While New Year’s Resolutions and creating your “one word” for 2024 is nice, neither gets to the heart of understanding long-term sustainable change.
In order to sustain your motivation toward an important goal, you first need to understand the difference between Proactive Motivation and Reactive Motivation.
Most people operate from Reactive Motivation aka Motivation Away From What You Don’t Want. Take for example, the millions of people who feel extra motivated right now to get back into better shape. They hopped on the scale after several weeks of holiday indulging, and they’re mortified!
It’s time to do something!
They feel motivated and excited to use their new fitness app, hit the gym several times a week, and make healthy meals. After a few weeks of this, they feel better and they may even see a difference on the scale.
They feel “less bad” than they initially did when they started their fitness journey early January, thus their motivation and effort wanes. They slowly go back to their old ways.
The reason for this is because they were reacting to what they didn’t want. They didn’t want to feel overweight and didn’t want their clothes to feel extra tight. However, as soon as things started to improve, they stopped putting in the effort, thus never fully reaching their health goals.
This Reactive Motivation style happens in leadership too.
I’ve had many conversations with leaders in top companies who finally reach out to me for help, not because things are going well, but because company morale has been declining, tensions are rising, people don’t trust each other, so they finally decide it’s time to do something.
The leaders make some changes to build more trust within their teams like having more regular check-ins and making more of an effort to be transparent about how decisions are made.
Morale improves, so the leaders feel “less bad”, and slowly go back to their old ways. The regular check-ins with the team get put aside due to being “too busy”, and a few months later, morale starts to decline again.
In both the fitness and leadership examples, people took action and were motivated by what they didn’t want.
This style of Reactive Motivation is not sustainable in the long-term because positive actions are only taken in reaction to feeling bad. Once some actions are taken, then you feel “less bad” and stop trying as hard which will eventually lead to the same problems creeping back in eventually.
Reactive Motivation creates an endless cycle of unnecessary stress.
On the other hand, Proactive Motivation aka Motivation Toward What You Do Want is more sustainable as it entails consistent action toward a compelling vision.
A compelling vision is much more powerful than a goal.
A compelling vision is something that you are drawn toward. It is a vision that is pulling you in and gives your life meaning and purpose.
A goal is something you want to achieve whereas a compelling vision encapsulates how you want your life to be better, how you want to feel, how you want to think, how you want to behave, and the person you want to become.
So, the first step in operating in Proactive Motivation is to get clear what your compelling vision is.
For the fitness example, yes while it is important to have a goal to lose weight, a compelling vision goes deeper than that.
In addition to losing weight, imagine what it would feel like to wake up every morning full of energy, vitality, and optimism to tackle the day. Imagine feeling positive, more vivacious, and being able to exercise, journal, meditate, and eat a delicious healthy breakfast every morning before the rest of the household even wakes up!
A compelling health vision is working toward becoming somebody who is strong, confident, and in optimal health physically, mentally, and emotionally.
For the leadership example, a compelling vision could include walking down the hallway at the office where everybody consistently gives feedback how they feel valued, appreciated, and does meaningful work.
An organization where trust is high, and every team member produces excellent results while having a lot of fun doing it, and is excited to continue growing personally and professionally.
The company revenue is at an all-time high, team morale has never been better, and you are surrounded by trusted colleagues who truly have each other’s backs.
Proactive Motivation is more sustainable because you are consistently taking action toward the life that you want to create.
As we roll into 2024, I invite you to go beyond a resolution and to take some time to think about if you’re more prone to act from Proactive Motivation or Reactive Motivation.
I invite you to create a compelling vision and get really clear on what it is that you’re moving toward.
When you deliberately operate from Proactive Motivation, you will take more consistent action toward what you want, and free yourself from the vicious cycle of starting, giving up, and starting again.
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