How Do You Motivate People?

The question of motivation is one that has become much more widely asked with the rapid growth of the self-development industry over the last few years. The question tends to be asked in two different ways.

Firstly, people are asked or told how they can motivate themselves in numerous different ways. Secondly, people are told how they can be motivated or inspired by other people, either directly or indirectly.

In a sense both these approaches are both correct and slightly mistaken. Motivation for anything, has to fundamentally come from within. There has to be in a sense, a real desire to move in a different direction internally than the one the person was going on before.

This internal desire to move in a different direction can be deepened and strengthened through a number of internal processes. One of those processes is undoubtedly inspiration by other people. Inspiration can normally take the form of either seeing someone else having made similar changes, and therefore knowing that it is possible for you to do it.

More powerful, is when someone makes another individual really believe that they are capable of making these changes for themselves, that they have the ability internally to make this process happen.

Perhaps the best example of people's ability to change is shown by those people who have had serious problems with alcohol and have affected a profound change in their life by getting sober and staying sober. This has necessitated a process of motivation of internal power, a process often started either in a rehab or by going directly to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous.

The motivation for getting sober is likely to be a mix of both internal and external pressure, and will be a hugely complex subject. What is perhaps easier to grasp is that the motivation for staying sober is likely to be a need for the person to be able to live with themselves, peacefully on a day-to-day basis. Such a need to have some degree of internal stability is hugely powerful, and will drive most people to find ways of achieving this.

Motivation in many ways is a mix of internal and external stimuli. Perhaps the primary emotional need in order for a person to be able to really change the life, both internally and externally is a core sense of internal safety. Without a core sense of internal safety or security, they are always looking for it externally. External security or safety is always to some extent an illusion, however powerful it may be or however safe it may feel.

There is often a need to heal internal hurts, often from childhood, that can be a huge part of a motivational shift. This is obviously quite a complex area, as in many ways the effects of childhood hurts can run deep, and such effects are not normally realised until they are healed and dealt with.

Motivation, when it comes from both within and externally is a hugely important source of fulfillment and purpose in life. Other people can help significantly in this process. Perhaps the most important thing that you can get from another person, be it friend, family or life coach, is that the person is fundamentally on your side. Bullying, coercing, or any other type of judgement or behaviour never really motivates people, even if it might initially seem to do so. Destructive behaviours of this kind do not work and do more harm than good to all parties involved.