PEr Chronicles: Do you really want it?

10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10. This could have been confused for a lesson in computer coding but it was on the scoreboard.?It was an Olympic moment: a 14-year-old diver from China had 2 perfect dives on the way to the gold medal. When interviewed, she said she was striving to win the Games to support her low-income family, earn money to pay medical bills for her ill mother and visit an amusement park, which she has never been to.

What’s your why?

What gets you to exercise, eat right or switch to a healthier lifestyle, let alone stick with it? Working in gyms for a long time, I was always puzzled about these questions – and the answers. I witnessed person after person come into the gym with amazing enthusiasm, but memberships, hire trainers and start with gusto, only to completely disappear a few months later.

First, I wanted to understand why such seemingly motivated people could just quit their fitness and health journeys. Second, and most important, I wanted to know why other people did not quit and how they developed long-term fitness habits.

After years of observing, questioning and working intently with salespeople, I now have answers. Some of them might surprise you, so strap in for a wild ride.

A lot of people say, “I need to get motivated,” or “I just don’t have the motivation.” Understand right away that motivation is a feeling. Like any feeling, it waxes and wanes.

When we feel motivated, we tend to overestimate our abilities and feel we can do anything. You eat right or work out consistently when you are temporarily charged up. As soon as motivation fades, which it inevitably will, your new lifestyle is impossible to maintain.

So, what can keep you moving toward your goals, living a fit lifestyle, even on days when you don’t feel like it – when you’re not motivated?

Answer: Discipline with a capital D!

But what’s the difference between motivation and discipline? Remember, motivation is a feeling. It occurs in bursts. But discipline is a skill – an acquired ability that is constant. Big difference.

Here’s the best part: like all skills, you can develop discipline, and it’s not that hard.

All you have to do is give yourself one challenging but realistic goal that is failproof. Rather than say, “I will go to the gym five days a week” – which is unrealistic, set a goal to go one or two days a week. I started with realistically committing to only 30 minutes a week. Eventually, I was ready for a full hour each week. Then another day and another. And while this was getting me back into shape, it was also building a daily habit that helped me graduate to more intense programs later on.

So you see: little by little, I developed the skill of discipline, and now I do not want to stop working out. Permanent change comes slowly. Maintaining discipline is about keeping your mind on the prize. Know what you’re working toward and stick to your plan for getting there. These small but permanent changes equate to huge changes over time. I have seen dramatic transformations with this method, and the best part is that most of them were permanent.

The motivation dilemma is that leaders and human resource managers are being held accountable to do something they cannot do – motivate others. You push for results, only to discover over that pressure and tension prevent people from attaining those results. Adding insult to injury, traditional motivational tactics focus on obtaining short-term results that tend to destroy long-term prospects. Letting go of carrots and sticks was a challenge because leaders did not have any alternatives.

For years, as a leader, I’ve tried to fathom out why some people possess greater drive than others. I’m not sure I am any closer to solving that riddle today than I was 30 years ago, but I did learn how to harness that power and I do know if I had to pick drive or talent as the most potent fuel, it would be the former. For me drive means a combination of a willingness to work hard, emotional fortitude, powers of concentration and a refusal to admit defeat.

In the first half of my career, if I had to be truly honest with myself, I wasn’t really helping a majority of my team members. The second half of my career, this situation got under my skin so badly. Many team members would see some success with me and then would waver, plateau and stay stuck. Why couldn’t I help motivate these people? Were they just lazy? This is when I decided to dig much deeper. I learned over the years that leadership is not something you do to people; it is something you do with people.

An important truth emerges when I explore the nature of motivation. People are always motivated. The question is not if, but why they are motivated. Motivation that comes from choosing to do something is different from motivation that comes from having to do it.

One of the erroneous conclusion is the more motivation a person has, the more likely she will achieve her goals and be successful. When it comes to motivation, assuming the more is better, is too simplistic. As with friends, it isn’t how many friends you have; it is the quality and type of friendships that matter.

I started to focus on the “why” instead of the “how”.

Your own why might be something as wide-ranging and could include factors as such to move my family into a bigger house, to drive that Mercedes Benz, to attain that Chief Commercial Officer position, to retire at 56, to make $1 million.

I can recall that when I was in my 20s and in debt, my why was basic – very basic. I moved into the only room I could afford, which happened to be the size of a shoebox. I lived there for a year. I had no furniture and slept on a paper-thin mattress. My primary food was roti prata and although the three jobs that I took to work my way out of the tough time were energy-sapping, but I was happy to have them. I worked day and night because my why was to move into a better place, eat better food and buy some nice clothes. While I have been blessed to move far beyond that stage in life, part of why I work so hard today is so I never return to that state. The survival aspect of my why still motivates me.

Your why will change as your life evolves and your goals change, and as you adjust priorities. Your why may also be impacted by someone who believes in you, stood by you and you do not want to let him or her down. Or those who doubt you, disrespect you and you want to prove them wrong.

People with more compelling reasons do not quit; they fight. And when they hit walls, they bounce; they do not splatter. Here is a friendly wake-up call: it is no one else’s responsibility to make you hungry or to convince you to “want it”. That, dear reader, is on you.

That being said, what will you do right now to put the wonder of why to work for you?