Draft
Michael :Good afternoon Nicole, I am really delighted that you've come back to us again to talk about motivation. But to kick it off would you like to introduce yourself to our audience?
Nicole : Yes, thank you very much Michael - I'm equally delighted to be back and very glad to hear that quite a few people tuned in to the facilitation one - so motivation will be equally fascinating for me, it's one of the fields that I work in.
So my name is Nicole Bachman. My company is Brook and Man, and it's basically a coaching and facilitation company that works with associates. It works both with small and medium business field, as in the corporate field.
What we do most of is leadership development and team development. And that usually means looking at the various skills and mindsets that are needed in a leadership environment today, and there's quite a few changes going on, not just in the economy but also in the way that people do business with each other - so therefore the image is there - the old images there are dying and the new images there are changing, so it's actually quite an exciting world to be involved in.
Michael : Excellent. And bringing you back to motivation - What actually does motivation mean to you? What is it?
Nicole : Well, I could give you the textbook definition of it, but I won't because I'm not terribly interested in textbook definitions, I'm much more interested in what it actually means for you on an everyday business. For me motivation is all about the choices that you make.
So there's something about being a mature adult that means being able and willing to take responsibility for the choices that you make and then back those choices, and I think partly why people find it so difficult to motivate themselves, and then as a consequence, motivate others, because we're not very used to doing that.
We're definitely not educated to do that, and then if you look around it, in the world around us, there's all sorts of things that indicate that its much better to look for who's to blame for something than who should take responsibility for something. There's a huge difference to that and I think that's one of the things that gets in the way of motivation.
A lot is the misunderstanding between what is blame and what is responsibility.
Michael : Excellent. I like that. Building on that, if you take a workplace or a work situation, who is responsible for motivation?
Nicole : Thank you Michael, that s a very good way of looking at things, a very good question. A lot of people would think that it's their line manager. Other people would think that it's the CEO of the company or the board of directors, other people would think that its the people that they work with.
And of course, in the end, all of that is true, however, it does not absolve us from the responsibility of our own motivation and I think because you yourself in the present moment are the only thing that is in your influence and in your control, it would be a very good place to start to look at, and ask 'What am I doing?' to motivate yourself.
And a few of the questions that you need to ask yourself is 'What gives you energy?' and 'What drains your energy?' Because I think that one of the things that people misunderstand very often is if they don't understand those questions - if they don't actually know which part of your days give you energy and which part of your days drain you of your energy, how the hell are you going to know what to do more of and how to be more motivated?
Michael :Excellent. And leading on from that, a questions, and you may have already answered it, but I'll ask it in a different way - what are some of the inner things that impact motivation? Things within us that impact motivation?
Nicole : Well, there is something that you would be very much aware of which is the language that we use And the interesting thing for me, that I find again and again, and it doesn't tend to matter what level of people that I am talking to is the language that they use - and sometimes you can have leaders who are really good at leading who are really good at being supportive and creating responsibility and creating a culture of responsibility, holding their staff responsible and giving them the support that they need.
If they actually look at the language that they use with themselves, if they are used it with any of their staff it wouldn't matter, because they wouldn't have any staff - they would have left ages ago.
Because basically they would say to themselves 'Well, excuse me, I'm not going to be treated like that by anybody.' However we treat ourselves like that, and we berate ourselves for all sorts of things that in other people we would see as a mistake.
And then we would possibly investigate why did the mistake happen, who is responsible for sorting it out, and what are we going to do to make sure it doesn't happen again? Which is a very constructive process to learn, however if it comes to ourselves we use language like 'Oh for god's sake, why did you do that you idiot?'
'This is ridiculous! How stupid could you be?' And that's the difference. And that language makes a huge difference with how you feel about yourself, and how motivated you are.
Next to language I would have thought that there's an awful lot of mindset involved. A language and mindset are of course very closely connected, because your language expresses your mindset. And mindsets are a bit more difficult, because mindsets have a lot more to do with ourselves, but also with conditioning and how we have conditioned ourselves over the years -and we get conditioned from a very early age onwards and of course there's an awful lot of things that happen to us and an awful lot of people that we meet that add to that conditioning.
Now the piece about conditioning that is in ourselves is about our perception of what people say to us. There's a wonderful example if you don't mind me sharing, that I have from a friend of mine - that basically, when he was three years old he loved drawing, he would draw anything that he could find - and of course, he was a three year old, so his drawings weren't Picasso-esque, but they were his drawings.
