Our brain contains over sixty filters that drive and determine your preferences in how you think, feel and ultimately, act. These roots of our motivation are called Meta Programs.
Here is an overview of a few internal filters demonstrating how to use them to motivate yourself or your children, friends or clients, as we are all driven differently.
DIRECTION – TOWARD OR AWAY FROM
If you are motivated Toward pleasure, you will be excited when setting goals and frequently creating new ones. You are generally forward thinking, positive energy, drive, and may endeavour too many new initiatives at once. Keep yourself focused on one goal at a time, remind yourself of your goal regularly and you will thrive.
If you are motivated Away From pain and risk, prepare yourself with lots of planning as you like to make sure everything is secure before moving forward. You love solving problems, you focus on the downside and prefer to fix and improve what you struggle with and improve to become master at it instead of trying new things. you will perform with encouraging words like: “think about how great it will feel when you have this figured out”.
FRAME OF REFERENCE – INTERNAL OR EXTERNAL
If you have an Internal filter, you will rarely ask for advice, help or opinion. Even if someone tells you that you are doing great, you are the only judge and will instinctively know when you have performed at your best, or not. You can stay motivated with little or no praise, you will disregard advices and will thrive when you are empower to choose when you feel you did enough or trust when you feel you can handle more.
If you have an External filter, you need outside evidence to know how well you are doing in order to stay motivated. You like constant feedback and reminders that you are doing great. You will be seeking advices and constant reminders of your performance in order to make progress.
DECISION – SAMENESS OR DIFFERENCE
It is frequent to think that we need to constantly be exposed to new things in order to stay motivated. It is true for you if you have a Difference filter. You like frequent and drastic change and you will be excited with new methods and concepts. You may require to be creative when it comes to basic foundational repetitive tasks.
If you have a Sameness Filter, you will rather like things to stay the same. You are empowered when relied on to complete repetitive activities that you remember from time to time. You may not be willing to try new things.
20% of the population is driven by Difference, 5% by Sameness, 10% by Difference with exceptions. No need to re-invent the wheel as the bulk, 65%, is located in Sameness with a few differences. So the myth that we need new things in order to get motivated is only true for 20% of the population. A few nuances are good enough to stay upbeat!
SCOPE – SPECIFIC OR GENERAL
If you have a Specific scope, you will continue to stay motivated at a task that requires or offers lots of details and small improvements you can work on. You will want to know in details what will be included in the program while if you have a General filter, you will prefer a global overview of the general idea. You may get frustrated with too many details so stick with a big picture approach.
Now that you know a bit more about some of the drivers that makes you want to do something or not, identify the tasks that you procrastinate for and more likely, they call for the opposite meta program. Transform the task or the situation to adapt to your own profile and watch how suddenly, the task will become a lot more appealing! To learn more about your motivation drivers, your personality type and how to communicate with people depending on what their favourite style is, attend our event THINK Yourself™ A COMMUNICATION PRO on April 8th, 2018.