How To Motivate Someone, Including Yourself – Part II

Motivation and Stress

Stress can have a significant impact on our motivational states. Effective coping with stressors involves planning, execution, and feedback. During the planning component, we appraise life change events. First, we analyse if the event is positive, negative, or irrelevant to our well-being.

Then if the event is appraised as negative, we inventory the resources that can be used to manage the event. During the execution component, we determine how to cope with either the original stressor or the stress itself.

Clarifying and trying to solve the stressor is a form of problem-focused coping while alleviating the accompanying distress is an emotion-focused coping strategy. Emotion regulation is a type of coping that helps us control emotions and how intensely we experience them.

For both appraisal and coping, being flexible helps. Stressor intensity and controllability impact coping strategies. Reappraisal is a better strategy when the stressor is of low intensity, but when stress is very high, distraction is more effective. When stressors are evaluated as controllable, problem-focused coping is best, but when they feel uncontrollable, emotion-focused coping is better.

Finally, during the feedback component, we experience different levels of sensitivity to feedback about the effectiveness of coping processes. If necessary, this feedback can be used to reappraise the stressor and accompanying stress and to alter coping and emotion regulation strategies. The American Institute of Stress has a lot of helpful information about stressors, anxiety, and coping.

Motivation Techniques

When considering motivational techniques, it helps to understand that in practice, motivational states can be supported, neglected, or thwarted.

For that reason, most successful interventions do not try to change another person’s motivation or emotion directly.

Instead, effective interventions will more often make changes to the person’s environmental conditions and the quality of his or her relationships. The goal of motivational techniques is to find, create, or offer motivationally and emotionally supportive conditions and relationships and to leave behind neglectful or abusive ones.

We must also carefully evaluate through evidence-based approaches what the known antecedent conditions are to the motivational or emotional state that we are trying to promote.

Optimal Match of Skills and Challenges

Intrinsic motivation and autonomous initiative are created by activities with a specific set of properties: they are challenging, require skill, have clear and immediate feedback.

The key to success here is setting challenges that are neither too demanding nor too simple for one’s abilities as life can sometimes be “a constant balancing act between anxiety where the difficulty is too high for the person’s skill, and boredom where the difficulty is too low” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1997, p.476).

Professor Csíkszentmihályi, who developed the theory of flow to define these activities, talks about specific conditions that allow for the onset of flow and named the factors related to flow experiences into the following dimensions:

• presence of clear goals;
• immediate feedback;
• high challenges need to be matched with adequate personal skills; most often achieved in complex activities requiring specific capabilities; flow proved to be associated with the above-average challenge/above-average skill condition;
• the task has to be challenging enough to require the mobilization of personal skills, promoting concentration and engagement to enable merging of action and awareness; repetitive and low-information activities are very rarely associated with flow;
• focus on the task at hand, and focused attention is a must;
• perceived control of the situation; and
• loss of self-consciousness (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990).

Feedback

Giving feedback can be a beneficial form of motivation, and, if done well, can leave people feeling motivated and positive. Here is a list of aspects to focus on some great pointers on how to do feedback well according to Robert Biswas-Diener:

• The power of expectations. The person receiving the feedback owns their emotional reactions to the expectation of the feedback as well as the very process of receiving feedback. Establish at the outset what the feedback is intended to accomplish, what form it will take, and clarify if further work will be expected.
• The power of accuracy and specificity. Be specific and pay particular attention to the part of the feedback that might be superfluous. Also, be careful to provide feedback on performance, not the person or the person’s character.
• Feedback is directed at the future, not the present. The focus of the feedback should be the vision of the terrific future work and evolved around discussing the ways to get there; however, many iterations it will require.
• Believing in the project. Your feedback should speak to your personal investment and express your belief that the work can be great and has the potential for success. Worthwhile feedback requires effort and is a very important part of investing in the improvement process.
• The power of relationship. Harness what you know about the person to give better feedback and to keep them accountable because feedback is a form of connection, and you would tailor your approach differently depending on who you talk to.

Distractions

Nir Eyal, who wrote the book Indistractable defines motivation as the urge to escape psychological discomfort and to free ourselves from the pain of wanting, where distractions are forms of unhealthy or unproductive ways of escape.

He challenges us to become aware of what it is we need to distract ourselves from so we can consciously define what it is that we want to seek traction towards. Dissatisfaction can motivate us and drive us to act. If we are not happy, the pain lets us know that something needs to be done about it, and this represents a perfectly healthy evolutionary response.

While we tend to blame lack of motivation on external triggers, more often than not, it is merely a response to internal pain that pushes us to feel restless and makes us more prone to give in to the urges.

