Many years ago, I met a wise man who explained the essence of human motivation in straightforward terms.
He said that generally, people only achieved what they valued, and then he proceeded to explain the other steps involved and shared with me an acronym that I remember to this day...'Valdespa.'
First of all, “Val” stands for value and the fact that personal and group motivation is largely driven by the value that is placed on a goal.
In fact, if there is no value placed on an outcome, there will be no action and no goal achievement.
Secondly, “des” represents the word desire, and without desire, it is impossible to achieve any goal. For any goal to be achieved, the desire to achieve it has to be intense!
It goes without saying that the intensity of your desire is directly linked to how highly you value the goal, to begin with, and what sort of mental image you attach to the goal in your subconscious mind.
As an aside, your subconscious mind is the main driver in your achievement of any goal. This is because the subconscious mind has the ability to create a mental image of what it would be like having achieved the goal. The strength of that image is one of the key components that assist in delivering an outcome.
A good example is buying a house (probably the single largest investment most people make in their lifetime). The thing that clinches the sale is the vision the buyer has of living in that house.
This is also possibly why most people stretch themselves too far with their finances around property…the convoluted logic of spending more than I had budgeted for is usually…” The house is perfect, and I could just see myself living there”.
Thirdly, “p” refers to the power required to begin taking positive action. One of the dictionary definitions of power is: "ability, power -- (possession of the qualities, (especially mental qualities) required to do something or get something done".
If you consider the first two components of motivation discussed earlier in this chapter, it seems that both the intensity of the "value" proposition and the strength of the "desire" component directly impact the amount of power available to take action.
Pause at this point and think back to a recent goal that you set for yourself and achieved, then contrast this with a goal that you identified but did not achieve.
The major difference in these two outcomes, I believe, is the degree of self-belief in oneself as well as the passion surrounding the "value" and "desire" to begin with!
As I briefly mentioned before, the intensity of the value and desire factor is related to the mental imagery that you are running at the time.
Here is an example to elaborate…
There is a saying in sales: “Sell the sizzle, not the sausage”, which in effect means to create an overwhelming desire for the item in the customer by selling the benefits and advantages to the individual; that way, the customer is more likely to overlook the cost of the purchase in favour of what the item will do for them…much more powerful!
Similarly, goals are rarely achieved on the basis that it is logical to do so. The real driver for goal achievement is how vividly the brain pictures the advantages of having achieved the goal, which develops the power to achieve the outcome.
Try visualizing the outcome of your next goal in your mind’s eye before you commence the process and experience the difference in the outcome.
The final part of the acronym is the letter ''a," which represents the last stage of any goal-setting process, which is, of course, achieving the outcome. So "a" stands for the final phase of achievement, which is the culmination of all of the logical steps discussed above. #performancecoach #executivecoach #facilitator #lifecoach #lifecoachmelbourne #motivation #power #coach
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