MAWMonday Motivators 12/28/2014

by: Dr. Michael A. Wright In Coaching DiaryTagged , , , , , ,

The last motivation message before the new year 2015 includes counsel to design, innovate, imagine, remain, and desire. I am not one to shun new year’s resolutions. The new year offers an unmistakable reminder that your opportunity is wide open and in front of you. It reminds you to make each moment count, to create, to dream.

I don’t simply make resolutions, I revise my 7 year plan based on the achievements of the previous year and the new opportunities of the coming year. 2015 marks the end of my 7-year plan. I launch a new 5-year plan January 1. If you have not planned years in advance, set larger goals, break them into tasks, and invest consistent time into working your plan. You begin with the following.

1. Design. In 2015, don’t just move away from fear, build structures emotionally, in relationships, and in production to overcome fear. Keep your emotions in check by admitting the things that sent you over the edge in 2014. Create contingency plans to implement so that you handle similar situations with poise, consideration, and intentionality. Realize those relationships in 2014 that drained you with little return on investment. Let them go or limit them to less than one hour per week in 2015. Inform your production. In 2014, you did a lot of what you are used to because you didn’t know any better. Overcome this barrier by getting knowledge. Online training, mentors, coaches, whoever you can learn from, engage.

2. Innovate. The cool thing about innovating is that the status quo is already in operation. You get the chance to improve the situation. Even if the innovation does not accomplish what is intended, learning results. Challenge what is already accepted as a given. Turn the status quo on its head. Be courageous and envision a world where ALL of it works. Design backwards from that reality. There are no mistakes.

Build 2015 on the lessons of 2014.
Build 2015 on the lessons of 2014.
3. Imagine. I LOVE this tweet because it allows me to change one word and deliver encouragement for everyday of the year. With your dream body, with your dream company, with your dream income, with your dream relationship…the options are endless. I still remember last December and the promise 2014 held. Each year, my family sits down on January 1 and reviews our yearly plan. We will do the same again this year.

Our purpose it to achieve exactly what this tweet communicates. You must see the result of a year of consistent work. Huge results are possible. I’ve said it before, 20 minutes a week is 16.6 hours on your project. Twenty minutes, 5 days a week results in 86.6 hours toward a project. It takes about 120 hours to finish the first draft of a book. Forty minutes, 4 times a week over the course of 2015, and you have given that project 138.6 hours.

4. Remain. One of my favorite episodes of SpongeBob Squarepants is an episode in which Squidward trains Spongebob to be an artist. Spongebob already possessed amazing talent. Squidward’s tutelage destroyed Spongebob’s playfulness and wonder. Squidward had only “how” in his presentation of the process. He had grown out of the joy of “why.”

I enjoy the episode because it illustrates the greatest challenge of growth. I find it as a temptation in teaching, and a faulty expectation in learning. Students and coaching clients often want to be told what to do. But, a hallmark of youth is to have an intuitive sense of yourself as unique. Many operations are the same, but your uniqueness, expressed fearlessly, brings artistry and enhanced value to any task. Your creativity may result in something as simple as speed, or it may create a new theory of physics in the universe. Your artistry builds on what has come before, but it is not stuck in the past.

5. Desire. You have to want it. Your desire stimulates the law of attraction. It also outlines your action plan. You rehearse the vision you desire. You move within the promise of what you envision. People who are not consonant with your vision fall away from you annoyed that you repeat your desires and walk within your vision. Your heart and action is found where you have placed your treasure.

The other message in this tweet can be applied to you, but also to your relationships. My mantra for 2015 is an intention to decrease the net I cast in developing my team, and to reduce to zero the time I spend with energy drainers. This action is not condemnation of those individuals. It is a desire for me to be even better–more intentional, more focused, more productive. As always, my resolution is a call to you. What’s different this year is I’m not working to convince you to respond a certain way.

Dr. Michael A. Wright received his Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work degree from the University of South Carolina - Columbia. Since 1997, Wright has led MAWMedia Group, LLC, a firm helping individuals and organizations tell stories and translate ideas into capital.