We always need to be aware of our motivation.  Much as we might wish, self motivation doesn’t just happen; we have to constantly be working on it. One way to always stay aware of your self motivation is with the model for self motivation.  You can learn all about the model in my new book, iMotivateMe.

The model teaches us that our social environment, the people and organizations that surround us and are available to us, impact how motivated we are to do the work we need to do to achieve our goals and make our dreams come true.

An important aspect of our social environment are mentors and role models.

A role model is a person who serves as an example to you of one of more positive behaviors; you emulate the positive behaviors of this person.  This person can be in your life, in the media, or even in fiction.  Even if the role model is a real person you and the role model may not even know each other.

Wayne Dyer is my role model.  He and I don’t know each other, but there are characteristics I see in him that I want to emulate.  He is an excellent speaker.  He is able to express his ideas in a way people can understand easily.  He has great ideas that are helpful to his listeners and readers.  I want to emulate these behaviors as I believe they are behaviors that I will have as I manifest my vision of becoming a professional speaker, helping people achieve their dreams.

Practice acting out those positive behaviors and attributes that made you choose this person as your role model.  And always strive to be a role model to others.

A mentor is different than a role model. A mentor is an experienced and trusted guide and counselor for you.  Rather than just serving as an example for you like the role model does, the mentor actually guides you.  He or she actively supports and encourages you.  You have a personal relationship with this person.

I don’t know Wayne Dyer, so he is not my mentor.  He doesn’t give me guidance and encouragement, except through his books. I used to have a mentor, in Toastmasters, Elaine Thornburg.  She would talk to me about my speeches, and encouraged me to take leadership positions in Toastmasters.

Have you ever had a mentor?  It doesn’t need to be a formal appointment; it can be ad hoc.

Sometimes a person will just appear, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.“  But, if not, it is perfectly appropriate for you to seek a mentor. Consider  a former professor, a former boss or maybe even people in your family. Think about the people in any group you belong to that is helping you make your dream come true. Maybe there is someone there who would be willing to be a mentor for you, to have this one on one personal relationship with you. If you have not joined any such organizations, why not, right now, take this first important step in making your social environment help your motivation grow by identifying and joining one.

Having a mentor or a role model as part of your social environment is a very powerful way for you to positively impact your motivation.

If you want to learn more ways to make sure your self motivation stays high, why not sign up for a free subscription to the self motivation newsletter, by signing up to the right of this blog.

In my two last blog entries I explained why you need to do evaluations, and the best times to do evaluations. In this entry I give you seven strategies so you will have a successful evaluation.

Strategy 1.  Maintain the Drucker ratio

Peter Drucker was a well known management consultant and author.  He said that management where the manager only focuses on negative performance is very demotivating.

One of his ideas that I love is what I refer to as the Drucker Ratio of Evaluation, what he called the 4:1 performance syndrome.  He contended that generally people will perform well four times as much as they perform inadequately.  Therefore, the manager should praise his workers four times as often as he criticizes or corrects them or otherwise speaks negatively to them.

When you do your evaluations, follow the Drucker Ratio. Don’t be an over critical boss when you do your self evaluations.

Strategy 2.  Use self praise

Acknowledge your progress.   By doing this, you increase your confidence in your competence.  Any time you increase your confidence, you increase your motivation.  At the end of each week or month, review your work over the previous period to see what you have accomplished. Take time to appreciate your accomplishments

Strategy 3.  Correct the behavior, not yourself

Focus on behavior or performance characteristics, specifics actions you have taken or need to take.

Avoid labeling, characterizing, or defining motives.  If you need to criticize:

• Criticize as quickly as possible after the deficiency has occurred.
• Be specific.
• Look for solutions.

Strategy 4.  Be precise in your self praise.

Parents are always told that when you praise a child’s behavior, you need to be precise, that you should specify exactly what the child did that is earning the praise.  When a parent does this, he or she encourages the same behavior in the future.  This is effective positive reinforcement.

When you give yourself praise for what you have accomplished, you need to follow the rules for effective positive reinforcement:

1.  Be specific in your praise (clarity is motivating)

2.  Emphasize behavior (reinforce more of the same)

3.  Praise soon after the event (increases the motivating power)

Strategy 5.  ID THE GAP   

The GAP is the discrepancy or difference between what you wanted to happen and what did happen.

Compare the two. Are you successfully achieving what you set out to do? If not, write down specifically how you are falling short. That is the GAP.

If there is no gap, look for places you could improve.  Are you pleased with your progress?   If so, great, give yourself a pat on your back and start on your next goal or your next tasks.

Strategy 6.  Determine how to Bridge the GAP

What do you do if you have identified a GAP?  You figure out how to bridge the GAP.

Bridging the GAP does NOT mean dumping on yourself.  It does mean learning from your mistakes, and looking for solutions. The focus should be on the future, not the past.  Instead of asking why something went wrong, ask how you can make it work. The result of this strategy is solutions.

Strategy 7. Keep a record of the evaluation

Clarity increases your confidence in your competence, and that confidence, in turn, increases your motivation.  You want to keep a written record of your evaluations so you can refer back to them to see what changes worked and what changes didn’t work.

If you would like a template for the self evaluation form I use, drop me an email at strategiestomotivate@yahoo.com and I will send it to you.

An evaluation, knowing where you are on your path to achieving your goals and making your dreams come true, is very important in staying motivated. In my most recent blog I explained there were two types of evaluations you should do, and discussed the first type, the regularly scheduled evaluation.

In this blog I discuss what it means to do an evaluation on an as needed basis.

Sometimes situations occur that require you to do an evaluation outside of your scheduled evaluation.  Here are the three times I recommend you do an evaluation outside of those regularly scheduled evaluations:

When something positive happens:  Whenever you have gotten some favorable results, or after you have taken a big step, for example, something you were apprehensive about doing but you did it anyway, you should do an evaluation.  Research in education shows that in evaluations, timing is very important. Good teachers provide motivating feedback immediately after performance, and refer only to those aspects that were acceptable. So do an evaluation immediately after a positive thing happens.  Give yourself praise for your bravery, for taking a risk, for the results from your hard work.  This is a time for celebration, so there should only be positive comments.

Giving positive feedback immediately after a positive result is called motivating feedback, positive reinforcement following a desired response. Motivating feedback signals that repetition of the same behavior is desirable.

The next two recommended times involve what is referred to as formative or corrective evaluations.  In these evaluations you analyze the results, see how you could have done better or how you could improve, and plan the next step.  Research tells us that you provide formative feedback for those aspects of your performance that don’t meet your standards.  This evaluation should be delivered when you are ready to take your next step.  Formative or corrective evaluation signals a gap between what occurred and what was desired and figures out what actions are necessary to close the gap.

Here are the two times you supply formative or corrective evaluations:

When you are stumped.  Do a formative evaluation any time you hit a dead end, when you see you aren’t moving forward, or when you find yourself floating and not making any headway.

When you find you are dumping on yourself. When you are down on yourself, when you think you may have screwed up big time, when you feel you have failed, when any self doubts arise, instead of automatically dumping on your self, take a positive step, do an evaluation.

Now you know when to do an evaluation. The next issue is how to do an evaluation.

Come back on Monday and find out the best way to do an evaluation.