He suggests we look for the emotion that proceeds us engaging in the habit, get curious about it, and instead of trying to escape, it brings even more attention to the craving. Some call it surfing the urge. When you put these negative thoughts and emotions on stage, they tend to dissipate.

The ironic process theory tells us that suppressing thoughts has a rebound effect causing the unwanted cognitions to persist as our mind continues to monitor for them (Wegner, 1994).

The antidote to this tendency is to invite these thoughts on the stage actively, and lessons from the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) show that this works because we create distance between the thought and ourselves and therefore lessen its impact by seeing them for what they are.

This allows us to re-imagine the trigger so we can become aware of it next time it surfaces and track it, especially during the liminal moments when we transition from one activity to another.

Goal Setting and Implementation Intentions

The realization of goals can be effectively facilitated by forming an implementation intention that spells out the when, where, and how we are going to achieve it. It is accomplished by deciding in advance of goal striving how we are going to overcome a roadblock. “If situation Y is encountered, then I will initiate goal‐directed behaviour X!” (Gollwitzer).

Studies show that implementation intentions had a positive effect on goal attainment, were effective in promoting the initiation of goal striving, the shielding of ongoing goal pursuit from unwanted influences, disengagement from failing courses of action, and conservation of capability for future goal striving.

If your goal is to eat less sugar, your implementation intention could become something “When the dessert menu arrives, I will order coffee.” If your goal is to work out more, your implementation intention could turn into “I will work out for an hour at the gym on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays before work.”

Integration

Dr. Daniel Sigel, whose research combines brain sciences with practical approaches to our understanding of human behaviour and mechanisms of change, stresses the importance of our understanding of the self through learning about the functioning of our brain as well as developing mindful ability to observe our own inner states that help us develop empathy toward others and navigate our social world.

If motivation is about change, what brings it about? According to Dr. Siegel, change is possible because most human beings are striving towards integration, where we connect the functioning of our inner systems towards the state of inner harmony.

The most ambitious claim of the mindsight theoretical construct is that we can alter our physical brain by focusing our attention in a way that integrates a different aspect of our psychological and neurological functioning and practically rewires synaptic connection towards better mental health.

Dr. Siegel’s model of wellbeing comprises of the process that integrates the mind, the brain, and our relationships. He identifies eighth areas of integration as ways of entry through which creating an inner state of harmony can be promoted, and motivation increased:

• Integration of consciousness allows for greater awareness and clarity in perceiving our mind
• Bilateral integration occurs when we reconcile left and right brain functions connecting our thinking and emotional brain
• Vertical integration allows for greater bodily awareness and is a form of creating a mind-body connection
• Memory integration concerns itself with the process of memory creation and how it affects our wellbeing
• Narrative integration is about how we find meaning and explain our experiences
• State integration concerns itself with mental state integration like the need for being alone versus the need to be social
• Interpersonal integration is about how we relate to others
• Temporal integration has to do with our sense of time and is related to existential psychology and our thoughts about permanence and need for certainty
• Finally, transpirational integration is about the expended sense of self, and Dr. Siegel hopes that cultivating it has the potential of transforming the world we live in (“What is Mindsight? An Interview with Dr. Dan Siegel.,” n.d.).

The construct of mindsight combines tools of mindful self-awareness with insights into our nature that are driven by a scientifically informed understanding of brain functions.

This understanding of the self, according to Siegel, not only allows us to self-regulate and direct our lives but also helps us understand others better and can aid us in developing empathy crucial for thriving in relationships.

His definition of empathy as having a map of others is a potent metaphor, in the same way in which his interpretation of psychological flexibility paints a picture of a river between rigidity and emotional dysregulation (“What is Mindsight? An Interview with Dr. Dan Siegel.,” n.d.).

Techniques for Sustaining Motivation

It isn’t enough to find motivation. Research shows that to bring about lasting change, what we need are reminders, repetition, and rituals.

– Reminders

To focus our attention on a particular commitment we made, it helps to have reminders. These external cues in our environment can be straightforward and simple, and others may be more complicated and creative. Here are a few suggestions:

• enter your gym times in your planner, just as you would do for a client meeting
• put a picture on the wall or on your screensaver of the person who motivates you most to get out of bed and into your running shoes
• trip over your reminders literally: leave your running shoes by your bed
• set your alarm clock to play a song or an affirmation that you find particularly motivating

– Repetition

Regular reminders can pave the way for repetition action, which is essential for lasting change. Exercising only for the first week or two of the year, no matter how hard, in all likelihood, falls far short of your hopes and aspirations for the new year. Moreover, it is through reminders coupled with repetition, that you get to the promised land of change: the cultivation of rituals.

Use technology to bombard your nonconscious brain with the declarations of the world you want to create. Technology has given us all sorts of excellent tools we can use.

