Motivation

Focus on Rituals, Not Goals

December 9, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

My biggest takeaway from James Clear’s Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (2018) is the importance of shifting your focus from your end goal to what your need to do regularly to reach that goal.

Though goals can provide orientation and motivation, Clear notes that committing to the system makes all the difference. Goals aren’t necessarily the best way to ensure things are done. Thinking about only goals tends to make people believe, “I’m not good enough yet, but I will be when I reach my goal.” This impedes their long-term progress.

Instead, Clear recommends centering on the routines and things you need to do regularly to reach the goal. For example: If you’re a swim team coach, and your goal is to win a championship, the system that you should focus on is training every day, “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”

Idea for Impact: A systems-first mentality beats a goal-oriented mindset. “Fall in love with the process rather than the product.”

Why Sandbagging Your Goals Kills Productivity

December 2, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Sandbagging is managers believing they can accomplish more if they lower the bar and set goals their team can easily hit. Sure, managers often purposely set comfortable goals so that there’s room for “under-promise and over-deliver.”

Setting low goals may appear a clever strategy, but it’s a recipe for underperformance. Sandbagged goals don’t demand much in the way of performance when managers already know precisely how their teams will achieve the goals.

However, sandbagging can let teams down. Under-setting goals actually does what it’s created to avoid—teams eventually find such easy goals boring and demotivating. Low goals require little and inspire less, and ultimately undercut productivity. According to this study by Chancellor University’s Steve Kerr and Douglas Lepelley, when goals are fixed “too low, people often achieve them, but subsequent motivation and energy levels typically flag, and the goals are usually not exceeded by very much.”

Idea for Impact: To generate the greatest levels of effort and performance, set demanding goals outside your team’s comfort zone, but not so challenging and unattainable as to break your team’s morale. Aiming to achieve extraordinary things—hitting the farthest target and missing—can often be more worthwhile than successfully hitting a easy target.

The Mental Junkyard Hour

October 27, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you can muster up the energy, use an hour or two at the end of your day to crank out all those “functional tasks” that don’t require a totally clear head.

Wrap up anything that you shouldn’t carry forward to the next day. Crack down on all those administrative and life-maintenance tasks—like catching up with email, tidying up your home, and reprioritizing to-do lists. If you’re a student, you can summarize class notes, re-do practice problems, and get the school bag ready.

Making the most of the “mental junkyard hour” lets you spend the time when your head is clearer to focus on those tougher, “conceptual” tasks that need deep focused work.

The Best Way to Achieve Success is to Visualize Success

October 7, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

What athletes think about has a profound effect on how they perform—both negatively and positively. American sportswriter George Plimpton’s Sports! (1978) identifies the “self-satisfying optimism” that permeated the mind of soccer star Pelé under the stress of contest:

In the New York Cosmos’ locker room, it was Pelé’s ritual to lie on the floor with his feet elevated on a bench, one towel neatly folded under his head, another shielding his eyes. Half in, half out of his cubicle, he would begin a sort of waking dream—pleasurable scenes of playing barefoot on Brazilian beaches, playbacks of triumphs of his astonishing career that he planned to emulate. The more important the game, the longer his dream. On the occasion of the first huge crowd the Cosmos drew in New Jersey’s Meadowlands—62,394 people—he spent 25 minutes under his towel and then scored three goals against the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

Idea for Impact: Foreseeing yourself succeed helps you believe that it can happen.

Before you meet with a new sales prospect or when you’re procrastinating on any daunting task, take some time to imagine richly what you will see, taste, hear, smell, and feel once you’re successful.

Use the power of visualization to evoke the future self, who’s achieved your goals. See in your mind’s eye the finish line you’re aiming at.

Visualize what “done” looks like. Imagine the sense of achievement. Envision the relief of being finished. See the fame, rewards, accolades, awards, adulation, satisfaction you’ll receive in your mind’s eye.

Imagine taking action.

Visualize achieving your goal.

Now make it happen.

