You Are Capable of Far More Than You Think

There’s a huge difference between how much effort we will make grudgingly and what we will put in if we care.

I’ve sat in offices, willing the clock to move faster, living for the coffee, tea and lunch breaks and trying to work out which thankless dull task to do next for a boss I don’t like or respect. It’s not fun.

I’ve also sat in training courses, on video calls, or at my desk at home and disappeared into inspiration, creativity and flow as the hours flew by. I’ve experienced wanting to work, and it’s a great feeling.

The difference is motivation. It’s an elusive beast to hunt down, but here’s three ways that could help you find yours…

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Define Yourself By Opposites

We’ve all heard the quotes about finding a job you love and you never work a day in your life. It seems so easy — just find something you love to do.

But that means knowing what you want to do, and that can be an oddly hard question to answer.

It’s a lot easier to identify what you don’t want to do.

Start ruling things out. I spent 16 years at one organisation, knew I wanted out, then joined another organisation where I thought I would be happier, but I hated it.

I can see now, a few years later, that the reason I have more motivation these days is partly because both those roles showed me what I didn’t want.

The first role taught me that I needed more freedom and independence — I didn’t want to be a lost cog in a vast corporate machine. The second role revealed that my values mattered to me the most.

I didn’t want making money (for me or anyone else) at all costs to be the most important thing. I didn’t want to sacrifice creativity, quality and ethics just to scrape in a few more dollars.

So ask yourself: What don’t I want?

You will have narrowed the options more than you think.

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Let Necessity Be The Mother Of Invention

This is a high risk strategy, I won’t deny it, but it can work powerfully. There’s a high chance that you’re reading this article because you know you’re capable of more.

You might be down on yourself at the moment but deep down there’s a little spark, that if nurtured and fuelled correctly could burn with immense power and light.

If what you’re doing right now is not firing you up, not getting the best from you and only dragging you down, then leave.

Just go. Walk out. Stop. Enough is enough.

Even if you don’t do that today, flick the switch in your mind and start scheming. Plan out the steps to leave. I highly recommend, if you can, creating as big a financial buffer as possible before you do.

But — and this is where I have to give a risk warning — it might only be when your buffer gets close to running out that this method will really deliver.

The biggest breakthrough I had with my own startup was as a result of a month where I had no income at all. Promised work never materialised. Leads evaporated. I was ready to go back to job-hunting.

I gave myself to the end of the month and I did two things. One — I did something creative, purely for me. I figured, I’ve got time on my hands (perhaps for the last time for a while) let’s use it to achieve a “one day I’ll do that” dream.

I wrote a play.

Second, I thought outside of the box. My company worked in audio and creativity, so within the media sector. I searched for any funding available to new small media companies. Not loans, funding.

I was amazed at how much was out there. Yes, you had to attend courses, or set up calls to discuss suitability, or fill out forms, but all these were possible. The amounts weren’t huge, but they were starts.

I got accepted on a 2-day Research and Development taster course which I got paid (unbelievably) to attend. On that course they encouraged us to apply for more funding, which I did. I got it, and I was away.

18 months and three further rounds of successful funding applications later, research and development is a core activity for my business and a new invention of ours is in the patent application process.

None of this would have happened if I hadn’t have hit rock bottom — no work coming, no income, nothing.

Look, I know it’s not that simple. I was lucky. If nothing had worked out I could have squeezed by another month or two while I job hunted. Many won’t have that luxury.

But you have to be open to the possibility that you might have to go backwards to go forwards.

You might need to feel a tinge of “I really don’t know how I’m going to make it” to access your true fighting spirit, and the inspiration and effort that releases.

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Make Yourself A Promise

You may not realise it (or feel like it), but you are your own best friend, most trusted employee and star performer all rolled into one. If you embark on a task you see the point of, and give yourself the tools, you can do it.

You can push yourself too. You can ask yourself for more.

I read a brilliant article by J E McLaren where he spelt out his own drive and commitment. He was hungover and didn’t want to write that day — but he’d promised himself he would, so he did. It was inspirational:

“One of the pillars of my identity is my word. If I say I will do something, I will do it. But only if I say it with utter certainty. If I’m wishy-washy about my commitment, it’s a coin-toss whether I do it or not. If I say, yes, absolutely I will do this, you can count on me — then I won’t let any excuse stand in my way.” — J E McLaren ‘What Keeping Promises To Yourself Does’

That line about utter certainty is the key. You get to choose what you want to do with your life. Pick something you want to do, then commit with utter certainty.

Here’s the bonus — it doesn’t matter if eventually you work out that it wasn’t the perfect approach.

You will have learnt lessons by doing it. And remember, you can define what you do want by gradually ruling out what you don’t want.

I used to work a lot in radio, music and film and would often get asked how to break into these “cool” industries. My answer was always the same:

Work at the highest level you possibly can doing the job you actually want to do. Then aim for the next level. Keep going.

I saw so many young people who wanted to present radio shows collecting weeks of work experience (doing basic admin work) at big stations like they were badges of honour, or going off to study for yet another media degree or Masters.

If they’d have put the same time and effort into actually setting up and presenting their own podcast, they’d have been established in the industry already.

If you want to be a radio presenter, present radio. Even if it is to yourself at first, then at your community station, then the regional one. If you want to be a writer, write. First one article a week, then 3, 4, 5.

Say for example you want to escape your 9 to 5 and become a fitness coach. Start coaching your mate for free at weekends, then their mate for a cheap rate, then a mate of their mate for a good rate. And so on.

It sounds so simple and logical when you write it down, but I know in real life it can be trickier.

That’s when you have to make a promise to yourself:

“I will spend the next month delivering a fitness session for free, each weekend day and one midweek evening a week. The next month they will be paid.”

By taking that action, you put yourself in luck’s way. Maybe the person you gave free sessions to at the start becomes your number 1 client.

Maybe you meet your new business partner in the park when you see you another person trying to get started in the fitness industry.

The promise gives the motivation, which brings action and progress (and the chance for luck to help you out).

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