Using Your Brain —for a CHANGE

Since this isn't a strategies seminar, I don't insist that you get every little detail. But I do want you to get the basic pieces in the sequence, and get the key piece that makes a difference. That will usually be an element that changes in a crucial way. With Betty, it was a change in voice tone that actually got her up. To find that out, you really have to be a stickler for detail. If somebody says, "I make a picture of myself getting up," you have to ask for more detail. "Is it a movie? Is it a slide? Does it have color? Is it big? Do you say anything to yourself? What tone of voice do you use?" These small details are what make the sequence work. Some of them will be much more effective than others, and you can find that out by changing them one at a time, and noticing the impact. Pair up now and try this; take about fifteen minutes each. . . .

Well, what did you find in there? How does your partner motivate himself? What were the key pieces in the sequence?

Bill: My partner first hears the alarm clock, and he looks at it as he turns it off. Then he lies down again, and feels how comfortable he is in bed. An internal voice says, "If you stay here, you'll go to sleep and be late," and he makes a picture of a time when he was late to work, and feels bad. Then the voice says, "It will be worse next time," and he makes a bigger picture of what will happen if he's late again, and feels worse. The sequence seems to be "voice, picture, bad feeling." When the bad feeling is strong enough, he gets up.

That's what we call "the old anxiety routine." You keep generating unpleasant feelings until you're motivated to avoid them. Rollo May has that one. He even wrote a long book about it, which can be summarized in one sentence: "Anxiety has been misunderstood; anxiety is good because it gets people to do things."If your motivation strategy runs on anxiety, that's absolutely right. But not everyone has that kind of motivation. For other people anxiety prevents them from accomplishing things. They think of doing something interesting, then they make a picture of how things could go wrong, then they feel anxious and just sit at home.

Suzi: I do something very similar to what Bill's partner does. I tell myself that I can rest for a few more minutes, and I do. But as time passes, my picture of being late gets bigger and closer and brighter. It stays the same picture, but when it's big enough, I have to get out of bed to stop the bad feelings.

Do you procrastinate in other things? (Yes.) How many of the rest of you did term papers at the last minute? The longer you waited, the more motivated you were. Bill's partner has his own internal anxiety generator. Suzi's runs off the clock. They are both very similar in that they use unpleasant feelings as a motivator. Did any of you find an example of motivation that used pleasant feelings — even to do an unpleasant task?

Frank: Yes, Marge pictured all the things she was going to do during the day and felt good about doing them. She said that those pleasant pictures "pulled her out of bed."

What if she only had unpleasant things to do that day? Did you ask her about that?

Frank: Yes, I did. She said she made pictures of those things being all done, and felt wonderful that they were done. That good feeling pulled her out of bed, too. That seemed unreal to me. I can't imagine that actually working, and I wanted to ask you about it.

Where's Marge? . . . Marge, when do you do your taxes? Marge: I have them done by mid–January. It's so nice to have them done, so I can do other things.

Well, it certainly seems to work for her. Nobody enjoys doing taxes, but most people enjoy having them done. The trick is to be able to access that good feeling of having them done ahead of time to get you started. Marge's motivation uses pleasant feelings instead of unpleasant ones. It's less common, and very strange to Frank, who does the opposite.

Lots of people are good at motivating themselves to do pleasant things. They just make pictures of doing the pleasant things, and are so attracted to these pictures that they start doing them. However, that process doesn't work for things you want to have done, but you don't like doing them, If you don't like doing taxes, and you make a picture of doing them, you'll feel repelled. That's not motivating at all. If you want to get motivated positively, you need to think about what's really attractive about a task. If you don't enjoy the task itself, what's attractive is having it done.

Actually there is another piece that needs to be there if Marge's motivation strategy is going to work. How many of you have thought about how nice it will be to have something done, and then you "ran out of gas" when you sat down and started on it?

Marge, when you start on your taxes, what keeps you going?

Marge: All along, I keep thinking about how nice it will be when they're all done.

That's an important piece, but I'll bet you also do something else.

Marge: Well, each time I write down a number or fill in a piece of the form, I feel good about getting that little piece done, too. It's like a little taste of the good feeling I'll have when it's all done.

Right. Those two pieces are what keep you going, and the second one will be more effective than the first. If you just think f it all being done, and it takes some time to finish a project, it can get to seem like "pie in the sky." But that good feeling of accomplishment you get every time you complete a small piece of the task will sustain you through a lot of drudgery.

Marge: That's interesting. It explains a lot of things in my life. People have often called me a "Pollyanna," because I'm always thinking of how good it will be when something unpleasant is over. I always get a lot done, but I've had trouble getting other people to do unpleasant jobs. When I tell them about how nice it will be when it's done, I usually get a blank stare.

Right. They just don't understand. That's not the way they motivate themselves.

Frank: It seems like you're saying that someone can be powerfully and effectively motivated without even having any unpleasant feelings. Is there any hope for the rest of us who propel ourselves with anxiety?

Sure. Like anything else people do, motivation strategies are learned, and you can always learn another one. It's fairly easy to teach you how to use Marge's strategy. But you have to be careful when you make such a pervasive change in someone's life,

Some people make lousy decisions, but since they aren't very motivated, they don't get into much trouble. If you teach them a really effective motivation strategy, they will actually carry out all those bad decisions, and do a lot of stupid, irrelevant, and possibly harmful things. So before I teach someone a powerful new motivation strategy, I make sure that the person already has an effective way of making decisions. If he doesn't, I'll teach him a new decision strategy before I teach him the new motivation strategy.