Take Time to Savor Life’s Little Pleasures

September 27, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Happiness researcher Meik Wiking’s The Art of Making Memories (2019) observes that the Danes are famously happy despite “horrific weather and some of the highest tax returns in the world” because they take time to savor life’s little pleasures. It’s part of Hygge (pronounced “hue-guh,”) the Danish wellness mindset that encourages a spirit of contentedness.

When life gets busy, it’s way too easy to rush through the motions without paying attention to little experiences. Our lives ultimately consist of these tiny movements, one after the other. Fresh sheets. The smell of wet earth after rain. An old favorite song at the right moment. The kindness of a stranger. We take these gifts for granted and brush by them without really breathing in their grace.

Wiking suggests that you can truly rejoice in life by training your brain to focus on the positive in your day-to-day experiences. At the end of each month, reflect on the past month by celebrating the “Happy 10.” Look through the photos on your phone, choose your favorite ten memories, put them in an album or journal, and think about why you enjoy them.

Idea for Impact: Happiness isn’t determined by circumstances. Happiness is what happens when you decide to relish joy.

Savor the beauty and richness of simple pleasures. Take a moment at the end of each day/week/month/year to appreciate what you’re grateful for.

Employee Engagement: Show Them How They Make a Difference

September 20, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The sure-fire way to assist employees find meaning and fulfillment at work is to get them to have even a small interaction with people who directly benefit from the work they’re doing.

One research showed that radiologists developed a stronger sense of the significance of their work if a photo of the patient were attached to an X-ray. “It enhanced their effort and accuracy, yielding 12% increases in the length of their reports and 46% improvement in diagnostic findings.” Radiologists typically don’t interact with patients directly—they work in the background providing interpretation services to other doctors.

Idea for Impact: People are inspired less by what they do and more by WHY

How people see themselves and their meaning and purpose in this world may be the most significant incentive of all.

Empower your employees, especially those that aren’t on the frontlines, with direct reminders of task significance. Invite next-down-the-line customers (virtually or in-person) to share meaningful insights, give appreciation, and share feedback. Promote regular dialogue with customers to help stay relevant and become responsive to customer issues as they arise.

Do These Three Things In The Morning For A Better Day

August 12, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Mornings can be challenging to get up and get going, especially when work is home and home is work. If you want to hit the ground running each day, do these three simple things to make your mornings much less frenzied:

1/ Wake up to a clean space. Waking up to a disorganized home, overflowing trash, or a sink full of unwashed dishes can really put a damper on your day. The clutter and untidiness can wind you up if you have no clean cups and plates for your breakfast or you can’t find whatever you need to get your day started. Have a more pleasant and productive morning by taking care of all these chores the night before. Organize together everything you need for the next day.

2/ Make time to exercise. Exercising first thing in the morning doesn’t just perk up your body; it also boosts your spirit and metabolism and leaves you feeling invigorated. If you aren’t a morning-exercise kind of person, try to wake up 15 minutes earlier to do a few simple stretches, pushups, lift hand weights, and pace up and down the stairs a few times. You’ll kick off your day feeling a little more vibrant and refreshed.

3/ Make a to-do list. Start your morning by identifying what your day is going to look like. This way, you’ll feel more in control of your time and get more done. Ask yourself this question, “When the day is over, and I’m getting ready to go to bed, what would I have accomplished today to give me a tremendous sense of achievement?” Prioritize things that have to be at the forefront. Planning is easiest when your mental clarity is sharpest, which, for most people, is first thing in the morning.

A simple morning habit allows you to take control of your emotional state. It sets precedence and intent for the day.

The #1 Reason Why Employees Don’t Speak Up

August 5, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Notwithstanding management’s well-intended open-door policies, employees avoid voicing concerns when they don’t feel safe doing so. They think it’s more harmless to “duck and cover” than to speak up and help the organization.

Employees don’t want to jeopardize their jobs. They don’t want to be labeled troublemakers and alienate themselves from co-workers and supervisors. In some cases, employees’ fears may not be of immediate retaliation but instead a deferred reckoning that could upset their careers years down the line.

