Are you right now, this moment, moving yourself towards your goals, or just spending time in a side activity? Maybe you’re even stuck being counter-productive.
Here’s something I’ve dubbed the Motivational Question Process, or MQP, consisting of four questions to ask yourself as you transition from a less-important activity to a more, or most, important one.
Use this technique when you are stuck in a pattern of doing things that are not making you feel fulfilled. It is designed to help balance your ultimate goal against your immediate desire, to re-energize the motivation to take action towards your vision in life.
Now: What are you doing now? Think about the activity that you are doing at this moment… what your activity will be for the rest of this minute or this hour. Call this your activity-momentum.. where your current energy was headed.
Needed: What result are you working towards, but currently not on track towards? What course of action will move you towards your future happiness – towards your goals and vision of the future? This is not about finding your vision, but thinking about one of the parts of your vision, and focusing on it.
Nuance: Shift from future pain to future gain. Honestly assess how will you feel later about your current activity-momentum… what you “were” going to do next? Become, for a moment, yourself in the future and be critical of what you did, versus what you could have done. Why punish yourself later after you’ve wasted time, when you can imagine it now before it’s too late? Then, after coming up with the undesired future in your mind, replace it with how you will feel when you have moved, even in one small step or attempted action, towards what you want for yourself in your life.
Next: Find the very next step… an activity that you can do right now… that is part of what will get you towards your vision. It could be calling someone, updating your plan, doing part of an activity, or writing an email… even writing a single word and focusing on it… a basic action that is only second or minutes, and leads to other ones.
Then do it. Put your mind into the focused state that sees you as having already started, and follow through. I’ll stop here so you can do just that!