Mile Wide, Mile Deep | Steve Pavlina

Have you ever heard the phrase “inch wide, mile deep” with respect to picking an area of focus for your education, career, website, business, etc? The idea here is that you should narrow your focus and concentrate on becoming highly skilled in one particular subfield. Then you’ll be able to carve out a space within your industry where you’re competent enough to compete… and hopefully make a good living.

You can do that. It does work to a certain extent. But this article is about why you may not want to do that.

You don’t have to use the inch wide, mile deep approach to niche down if it bothers you to do so. Many people have mixed feelings about it, and rightly so. There are some big consequences to consider.

I don’t use this approach for my work because I don’t like the lifestyle consequences of sticking to one niche for so long. I’d be bored within a few years no matter what I picked, even if I picked something I love. I like variety too much. This life is precious to me, and while I love doing deep dives, I don’t want to be so myopically focused on any one aspect of life or business for so long that I miss out on exploring the other aspects that also interest me.

You could say that my niche is personal growth, but that isn’t really a niche at all because anything fits into that huge space: productivity, relationships, career, finances, health, lifestyle, values, spirituality, social skills, and more. Name any topic you can think of, and I can link it to personal growth.

Mile Wide, Mile Deep

I prefer the mile wide, mile deep approach. It works well too, but the mindset and framework are different if you want to succeed with it. There are some consequences to accept, but you may actually like those consequences.

To make this work in business, it’s important to focus on the long-term relationship with your audience instead of deliberately trying to nichify or brand yourself into a corner. You want to connect with them as human beings with lots of interests, problems, challenges, and desires – i.e. people just like you – not as monodimensional prospects who care about your niche.

It’s important not to brand yourself in the typical branding sense if you want your audience members to relate to you as a real, multidimensional person. If I brand myself as anything, I prefer to just call myself an explorer. It turns out that many people like being able to maintain our relationship across a wide variety of interests – I like it too! – and branding myself into a singular niche would only get in the way of that.

Doesn’t it kinda suck when you discover a guru you really like, but all they do is speak and write about the same narrow topic over and over again? Wouldn’t it be nice to connect on some other dimensions too, especially if you like and respect the person? How many emails or blog posts can you read about the same thing until you’re drowning in boredom and looking for the unsubscribe button?

The 50-Year Audience

Ask yourself this: What kind of audience could you keep for 50 years? Who’d stay with you that long? In which niche could you expect to still be working in 50 years after you start, assuming you lived that long?

I’ll bet a lot of people in your audience would love to connect with you based on other interests beyond your main niche, and you’re probably not inviting them to do so. So they can’t bond with you as closely as they would with a real life friend with whom they may share multiple interests. But what if they could bond with you that closely?

Motivation can be a lot harder in a nichified business after the first few years. Eventually the repetitiveness and lack of variety start to grind you down. I see this happening in so many friends. The passion just drains out of them after a while. And it shows up in procrastination, lifeless work, and frequent fantasizing about doing something else. What once seemed like a great niche is now stunting their growth as human beings, providing them with too little stimulation and variety. Eventually they begin to think there’s something wrong with them for being experts in their field and not feeling driven anymore.

My business is a lot of fun to run because on any given day, week, or month, I can tackle any topic that interests me. I can switch topics seemingly at random, and I often do. This year I did three-day workshops on abundance, mental development, lifestyle design, and entrepreneurship. I spoke about relationships in Mexico and character development in the UK. I love, love, love that kind of variety.

Even after 12+ years on this path, I’m more in love with the work now than during the first 5 years. Whichever direction my current interests twist and turn, a sizable audience has proven they’re willing to come along for the ride. Of course I lose some people now and then, but in the long run, the narrow-minded, mono-focused people get filtered out as they smash into walls at every zig and zag and can’t keep up with the course changes. Meanwhile the ones who make it through multiple years with me are the ones who, like me, love the variety and enjoy connecting with and learning from someone who’s very much like them – a multidimensional human being.

Breadth AND Depth

You might be thinking that you can’t possibly go a mile wide and a mile deep. You have to go for breadth OR depth, don’t you? It’s an either-or decision. I think Leonardo da Vinci would call B.S. on that, and so would I. Breadth and depth enhance each other. You can have both. 
In fact, I think it’s a lot easier – and way more fun – to go for both.

