Motivation requires motive, is a nice catchy little phrase, but are all motives equal?
Did you know that motives for change come in two broad categories, moving towards something you want, or away from something you don't?

If you are someone who naturally is naturally goal orientated, then chances are that you have a clear idea of what you want and find setting clear goals and achieving them comes pretty easy to you.

If you are someone who has gotten used to moving away from what you don't want, then chances are that you could easily tell me what you don't want, or what you want to stop doing. But if I ask you what you want, you'll struggle to answer.

"Away from" motivation is very powerful but makes a poor long term motivation strategy for a number of reasons.

How many of these have you experienced?

1. Away from motivation is directionless, if you hate where you are then jumping in any direction might be preferable - 'out of the frying pan and into the fire' could apply perfectly here.

2. Away from motivation is cyclical, meaning that while you're in pain you will be very motivated to move, but once you move away and the pain begins to subside, your motivation will decrease too. A typical example could be losing weight, if you feel fat you may in so much 'pain' that you can stick to that diet. But as your weight drops your motivation drops too and pretty soon 'one cake' won't hurt will it? And the weight starts to creep back etc.

3. Away from motivation can move you towards what you don't want! You will tend to move towards what you think about, so setting an away from goal means you have to think about what you don't want, in order to avoid it. This means that you will be unconsciously focusing on and moving towards what you don't want! Bad move!

4. Away from motivation feels bad! I don't know about you, but personally I prefer to feel good most of the time.

All of the above is true but away from motivation is a very powerful force in driving human behaviour, most people will act much sooner to avoid pain, than they will to get something they want. My guess is it is so powerful because for most of human history it kept us out of the fang filled mouths of predators!

People who know me will understand why I prefer to make change easy; this means I'm all in favour of using your natural habits to initiate change, and if you've been used to away from motivation it can create a great short term strategy for getting you to take action.

So how can away from motivation be used?

Well if you are struggling to make some change then you could harness the power of the negative emotions you are experiencing.

Gets some leverage on yourself, just what is not taking this action, breaking this old habit, or avoiding those conversations costing you, and what will it cost you in future?

While frustration, anger, disgust etc. are not great emotions to experience, if you are experiencing them you can use them to fuel you into taking action!!

Maybe it's time stop wallowing in your emotions and use them to your advantage?

When you have got the cost out in the open and have decided that you are not going to pay it anymore!!

List out 20 actions you could take to begin to change this, if you can't think of 20 get a friend to help! Remember change is much easier with the support of other people. Keep going until you get 20! Then pick the top 3 and do them!!

If you want an even bigger kick in the pants, set up some cost for what would happen if you don't take the action! And get someone to hold you accountable.

Once you're moving and begin to see progress you can begin to set some towards goals and you'll be on your way!

Final thoughts for today on 'away from' motivation

1. Recognize that it is best used as a short term tool to get you to take action, once you are taking action and moving forwards it's best to begin to aim for some clear goals. Once you are moving these goals will give you something to focus on and keep you moving forwards. I like to think of this like a plane taking off an aircraft carrier. The catapult and engine gives the plane a tremendous push to get it in the air, but without wings it will crash into the sea. But combining the catapult, engine and wings (goals) the plane soars!!

2. If you find it difficult to describe and set goals to move towards, begin by writing down everything you don't want and then for each write what I would prefer is... Working at this exercise will allow you to gently transfer your attention as you begin to focus on what you do want.

That's my view on this, what do you think?

All the best,

Anth

Anth Quinn has been described as the best-kept secret in Personal Development; he is a straight talking champion of everyday people and despite developing a loyal following of over 10,000 readers he managed to avoid publicity.

He says that he finally stepped up to right what he saw as fundamental flaws in much of the personal development industries and he became determined to do something about this.

Despite a massive amount of good information out in the market place Anth says that most people never make long lasting positive changes in their life. Why is this? Well, he says almost every personal development guru is missing a fundamental piece of the puzzle, and it's not what you think!!

You can check out his blog at http://www.anthquinn.com and his free "daily action tips" at http://www.empiricalcoaching.com/takecontrolFDT.htm