Continuing CREDO
Seven Strategies to Increase Motivation
The CREDO conference is intended to provide a safe space where we can reflect deeply and generate focus, enthusiasm, and hope around specific plans. Certainly, an added benefit is a naturally growing sense of motivation. We may begin the week feeling motivation only dimly on the horizon of our lives, but by the end of the week, we are envisioning the life that will be ours if we are able to fulfill our CREDO Rule of Life. It’s not that anything in our lives has altered physically. Rather, our inner vision has changed.
Motivation always starts with vision – believing in something that cannot yet be seen, touched, heard, felt, lived. When the vision is compelling and desire for the realization of the vision is strong, we are ready to move forward with intention to make the vision a reality. Motivation is nothing more than being impelled to make forward progress. It is not linked to success or full realization of our goal. It is linked, rather, to what we believe and want to be possible.
After we return home from our CREDO conference, motivation may flag for many reasons. Just the living of life in our normal context can steal away some motivation. Not because there is anything inherently bad or even difficult about our context, but simply because we are further removed from the original vision that first birthed the excitement and subsequent motivation. As time passes, and the vision becomes more distant, motivation is harder to claim and act upon. Although we can easily begin to feel guilty or berate ourselves for our lack of perseverance, we would be better served to take some specific steps that will place us back into the space where motivation can be re-ignited and flourish.
So, here are some strategies to help re-kindle your motivation.
1. Re-connect with the original vision that generated motivation
2. Scan your inner and outer environment to see where the vision is being weakened
3. Do a visualization exercise to determine your commitment for the vision
4. Give yourself a time-limited break from the vision
5. Celebrate success
6. Share your vision with someone you love and trust
7. Re-affirm that a lack of motivation is not failure
Conclusion
The man at the pool of Bethsaida had a vision of getting into the water and being healed. Over the course of years, his hope, and subsequently motivation, diminished. When Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be made well?” he was asking him to remember his vision again. After all, that’s why he’d been sitting at the pool for 38 years. But, the man was weary. His hope had waned. Even bitterness had set in. Jesus helped re-awaken his fervor for the vision with just that simple question. After the man’s initial excuse that he was never quick enough to get into the pool, Jesus restored motivation and hope when he said, “Stand up, take up your mat, and walk.” The man regained his motivation to be well and did what Jesus suggested. And, he was made whole.
Sometimes, when motivation has hidden itself as stealthily as a leopard in daylight, all we need to do is spend a few moments with Jesus. In the presence of the Divine One, we too may hear his words, “Stand up, take up your mat, and walk.” Like the man at the pool, we just may do it, and find our wholeness is restored.
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