And then he was the youngest member of a biggest family, so he had to bigger brothers and an older sister - And of course he had both parents, he was very lucky like that. So he was constantly trying to show these drawings to anybody who he thought would like to look at them, like his brothers, his sister or his parents.
And what happened a lot of the time would be that they were just busy with something else. On of the brothers would have a girlfriend and they would say 'Oh go away, I don't want to talk to you now', the other would be out riding his bike so he would say 'Oh go away, I'm not interested in you', and the father would come home after a long days work and say 'Darling, I'll look at it after dinner, I'm really hungry now'
And Mummy would come home after taking the brother or the sister to school and say 'I'm just going to get dinner in now, we'll look at it later.'
And this started to happen about three four times, and after a few weeks he was absolutely convinced that he couldn't draw - Because nobody would look at his drawing and obviously therefore he thought they were all rubbish. Nobody told him that he couldn't draw, nobody had actually criticised his drawings, however, he was absolutely sure that this was the case.
Now it took him until he was in his thirties that he tracked back what had happened, and he thought 'Well, this is ridiculous - I love it and I want to do it' So he went to Florence for a few weeks and did a - whats it called - nude drawing class, basically, where he learned to draw. There's a specific expression that escapes me a the moment - but basically he learned to draw, and he loves it - and he's not the worlds lost Picasso, he doesn't want to exhibit it or whatever - but he loves it, and it took him until he was thirty.
Because he was absolutely convinced that he had conditioned himself to believe early, that he couldn't draw.
So he was conditioned to think that he couldn't draw, but actually he wasn't - so he could now blame his parents or his siblings or whatever for the fact that he couldn't draw - but it wasn't their fault, because nobody told him. It was his perception of what was going on around him that gave him that belief, and I think that there's a lot of whats going on in our mindsets that were picked up over time from our environment and then added our own perception over it and very often and then you find that what you see around you is barriers, problems, issues, disasters - everything is difficult, life is hard - and of course, that sort of stuff is going to seriously get in the way of you being motivated.
Michael : OK, you've talked about language and you've talked about mindset - and I appreciate these are labels - but do you think that that's it or is there anything else that you would like to add in terms of what goes on in our heads in terms of motivation?
Nicole : Well I think to do with it - it has very much a lot to do with mindset, but what is then connected with it is our belief over whether we can do something about it or not. So to a certain extent we're back to responsibility and blame - so are we blaming ourselves and not the worked for us not being motivated, then the likelihood is that we're not going to do an awful lot about it, because the trouble is, once you find yourself within the 'blame corner' which is where you either find yourself no matter what happens to you in the world or what happens to you - you feel completely out of control - you are convinced that there is nothing that you can do about it.
No immediately that impacts on your ability to change because if there's nothing you can do about it, why the hell would you bother trying? Therefore you dig yourself deeper and deeper into this hole of motivation, and the tragedy is that the only person that can help you get out of it is you - but the one thing is that because you're so overwhelmed by the lack of control that you, you're not going to take control of the on thing that you could control which is your own attitude and your own mindset.
So there's that, and there's the thought and belief that there's nothing that you can do for for motivation, 'Im just a sad person, I just take things very hard' these types of beliefs where people think 'if that's who I am, that's who I am', therefore there's nothing that I can do about it' This gets in the way of motivation.
And then of course there's demotivation traps along the way - but that's maybe another conversation.
Michael : OK, while we're talking about inner stuff, you've actually given us examples of things that can demotivate you - Can you give some examples of people that motivate - The other side of the coin - What natural things do people have inside them that motivates themselves, naturally.
Nicole : Well, again - some people are born lucky as we've said, right? So some people are born with a mindset so that they will always look at the glass half full, which of course is a cliche - but often cliches have the virtue of being true, otherwise they wouldn't have developed into cliches - but the likelihood is that as children we were born to be motivated. Because when we come into this world, what we want is to learn and to grow and look - and new things are really exciting to us. So we always have a natural inclination to be motivated, to go out and explore and to find new things, and we find all of that very exciting.
When eventually, of course, when we hit some stuff that overwhelms us, that's when it all turns around and suddenly it turns into fear. And whats very interesting about that, for me, is that the chemical reaction in the body - The chemical reaction for huge excitement and huge fear is identical. So the chemicals that are raging around our bodies are exactly the same. It is our interpretation of the situation that turns it into either excitement as in motivation, which is fantastic, or 'this is horrendous, I'm hopeless, I'm terrified', as in demotivation, and a lack of motivation.
