Greatest Motivator for You

Fifteen years ago, in my country, during study in high school, to be state university students was our objectives because it was cheaper and had good quality. Unfortunately, for some students and me, fear of failure to enter state university students came to our mind and the fear became our motivator. We started to think it would be painful when we failed to become state university students because our education expense would be more expensive in private school.

There were also wrong assumptions in our mind that private university had worse quality and that we would be categorized as stupid students. So, our motivator was pain. We were afraid that we would learn in university which was more expensive and had lower quality than state university. We were afraid of losing the opportunity to enter state university. We were afraid that the others would label us as stupid students. For some students, the pain motivated them but for other students, it decreased their morale. Most of students learned diligently only for passing the state university test successfully. My critical area of my mind disagreed about it because, in my mind, it was not the one and only objective of learning. I could not learn well just to avoid the pain of failure in state university test. Then I did not pass the test because I focused on the pain.

Actually, I do not reject the theory that motivation comes from the pain or happiness. Both pain and happiness can motivate us to be better. However, critical area of some people’ mind will make a bar when they are motivated by pain. The pain is threat and it is horror. In horror scene, our performance and morale can decline. The boss will decrease his subordinates’ morale if he pushes his subordinates only by using pain or bad consequence of their failure or punishment for their disobedience. If the condition is not supplemented with motivation by using reward, they will feel something threatening them. They will not work in joy then this situation can downgrade their performance. In education, when the teachers only push the student to learn by emphasizing pain of having bad mark or punishment, the motivation will not optimize their ability. They will learn just because they are afraid of pain.

On motivation, I personally agree with Joe Vitale, a Guru of The Secret. In Hypnotic Writing, his bestselling e-book, he states that he prefers to use happiness as motivator because it is more honorable than the pain. Although he does not object that pain is the great motivator, he does not want to spread the pain in this world. I agree with his idealistic perspective to choose happiness as the motivator to make the better change. I give two thumbs up to him because he says that the ‘love’ is the greatest motivator. When we do what we love and love what we do, we feel happiness.

My experience in previous job in Training and Development Department of MLM Company makes me aware of the correlation between financial success and relationship. Based on my company’s distributor data, most of distributors who achieved Diamond and Crown Level were married. A Diamond or Crown Distributor had spouse and family to love. Love has magic. It creates happiness in doing something. Love motivates them to make top level achievement for the happiness of their family. Love empowers them to realize their burning desire.

When you learn something, try to love your learning process. Use love and happiness as great motivators. Make affirmation that you are in the process of learning and that you are in the process of mastering knowledge and skill that will be useful to help others and beloved ones.

Do affirmation when you are in the process of changing your self to be better. Affirm that you are in the process to the best achievement so you can help other to be better or inspire the other to do better for their life. Sometimes, you need to love others in order to motivate yourself because no man is an island. Make your happy dream become more powerful than nightmare!