did nothing for my body.

What happened? Well, work travel interfered with regular workouts, and I needed to help my son with homework. Plus, the classes were a half-hour drive south. Suddenly, that hour a day spent driving seemed impossible, so I let this part of me go.

That is until my son started working at a gym, which I was able to join for free. I decided to try the Zumba fitness classes since I love to dance. The next thing I knew, I was taking all the Zumba classes and any Yoga classes I could fit into my schedule. I’ve started working out every day again, even if it requires that I get out of bed two hours early.

What is my motivation trigger for working out again?

All of my past exercise achievements were the result of attending group classes. I was a ballet dancer from when I was a little girl until I was 18 (attending classes four times a week and more). I was an ice skater from when I was 8 until I was 21 (attending classes once a week with skating all weekend). I danced through aerobics classes while in college. I ran track with friends who loved running (and I hate running).

I realized that “exercising in a class with a group of people” is one of my motivation triggers. That’s why it’s easy for me to work out now and why working out at home has never worked.

Use the GRADE/COMMENTS side of your paper to make notes about the motivations you rate an A, then try to use them with your bucket list. For example, if I wanted to change my diet, I should try to find a class that helps people change their diets. Being part of a class ups my chances for real success.

Try this secret motivation trigger to make your big dream a reality, and let me know your results. If you are a dreamer in search of your true calling, I highly recommend any of Barabara Sher’s books. She’s the queen of dreaming big, motivation, and how to change your life.