So the good news is that we've all got it within us to motivate ourselves if an when we are able to make the choices to take that responsibility and do something about it. Because there's an awful lot of stuff that you could look at in your life that is actually good.
And one of the other things that gets in the way, and I'm getting onto something that supports us, by going via something that gets in the way, I'm not trying to evade your question - is that one of the things that we're terribly good at is looking at whats missing, and focusing on whats missing.
So, I don't know if you do to-do lists Michael, but when people do to-do lists - when they look at the list at the end of the day, what is the only thing that they see?
Michael :A big to-do list.
Nicole : Exactly, and what it is that thy see the most if what they haven't done. And they find it impossible to award or acknowledge themselves, or give themselves credit for the five things on the list that they have done. So they have a to-do list of maybe Fifteen things, and they've done five - and so all that they can see is the ten that they haven't done, and they don't ever look at the five that they have done.
And its quite interesting, I was with one of my clients, and we discussed this for a while, and we ended up saying 'Well, why don't you just drop to-do lists?' and have 'have-done lists' instead - have a have-done list every day. And she did that and for a couple of months, it made a huge difference. It made a huge difference to how she walked in in the morning, it made a huge difference to how she walked out in the evening, because she all of a sudden started to realise all of the things that she was actually doing.
And what that helped her to do was then move on from doing things well, which is efficient, to doing the right thing, which is being effective. And that's when it comes to be really strong, because in the end it doesn't matter how much you've done, the question is 'have you done the things that really matter?' And once you get into the habit of doing things that really matter and giving yourself credit for those things, now that's a completely different ball game and motivation almost generates itself because of the sense of achievement that you are creating for yourself.
Michael : OK, lets move on from that. And I agree, what you've been talking about are really the building blocks of motivation. But looking at the outside world - in the outside world, what are the kinds of things that generally demotivate people or motivate them?
Nicole : Where there is the working environment of course. There are companies, unfortunately, that are still around that believe in motivation-by-fear. And motivation by fear works to a certain extent at the beginning because if you've got everybody terrified, they'll do exactly what you tell them because they're all terrified they're forced to do that by the consequences of not doing it - and the thing is people become numbed by it, and nobody likes to live in fear, so it doesn't actually work.
So that's one, working environment - then there could be a misunderstanding in communication styles, so it might well be that the language style of your line manager or the people that you work with is completely different from yours - so you constantly felt like you're not being listened to, or that your opinion is not being heard, and you're not invited to make a contribution - so any of that can make a huge influence on it.
and then of course, there are our best friends, the media, because in the current situation you walk down the road and you see the headlines and you're lucky if at the end of the road you're not slitting your wrists or something, or something terrible like that.
Michael : OK, that's an excellent starting point. Moving on a bit from that - Say you have a client coming to you for the first time, and they have a motivation issue, but you don't yet know what its about - what are the sorts of things that you do at the beginning of the meeting?
Nicole : Well first of all we have to find out whats really going on for them. Because very often what people think gets in the way of their motivation isn't necessarily what really gets in the way - so there will be a lot of exploring, asking questions around what it actually means to them, where are they coming from - What are their energisers? What are their drains? How do they measure success? What does it look like? Do they know what it looks like? Would they know the difference if they saw it? Have they ever thought about success?
And there's also about - usually we go through something about how they treat themselves, because that normally tells them something about their mindset and language, and its crucial to find that out. And sometimes you can get there literally in the first ten minutes because its something very, very obvious. Sometimes it's a little more complicated than that, but I would definitely start from there.
Michael : OK, so you start with some very detailed questions to understand how they are and how they think and some of their background - What sort of things might you move on to?
Nicole : When we're then looking at how people then sabotage themselves, because that's quite crucial, because sometimes within the self-sabotage lies the demotivation traps. There are various different things, it can be in the excuses that they use, it can be in how they distract themselves, it can be how they deal with the consequences of their choices, it can be about the emotional side of things - the emotional-intelligence side to things - about what is their resistance? What is their comfort zone? What is their frustration tolerance? Quite an important one? What do they do with setbacks? Do they give up? Do they not give up?
