By: Momodou Sabally
You see this thing called motivation could be really elusive. Do you remember being highly motivated one day or a week and then the next day or week you start flopping?
Anyway I do and I know many others do have the same experience too. One of the most effective ways to solve this problem says Zig Ziglar is to constantly refill yourself with good motivational literature and audio programs. But listen, I recently read Steve Chandler’s 100 ways to motivate yourself and there is this thing he calls “Give away some power”. I thought of it and made the conclusion that it might as well be called the “Master Key to Self-Motivation”. This is how it works:
Steve claims that you can “Motivate yourself by giving someone else the ideas necessary for self-motivation” because says Mr. Chandler “You can have any experience you want in life simply by giving that experience away to someone else”.
It works:
Guess you remember the saying that when you point a finger to someone (i.e saying something to or about that person) the rest of the fingers are pointing back to you, meaning that whatever you say to someone you are saying the same thing to yourself multiplied by as many times as the number of fingers pointing back at you. Now forget “the rest of the fingers pointing back at you” because if you are a sceptic (like me) you might be using your index finger pointing out by now and then seeing if the rest of the fingers are actually pointing back at you. You know what, when I do it only three fingers point back at me and not necessarily all “the rest”. Ha-ha! Scored a point, right?
Yes only three fingers point back at me but I think that’s sufficient to satisfy that the law of increasing returns comes to play in this case. One more thing to do: let’s change the old saying from the negative perspective (which I have mainly seen it applied to) and change it into the positive. So if you are saying any good inspirational motivational words to another person, you are actually saying those words to yourself three times. Isn’t that good enough motivation to get you started motivating other people?
My old great granny Alboury says in his Wollof dialect “linga joheh nga mom” meaning that “what you give away is what you own and retain”. So if you want to get and keep the spirit of motivation, give away your ideas necessary for self-motivation and then you can get back to me and tell me if my late granny is right.
Two tips to remember:
1. Always keep searching for motivational ideas and thoughts, and…
2. Be generous with your motivational ideas and words, “so perfect are the compensations of the universe”.
Now you have in your hands the Master Key to Self Motivation so all you have to do is to start RIGHT NOW by shifting your focus to others rather than yourself. Our friend Steve, an expert in motivation, puts it succinctly “Point out the strengths of the other individual to him or her. Offer encouragement and support. Offer guidance in his or her own self-creation. Watch what it does for you.”