• Set up recurring appointments or notifications and schedule the thing you’re changing. If it’s gym time, food prep time, bedtime – schedule it – and have everything in place so that it’s more likely to happen. These are environmental supports that make it easier for the subconscious to follow the change in behaviour.
• Track your progress on a chart displayed someplace visible or through an app that requires you to log in your achievements; feedback reinforces motivation.
• Make if/then plans for when obstacles get in the way.
• Audio: play your affirmations while you are jogging or working out, cleaning house—anytime you would ordinarily listen to music.
• Subliminal Audio and Video: You can play subliminal audio and video recordings to yourself throughout the day.
• Subliminal Software: There is software available that will play your affirmations to you by flashing them almost invisibly on your computer screen.

– Rituals

We form rituals after a sufficient number of reminders and repetition because our brain creates new neural pathways associated with a particular behaviour. It becomes easier after a month or two to act in a certain way at a specific time.

Words of caution as you create a reminder, repeat, and ritualize:

• Less is more. Neural overload is likely to lead you to do nothing. Modest hopes and aspirations lead to small wins and gradual change.
• Fail and fail again and remember that success on the fifth or sixth attempt is much more likely.
• Public commitments are a strong force. Say or record your intended actions to yourself or a trusted friend or practitioner. Or better yet, find someone who can keep you accountable.
• Affirmations are another way of verbally stating what your desired state is. It sends a powerful message to the brain, which helps to reinforce the desired changes. Affirmations should be repeated in the present tense.
• Journaling your intentions, feelings, impressions also creates powerful neural connections and can further support your perseverance.

When we create useful reminders and repeat them often enough to create rituals, we increase the chance of creating a new habit in the hope of having them replacing the less desirable behaviours.

Motivational Skills

To be able to motivate is both an art and a science, and requires a considerable amount of practice. Whether you’re a coach, a manager, a parent, or a teacher, you come to realize that not all of these skills come to you naturally but can be improved upon with practice.

The rapidly growing field of personal and professional coaching has much to offer in the arena of motivational tools and interventions. Tim Gallwey defined the essence of coaching as “unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance.”

Anthony Grant described it as “a collaborative solution-focused, results-oriented and systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of life experience and goal attainment.” The focus of coaching is to aid the client in taking action toward the realization of their goals, desires, and vision. For that, we need motivation.

Below is a brief description of some of the techniques and skills usually taught in an ICF certified coaching programs which can be used to enhance the motivation of a coaching client toward goal pursuit.

• Acknowledging what our clients are saying is one of the most powerful ways to show that you’re really listening and that you care about what your clients are saying. It can be accomplished through mirroring back or paraphrasing.
• Clarifying and summarizing can further deepen the mutual understanding and help build the rapport necessary to support the motivation for change.
• Validating a client’s feelings is crucial for creating a safe space where they don’t feel judged.
• Breaking resistance and asking the client how he or she managed to overcome similar situations in the past is similar to methods of appreciative inquiry.
• Button pushing is about helping the client find another way to look at the situation and is similar to the concept of cognitive reframing.
• Celebrating client’s wins and championing efforts is crucial in increasing positive emotions and is similar to active constructive responding.
• Coaching limiting beliefs is about asking how true is that belief and how has believing it affected the client.
• Coaching interpretations is about considering what might be the complete opposite of how they view their current situation.
• Coaching assumptions is about asking why, if this happened in the past, why must it happen again.
• Coaching gremlins is about identifying that aspect of the self that thinks the client is less than who they really are.
• Evaluating is about exploring options and asking the client how they will know when they are successful.
• Forwarding is about asking when you get there what will you do.
• Observation is about noticing something positive about the client, even if it’s complimenting them on their honesty, making choices – what are your options, what else, etc.
• Metaphors are powerful awareness tools that ascribe meaning to the situation and can inspire.
• Planting the seed is a way of expressing that we have faith in our client’s abilities.
• Stretching is about asking the client what would it look like to go one step further.
• Reflection is about checking in with the client and how they feel about what was just discussed.
• Moving from head to heart is about asking the client to describe emotions that show up during the session.
• Visioning is utilizing visualization techniques like the Ideal Future self.
• Exploring values is about exploring what our clients deem as most important in their lives.
• Translating needs is another method for helping clients as our needs translate into motives which cause us to act and these actions have emotional consequences

A Take-Home Message

By now, you should have realized that true, effective motivation is tied to the outcomes that people care about.

Motivational interventions produce better results when they focus on supporting people’s motivation and emotion rather than trying to increase some specific outcomes, such as performance, productivity, achievement, or well-being.

This is Part-II of a two-part article. The first part of the article appeared in WE MAG’s Issue 07, May-June-2020. You can find Part-I here.

This article was originally published here.