So those are some of the things that we would move on to. So exploring some of those, and then exploring some of the underlying emotional issues is crucial to getting them to the stage when they're able and willing to get them to accept responsibility for their own motivation.
Michael : OK excellent. So you've set the scene you've asked lots of questions, you've explored their maps and how they operate, you've then explored their blockers, the way they may self-sabotage and things like that - what sort of things would you then do as the end of a session, and how would you leave it so that you're pointing them in the right direction?
Nicole : Once we've identified the barriers, the conversation goes around how to overcome those barriers, and more than often the answer lies within the client, and very often the answer doesn't lie in the client and you need to make some suggestions or to pull in other clients experiences and bring that all together. But in the end what we will look for is some commitment to take some action towards getting better at it - because in the end motivation does not just happen, its an attitude that needs to be renewed every day - and also if you are in the habit of not motivating yourself or being demotivated, or actively demotivating yourself, than that's a habit that we need to change - and it will probably take a fair amount of time to practice something different, because that's the most important thing - if they have a motivational issues that they come to me with then they need to do something different.
And they will chose what it is that they want to do differently, but I will help them identify the most effective ways, or the most effective two or three steps of what they can practice.
Michael :So does that mean that at the end of the session normally, and I appreciate that I'm generalising they will have agreed some tasks or actions - some specific tasks or actions that they aer going to do?
Nicole : Absolutely, what I am looking for is commitment to action, because it's only commitment that gets you action, and gets you progress - So I will be looking for commitment as to what are the three things that they're going to do differently as of now? And how will they notice their own progress, and of course a lot of my clients, we work together on an on-going basis so I ask 'What will you do when we talk again in weeks time, or two weeks time?'
So that's where we're starting the next conversation, we're saying 'well, how did you get on?' And one of the things that is important about that, is that when you're holding somebody accountable and/or want to help somebody improve their own motivation as in to improve their ability to motivate themselves, then the learning conversation has to be a non-judgemental conversation.
We have to look at what happened, what went went, what didn't go so well, did we succeed, how will we know that we succeeded- and how are we going to adjust what we're doing to make it better, or how are we going to get going, maybe it will work terribly well - So what are we learning from our success's then?
Michael : OK, so your not frightened in any way of asking direct personal questions?
Nicole : Oh no. I couldn't be. I would be completely useless if I were frightened.
Michael : OK, moving on from that, or doing a bit more big picture stuff. Imagine, as you are, that you're talking directly to the people listening to this podcast, would you generate some general top level tips as to how people can keep themselves motivated?
Nicole : I would suggest that people do a number of things - Number one is to write down what your energisers are. Number two is to write down what your energy drains are, and what I mean by that is to be very specific in your actual working days - Look at all of your working days for a week or two, and keep a running list or a mind map or however you like to record information - and just record that - because one of the biggest things is that we need awareness from the beginning. If you're not aware from the beginning then there's nothing that we can do about it.
We're always looking for awareness - and what we're looking for is awareness in the moment that you become aware of something draining you - in the moment it happens you have got a chance to make a different choice, but only then. So until we are there, until we are actually made aware of it, in the present moment there is nothing that we can do about it. So there is a lot of frustration with that exercise at the beginning because you will catch yourself afterwards - you will say 'Oh I didn't do anything about that - this is why I'm exhausted, because of what I did in the afternoon, or because of these people who are very negative' or whatever it was.
And that it an excellent first step, because what you will start with is awareness of the past - So won't be able to change it now, but the more you'll become aware of it, the more you'll be able to take that awareness into the present moment. So that is what we're looking for there, and the next step is to get more of what energises you and get yourself less of what drains you - and that includes people. And that's something that people find very,very hard.
there are people in your life, or in most of our lives that drain us of our energy rather than give us our energy, and we have to worry about how much time we spend with these people because there's actually a limited amount of energy that we have to give and we have a limited amount of it ourselves. So we have to look at not only what happens to you, but who it happens with.
Now after that, step three, is start to look at how you want to be treated. The amount of people who don't know, have never thought about how they want to be treated, is legions. There are loads and loads and loads of us that never ask ourselves that question. Whats the problem with not asking ourselves a question? Well obviously if we don't ask ourselves a question we don't know the answer - and if we don't know the answer how the hell are we going to make sure that other people treat us how we want to be treated?
