Does Great Achievement come from Talent or Training? Is it a Gift or something we Earn with motivational ability – with ‘Motivational Intelligence’?

In case you are interested in this topic, here are two good books.  Both of these authors talk about how inherited talent is valuable, but that even in-born talent must be developed.  They show how most true greats in their field, developed their talent through approaches that anyone with great motivation can use and, thereby, build great ability.  We must practice to build capability in any skill – even to develop motivational skills.  They also talk about ‘how to practice’ and often refer to the ability to focus your motivation.  Fascinating stuff for anyone who is committed to growth and personal improvement.

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How.

by Daniel Coyle

http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/055380684X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253664226&sr=1-1 

 

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

by Geoff Colvin

http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class-Performers/dp/1591842247/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253664149&sr=8-1 

 

To build your motivational skills www.MotivationalIQ.com    www.Motivationalintelligence.com

Positivity, Science and Motivational Intelligence

This morning I had time to read a few pages of a new book I ordered called Positivity, by Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D. I really liked how she gave two different examples of how we could start our day, with more of a negative attitude – or more of a positive one. She illustrated how it affected our children and their behavior, how it affected our colleagues, and our entire morning. She even showed how it affected our ability to come up with adaptive solutions. She basically illustrated and, will later in further chapters explain, scientifically, how innumerable mental events change our day – and over time change the wiring of our brain and the accumulative total of our lives as we create an entirely different mental trajectory. You know the old saying if your aim at the moon is off to the right by just an infinitesimal increment now, you will miss the moon by thousands and thousands of miles when your laser gets there.

Motivational Intelligence is very similar, in that, the many, many motivationally influential acts we take, and thoughts that we make each day, accumulate to our level and quality of motivation for the many things we want to do in an hour, or tomorrow, or next week or year.

I love books like Positivity that beautifully explain the meaning and impact of extensive scientific findings in our daily lives. Reading these, and working to change the way we act, can immediately and then more dramatically and automatically, over time, become something we do naturally and intuitively, because our systems are always on the lookout for things that make us happier. We are rewarded greatly with wonderful feelings and pleasurable brain chemistry – naturally. Our entire life is a learning experience, where much of the learning is subconscious. We do what feels good, and we gradually learn, to know and anticipate better what will feel good – not just now, but ongoing in our lives.

After reading these few pages, I called out to my wife in an even more cheerful tone “Hey Baby – Good morning. How are you doing?, with a big smile, even though I was around the corner. She responded with an even more cheerful tone than usual as well. A few minutes later, I shared what I had read with her and she said, ‘Wow, I thought you sounded especially positive this morning. Now I know why. And then she admitted that “I definitely felt happier because of your tone and wanted to be especially nice back.’ 

Other science based books that share practical psychological science are:

The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships by Daniel Goleman

The Science of Happiness: How Our Brains Make Us Happy-and What We Can Do to Get Happier , by Stefan Klein

Research on Motivational Intelligence – The effect of intelligent motivational acts on performance!

I conducted double blind, scientifically controlled research for my Ph.D. and found that in as little as ten minutes, someone could dramatically increase their motivation.  That is –  the size of their goals, their commitment to their goals, their confidence that they can achieve them, their measured performance, AND their enthusiasm to actually persist well beyond their goals.

10 Minutes   !!!

What can you do in ten minutes to yield more motivation better performances here and now like these research participants did?  What can you do today, that will make you more motivated tomorrow?  The fact is,  a lot of things!!! 

Thanks to your Motivational Intelligence and mine, we do some of these things naturally and thankfully, we can get much better at it.   We can improve all the way until we are vigorously and enjoyably pursuing and doing all we want in our life.

Dr. Blair

www.MotivationalIQ.com

Our Brain’s Motivational Challenge – High Quality Motivation!

What is the ideal nature of Motivation?  Not simply high or low, but what are it’s characteristics?  What is High Quality Motivation? Is it fleeting or enduring? Is it impassioned, or stern and self disciplined?  Is it aligned with your true long term values, or driven by the needs of the moment?  Is it diversified with many motive forces, or uni-dimensional?  Is it highly conscious, or subconscious? Is it intrinsic or extrinsic?  Is it fueled with purely positive emotion or does it work better overall with some fear of failure, or perhaps some desire to win, dominate, or hate something you feel is wrong?  Motivationally Intelligent motivation is well suited to the situation – well suited to what it takes to do what is in your insightful and potentially benevolent best interest.  Motivational Intelligence is the ability – on the fly – to optimize and maintain your motivations for all the things you do,  to fulfill the many roles we want to fill, to motivate ourselves realistically, so we do not live a life of frustration, dissappointment and guilt.  Our often autopiloted minds are doing a lot!!!!  We do not act until we are sufficiently motivated – motivated enough to break the action-threshold.  Producing the right motivation, in as enjoyable a form as possible, is our challenge minute by minute,  and throughout our lives. Are you good at this?  Are you as good as you’d like to be? It is highly learnable!

