If you’ve ever participated in a race of any kind, or a big or long term project, you’ve probably experienced the motivation effect. That’s when at the start of the race your adrenaline is pumping, the starting gun fires and off you go! Typically, you go as fast as you can and sometimes too fast because you are so excited and pumped up!
After a while, you start to get tired, your energy lags, maybe your legs start to cramp. It gets harder and harder to keep going! You just want to sit down. Your inner thoughts start to spin, “What was I thinking?” “Why did I ever sign up for this?”
Then you see it! The finish line is just up ahead! Your adrenaline starts pumping again and your energy comes back. You pick up the pace as the cramps start to subside and the fatigue fades away! You cross the finish line moving just as fast as when you started! Woohoo!
The start and the finish are almost always great. We’re moving well and fast, gettin’ it done! The problem is the stuff in between. That time when our energy lags and we slow down is what pulls our performance down more than we realize. And it’s exactly that time we often can pay attention to for the best opportunity to optimize performance. If we can keep our energy up and maintain a more consistent pace, our overall performance will be much better…faster finish time, less cost, fewer mistakes, improved customer satisfaction.
Keep your motivation and energy up with sub-goals…don’t just run a 5K race but pay attention to how you run each mile. Add rewards along the way…get a massage after each month of back-breaking labor for that huge construction project. Visualize the end…bring the sense of accomplishment from being ahead of schedule and below budget from way out there to the here and now! Woohoo!
Tell me…how do you keep your motivation up?
Rock on! – E