Because that's a big part of the language that we use - we're back to language - but also the language that we use with others. So for example, if we treat ourselves the way that we want to be treated - whatever that looks like for the individual, then we're actually modelling. We're modelling how we want to be treated from others, and the likelihood is that because most of us take our own view of ourselves for granted, we obviously know ourselves best - so if I'm treating myself well, that means that I respect myself, so until you're willing to prove me otherwise, to treat me in the same way.
And that will then create an atmosphere where motivation becomes a whole lot easier.
Michael : Excellent, thank you.
Michael : Lets move on. Can you give a very short case history, a story, or even a metaphor - something along those lines about how you've helped somebody with motivation. Almost, where they were before, something they did, and how they ended up - but I don't actually need any detail - its just putting some flesh on some of the things that you've talked about.
Nicole : OK, I'll give you a quick one that works quite well because it was about energy patterns, which is the other thing - how does you energy change during the daytime? A client came to me, a very successful sales manager, and one of the thins that she was finding was that her sales results were dropping off, which is one of the reasons that the company was happy to pay for coaching - and there were thes4 various things that she found in herself that made her less and less motivated to make these sales calls that we used to find really really easy.
But what we then discovered was that her days had been rearranged in various ways and did not anymore take into account her energy patterns throughout the day. She was an early bird, so every morning she was ready to take any mountain and throw it anywhere, but after lunchtime she would have a real dip - between two and four she was basically comatose and found it really, really hard.
But what had happened is that her work had been arranged so that she would do a lot of her admin stuff, all her boring stuff, in the morning - and all of her clients were scheduled for the afternoon. And the reality was that she didn't want to talk to any clients because she was tired, she was whatever - so her results really just dropped off.
Now by just switching that around again and saying 'look its very important that she does the boring bits in the afternoon because shes already tired in the afternoon anyway, so it doesn't matter' and she gets her adrenaline shots, she gets her success stories, and she gets her experiences in the morning with the clients and talking to the clients. Literally within a week her results were right back up where they used to be.
Michael : Is there anything important that you think we've left out or anything that you'd like to emphasise? Just to round up the topic of motivation?
Nicole : Well, I think for me as Ive said the emphasis is on taking responsibility for the choices that you make and backing that choice. That to me is in one sentence, what motivation is all about.
Now it's a lot easier said than done, I realise that, but that's where you need to get to. If you can get yourself to a place where at any one time you feel that you have a choice 'I'm doing this because I chose to do it, not because I have to do it - and if you're willing to back that choice even if it turns out to be the wrong choice in the end - it was probably the right choice at the moment because all of the information that you had, and the choices you have made you can just look at the the choices calmly and say 'Could I made a different choice, or better choice next time?'
Then the way to a motivated life is paved. Then you still have to walk it, but at least it's a very, very good mindset to get in - and to add to that, really get into the language that you use to yourself, because one of the reasons we're not aware of it, or one of the consequences of awareness of how we talk to ourselves means that it has to be unfiltered.
So if I said to you Michael 'Oh you're completely useless' You'd sort of bristle and say 'Hang on a minute, I'm not sure I'm OK with that - how are you to tell me that?' And so you would filter what I say to you.
the trouble is, if you filter what you say to yourself - there's no such filter - so you'd have let that go right into your belief system and that becomes a limiting belief as fast as you can make it, because it becomes the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And so by combing the language that we use with yourself, and using it more deliberately and giving yourself the same benefit of the doubt that you would give somebody else that you would work with - that you wouldn't quickly jump to the conclusion that they're a complete idiot unless they prove themselves to be so - so watching the language that they use with themselves and being a mature adult and taking responsibility for choices that you make and then back those choices - sets you up for a very good start towards a motivated future.
Michael : Excellent. And as I've said, you've very kindly talked to us about your thoughts on Motivation - What would you like to plug? What is it you would like your audience to know you do, and where is it, that if they wanted to that they could contact you?
Nicole : I would like, obviously, anybody that would like
anybody that has motivational challenges or struggles with motivation, or has a team that does so - I would love to hear from them, and they can get me from the Ecademy website, I have a profile there, and there's some contact details on there - or they could also contact me via the
http://nlp-experts.org/motivation/ww...astination.com , which is another program that I run which is all about personal development, and personal effectiveness - that's another place that they could get into contact with me easily.
Michael :Thank you very much for that, and thank you very much for speaking to us again
Nicole : Pleasure, any time.
Nicole Bachmann on Motivation
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