Harnessing the Power of WHY

How do I make sure that when I start taking action, when I've set, I continue to take that action? How do I sustain my efforts? How do I maintain my drive? How do I stay motivated? That is the number one question that I get from most people who are on this journey of self-improvement.

They may be looking at changing positively their work situation, their business, their relationships, their health, their finances. The number one question that I keep getting is, how do I stay motivated, maintain my drive, sustain my effort? Kutsungirira. Kushingirira. What do I need to do?

Hello, this is Jonah Mungoshi. And welcome to 30 minutes with Jonah Mungoshi. And today we are discussing the topic harnessing the power of Why? The answer to that question, the question of how you can stay motivated, fired up, maintain your drive sustain your effort lies in a question. And that question is why? Why do you need to do this? Why do you need to achieve this goal? What will happen? If you have an answer of earth-shaking relevance, trust me, trust me on this, you will sustain the effort.

The reason why most of us don't sustain our efforts is that we don't have a strong enough why. The bigger the why, the longer you will stay the cause. So, you need to take time to answer the why question. Someone once told me that Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, If I have five minutes to save the world, I would spend four minutes planning what I'm going to do and one minute taking action. Now, I seriously doubt that Albert Einstein actually saved that. However, it emphasizes the importance of that prior thinking and planning.

So if you are going to take sustainable action, take time to start by answering the why question. I previously spoke about pull factors and push factors in answering the why pull factors are those positive aspirations, the dream that you have the vision, a picture of the desired future. So some people find this fuelling them to take action consistently motivating them. That's a pull factor.

Push factors are those aspects of your current situation that you hate that you despise, that you're trying to get away from? What is it that is negative about your status quo right now? What do you hate about your current situation? What would you like to escape from? And what do you want to change? So those are push factors. And some people are more fired up and pushed by looking at those push factors, looking at what they despise about their current situation, and then letting that drive them to take action, letting that push them to take action? To help you to answer the why question.

Motivation

The bigger your answer to WHY the more sustainable your motivation becomes

Push factors

Pull factors

Sources of motivation

• a. Pragmatism
• b. Passion
• c. Purpose

I also want to share with you today, three sources of motivation. And these are three sources that I came up with, as a result of my experience working with numerous people who are on the journey of self-improvement. And these are called the three P's. pragmatism. purpose, passion.

So, some people are pragmatists. a pragmatist is a person who is driven by logic, when they look at a situation, they might not like what they need to do, they might not be passionate about an action that they want to take, they might not be as despiteful of the current situation, as those people who are pushed by push factors. But they can reason out that if I do this, this will give me this result. If I continue on this journey, I'll end up in this place. So they use pure logic. They don't use emotion.

They're not so fired up even about the vision of the future, like those who are pulled by pull factors, but they simply look at the reality of the situation and are able to analyse it in a dispassionate manner. So that is a pragmatist. Are you a pragmatist? It's important that you identify which one of these three, you closely relate with.

Number two, passion. People who are driven by passion, get excited about an idea. And this excitement is amazing. It can be infectious. When they're excited about something, they are so driven, that they could go the whole night working on an activity, they could spend days, they could miss some meals, they just get so immersed in what they're doing so emotional about it, that is amazing to watch them doing what they do.

By the way, there is no source of motivation that is better than another right? So don't think a passionate person will necessarily achieve better results than pragmatist or the opposite is just a question of identifying which one you are and then making sure you maximise on it. You exploit that aspect of your being in order for you to achieve the success that you desire.

So, we've looked at pragmatism, we've looked at passion, the third category are those people who are driven by purpose. These are the people who see a picture of the future that they want to achieve. And they paint that picture in their mind. And they are so fixated on it that even if their current situation is not giving them desirable results, they will stay the course because they are driven by that vision.

So, what I would like you to do is to identify which one of the three is predominant in you. Are you predominantly a pragmatist? Or a passion driven person or a purpose driven person? And then use that to craft your answer to the why question.

Why do you want to achieve the goal that you want to achieve? Answer it in relation to your predominant source of motivation and by the way, we've got a surprise for you so stay on the program. We'll be talking about so what and we'll also be giving you a surprise relating to a prize you can get by the end of the show. See you on the other side.