Motivational Intelligence and Neuroscience

Motivation focused neuroscientists focus a lot on ‘learning’ and on memory.  As animals ‘learn’ what is rewarding it impacts what they do in the future.  We like to remember great restaurants and bargains, people who are fun, and generally everything we enjoy.  Motivation and memory are powerfully linked.  Our Motivational Intelligence knows and uses this to shape our motivation over time, but we can improve on it.

In 2001 I worked as a Director of Research at a company that had a patented memory system that accelerated learning with optimized review schedules – Cerego and now smartfm.com. 

So what’s the link – well there are many, but for now – this one. 

When we review how rewarding it was to do the ‘better thing’ for us rather then skip it or give in to temptation – we remember it better.  This makes our memory more associated to more things, stronger, and more salient – more real – and therefore more motivationally powerful.  Reviewing how rewarding good performances are they become stronger motivators. 

To be Motivationally Intelligent, having a great vision, that you keep vivid and alive is important, but so is creating vivid memories for how good the steps along the way make you feel.  When we have a really productive day, we can benefit in the future by having ‘reviewed’ and reminisced about how proud, contented, clebrative, and empowered we felt  again and again.  If all we focus on is how exhausted we were, we do ourselves a disservice.  Our Motivational Intelligence does this automatically some of the time.  Celebrate and Reminisce great performances and rewarding efforts to no abandon.  This will motivate you to take great action again.

Dr. Blair C. Relf

www.MotivationalIntelligence.com

Self-Empowerment using your Motivational Intelligence

We all have things that empower us!  What are yours?  

Knowing and using these are vital to having great days – which then accumulate into a great life!

When I think about heading out to do a workout or to do a quick 10–20 minute row, bike, or weight lift in my house, I try to strongly focus on that ‘triumphant, empowering, after-feeling – the feeling of confidence and strength I will experience when I am done or after I have recovered.  I try to feel this feeling before, and during, as I take action.  I try to have these confident and enjoyable thoughts and feelings overpower the detracting ones, of which there can be many (“I don’t have time.” is my mind’s favorite, but, equally undermining are “I am going to do something else first.”, or “It will be boring or uncomfortable.”)  

 Now remember, in order for this Motivationally Intelligent way of thinking to have real power over time, you MUST build up the fullness of that after-feeling when you actually do finish.  You must congratulate yourself repeatedly.    You have to magnify the experience, high five your workout partner or, if alone, raise your arms in victory.  You have to produce a big uninhibited, over-the-top smile of happiness, a victorious Tiger Woods punch in the air, or whatever enables you to emotionally celebrate.  These genuine, emotion-producing acts ingrain in your neurons.  They build memories in your internal reward systems and they bear on your future.  They make it so you more readily produce the natural, neurotransmitter – dopamine – as you anticipate and imagine that after-feeling of success in the future.  They build upon your sense, your experience, of who you are and what you can do.  You have to build this connection into a freeway size neural pathway, rather than a thin back alley of your brain that is rarely frequented.   These connections are essential to powerful motivation.  They set you up, even more powerfully, next time.  It is also inherently enjoyable, AND you DESERVE this celebration – everytime! 

Knowing what will empower you, and having the ability to project your mind forward to a highly sensory, empowering experience, is vital to your pursuit of great things in a great life.

There are also easier things that are also Motivationally Intelligent that give us small feelings of empowerment – like looking at a medal we have won, or a picture that symbolizes a triumph for us, like taking a moment out to be grateful and thankful   for all the good things that have happened, which builds your confidence that more will come to pass.  Can you create empowerment in the moment, to pursue challenges with delayed rewards?  What would be your steps?  Can you do it quickly and powerfully – at will?  Can you also do things today that will echo through your day and have you feeling empowered tomorrow?

This is the Motivational Intelligent capability of building confidence, building belief, building mental strength.  It is vital to your success.  It is vital to making the difference you want to make in your life and the lives of those you love.  It can be achieved in many ways, but whatever ways work for you, you need to be good at.

Start by identifying something that is somewhat hard to do and then experiment, to determine a set of things that you can do to empower yourself – to make you feel confident and vigorously ready to take action.  As you use these you may have to cultivate new ones or combine them in new ways if they become ‘routine’.

Now remember your empowerment, or confidence, is only one part of the motivational equation, so if you are looking for ways to bolster and build the other six motivational elements: extrinsic attraction, intrinsic interest, a burning platform, a way to succeed, willingness to pay the price, or initiative (the ability to overcome inertia) then look to future newsletters for how to put each of these into winning alignment in your endeavors – they are vital to your future!!  In the mean time I hope you will practice building your self-empowerment skills!

Together we can all make this world a better place!

Dr. Blair C. Relf

www.MotivationalIntelligence.com

Motivational Intelligence

I have been researching, coaching leaders, and designing tools for the development of Motivational Intelligence in anyone who wants to enhance their life for almost two decades. It is time to start sharing this knowledge and these systems more broadly.

Dr. Blair C. Relf

www.MotivationalIntelligence.com