The self-preservation motive is so dominant that the perceived risks of speaking up are very personal and immediate to employees. In contrast, the potential benefits to the organization from sharing concerns seem distant and abstract.

Consequently employees often instinctively play it safe by keeping quiet. Often, they rationalize their implied compliance by saying that the concerns are none of their business—and wishing that somebody else would speak up.

Idea for Impact: The freedom to raise questions, concerns, and ideas is at the heart of an open organizational culture. Unless employees are convinced that they’ll be supported to do the right thing, they could hesitate to speak up and help remedy problems before they can blow up.

Change Must Come from Within

July 21, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

If you want to become the type of person who wants to change, you must become the type of person who embodies that change repeatedly. You must deliberately weave the change into your sense of identity. Seth Godin notes in The Practice (2020,)

If you want to get in shape, it’s not difficult. Spend an hour a day running or at the gym. Do that for six months or a year. Done.

That’s not the difficult part.

The difficult part is becoming the kind of person who goes to the gym every day.

When you use your actions to drive your identity, you’ll naturally become confident in your ability to make fundamental decisions that sustain—and enhance—who you are.

Idea for Impact: Habits stick when they respond to your sense of identity. Change your identity, change how you want to be seen, and you’ll change your life.

The Reason Why Weight Watchers Works whereas ‘DIY Dieting’ Fails

July 1, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Weight Watchers (WW) was born from an unmet personal need, as is true with many businesses. Founder Jean Nidetch had struggled with her weight all her life. In her late 30s, she went to a city-run obesity clinic in New York and finally lost the weight she wanted.

Then, when her resolve to maintain a healthy weight wavered, Nidetch recognized that losing weight is easier if she weren’t doing it by herself. Dieting is more than “calories in, calories out.” Eating the right number of calories and exercising doesn’t always work. It isn’t the occasional overindulgence that creates obesity; it’s the steady over-eating—often in surprisingly small amounts.

Helping People Change Their Behavior through Support and Motivation

According to Memoir of a Successful Loser: The Story of Weight Watchers (1970,) Nidetch realized that what people struggling to keep a diet program needed was one another. Dieters needed a space to talk openly about their diet struggles and became answerable to one another.

Determined to stay on track, Nidetch started with the diet that the obesity clinic had given her. She mimeographed it and handed it out to a group of six overweight but determined friends that she invited to her apartment in the Queens. At the first meeting, Nidetch confessed to an addiction to cookies. Her friends sympathized and shared their own calorific woes. Everyone had a good time, and the group agreed to meet the following week again.

Nidetch’s pattern of programming and social support spread quickly. Meetings grew in size. When Nidetch ran out of chairs, she shifted the sessions to a formal assembly room. Weight Watchers was thus born.

Group Cheerleaders Can Go a Long Way toward Keeping Motivation Alive

Weight Watchers has outlasted many fad diets, and it continues to be a popular program. People go to Weight Watchers because it works. The program makes its members think of the regimen not as a diet but as a different way of living.

Collectively, members feel positively about their desire to lose weight. They offer support and grant forgiveness for failures to lose weight. Members aren’t thinking of restrictions; they’re thinking of flexibility and abundance. If they tend to be foodies, they don’t need to stop enjoying food.

Weight Watchers groups meet weekly. (7,000 coaches run the meetings.) Each member contributes. Everyone feels invested in accomplishments. The group celebrates as one.

The robust process of celebrating and retelling success stories reinforces the shared goal of pushing limits. In addition, the interaction helps with accountability and encourages participants to stick with their goals.

Idea for Impact: Purpose is good. Shared purpose is better.

Shared interests get us, humans, to show up and be present. We need structure, tools, and support to be successful. We need a community because the fellowship of others with a shared empowering purpose gives us the accountability and inspiration that motivates us to lose weight—or bring about any lasting change.

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Motivation

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Idea for Impact: People are inspired less by what they do and more by WHY

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Helping People Change Their Behavior through Support and Motivation

Group Cheerleaders Can Go a Long Way toward Keeping Motivation Alive

Idea for Impact: Purpose is good. Shared purpose is better.

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