Lead from the front

Harrish Sairaman

Just as “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” is the health mantra in daily life, in the corporate world it is “a little motivation a day keeps stress at bay”. Today’s tech-savvy generation is more prone to productivity issues, challenges to stay ahead of their peers, mounting pressures, and growing expectations. One of the main solution or support in this game of life is motivation and its sustainability.

So, what parameters do today’s managers need:

1. Have an inspiring goal for yourself: People who are fully aware of their ‘why’ usually find it effortless to remain motivated. Motivation is a great friend of people who are curious and excited about their future and it stays even when the times are tough. Managers need to jot down their goals and take steps to achieve it with the inbuilt motivation. People do say “set massive goals”. But my suggestion is “set goals that create massive excitement”. Remember, when there is excitement about future, sustenance of motivation and energy is never an issue.

2. Alter your beliefs: Beliefs have a direct impact on our behaviour and emotions, and hence these impact motivation levels. Beliefs have the power to strengthen our mind to achieve even the impossible. Beliefs regarding goals, future, team, organisation, and most importantly, “Self” must be regularly introspected and corrected. For a lot of people their past experiences create their beliefs but what they don’t understand is “The beliefs shape the future”. So, regardless of the ‘past’ having great Beliefs will shape a wonderful future and fuel the motivational levels.

3. Filter incoming data: With tonnes of data adorning the screens of our mind and body, it becomes a cumbersome task to analyse and interpret its authenticity. Whether it’s TV, social media, print or sometimes even people around, forward information which “may or may not be true”. The sole thing in your favour is how you let the incoming stream of data affect you or the ability to filter it. A few years ago people had the challenge of ‘lack of data’, now the challenge is ‘too much of data’ The ability to regularly view the data coming in, absorb the one that helps you accelerate and drop the one that won’t, is a crucial skill for sustaining motivation.

4. Strategise regularly: Failures are bound to happen and this can strongly impact the motivation levels.

What would have happened if Edison had given up after the very first time he failed? Okay, let me rephrase this. What would have happened if Edison had given up after the 100th time he failed?

We would be living in the era of darkness. It was for his consistent 10,000 efforts that we have witnessed light in various forms today. Every human being has his/her set of failures, in fact champions have more failures than an average person as they keep exploring, taking risks and coming out of their comfort zone. What they do to sustain their motivation is to learn from their failures and extrapolate the benefits of the learning in the future to trigger excitement and motivation which becomes the strategy for today’s managers.

5. Be with the right people: A man is known by the company he keeps. Whenever you want to rise in your life, look for the people who are already ahead of you or people who are doing things better than you or people who can fuel you up and provide valuable information to take a quantum leap. Seek the company of the best because they will teach you lessons which would otherwise take a lifetime to learn. Hiring a coach or a mentor who can look at the problem from a different dimension can provide great insights and solutions. Solicit support not be eventually dependent but to be eventually empowered!

— The writer is a noted motivational speaker and corporate trainer