If you explore a lot, you’ll become a better explorer. You’ll be able to go deep faster and more efficiently by building skills across multiple areas.

Most importantly, your mile deep will not be in the same spot as someone else’s mile deep. You’ll do your deep dives differently than nichified deep divers.

Your deep dives will also be more holistic because you’ll be able to connect the dots with other deep dives you’ve done. You’ll be better than most people at seeing the big picture and understanding each niche within the context of the others. And that’s going to allow you to offer up some really unique insights, the kinds of insights that even the so-called experts within a field aren’t commonly sharing.

There’s a huge advantage to being unattached to niches as well. You can be ridiculously disloyal to all of your niches and yet still be considered something of an expert within them. You can step into the role of expert within one niche and fire a shot at another niche, then switch sides and fire back. You can explore some really interesting paradoxes this way and find new truths beyond them. I’ll just have to let you chew on that one for a while. This one is hard to describe unless you’ve already experienced it.

Is Your Niche Draining Your Motivation?

Motivation is another key factor. You can dig more and deeper wells if you keep your motivation high. Do you think your depth is really going to be all that deep if your motivation is falling below a 6 out of 10? What if you’re constantly at a 9 or 10 for your motivation, but you jump around a lot? Can you imagine some situations where the 9+ will likely outperform the sub-6?

I’ll readily admit that there are some problems better suited to the stubborn sub-6 who can chip away for years. But there are other problems where the 9+ will win hands down. You can choose to tackle either class of problems. Do you have a preference?

You can actually solve many of the same problems with either approach. You’ll just use different strategies. For instance, a sub-6 might make money with a regular job or with stable self-employment, doing the similar work day after day. A 9+ might earn income by working in bursts, such as by setting up passive income streams (also called evergreen) or by doing income-generating projects.

Also, when you get burned out on some particular niche, you can always take a pause, switch to something else, and come back to it with a fresh perspective. You can go surprisingly deep when you’re able to stave off burnout indefinitely. And every now and then you’ll get lucky just by trying lots of different approaches to many different areas of life. Sometimes gold isn’t buried that deep; it may be buried where no one has bothered to look yet.

The Social Consequences of Nichification

There’s the social aspect too. If you niche down, you’re going to take a lot of your social life into that inch-wide pit with you. By resisting your own nichification, you could enjoy a more varied and arguably richer social life vs. one that’s overstuffed with the same types of people. Partly this is because you can offer up dozens of different interests that people may share with you. Some people will notice that they have a LOT in common with you, and they’ll often reach out to you. If you present more facets for people to connect with, you can attract a great variety of connections as well as more compatible connections.

Also, who really wants to be friends with a mono-focused person? If you go the niche route, there’s a good chance you’ll attract a lot of people who want to connect with you mainly because you’re an expert on that one particular thing. That can be cool for status and income, but it can also lead to a feeling of being used by other people and by society. Do you only want people to relate to you as a tool for their own advancement? That gets lonely after a while. It can also lead to a love-hate relationship with your work.

And there’s the health aspect too, although this tends to be more indirect. As odd as it may seem, boredom can actually become stressful in the long run. When you’re bored with your work, it takes more effort to push yourself to get things done. Your brain doesn’t automatically generate high levels of motivation if it isn’t engaged and stimulated. When you don’t feel highly motivated to work, it’s harder to get results. And when your results start to slip because you aren’t working as productively as you used to, this can create feelings of inadequacy, which makes everything worse. Eventually the external pressures will begin to pile up, and that can create a lot of stress. And that isn’t healthy in the long run. Sadly I’ve seen this happen to a lot of people who nichify themselves into a corner. The worst cases are usually lawyers (no pun intended), one reason being that they often earn a few hundred dollars per hour and get used to that level of income, but they have to keep doing the same work over and over to maintain their lifestyle. Try finding a lawyer who loves his/her work after a decade in the same niche, and I’ll show you a four-leaf clover. I’d probably want to hire that lawyer too… if I ever happened to need one.

* * *

Don’t swallow the nichification pill without reading the warning label first. It’s not the only way to build a following or a business, and depending on your personality and interests, it may actually lead you into a nasty pit of despair. Give some careful thought to the lifestyle consequences of nichification first, and decide whether it’s truly the right path for you.

If you don’t pick a niche, you’ll probably have to build more skills, face more fears, and build a stronger social support network. For people like me, those are powerful reasons not to niche down.

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High Earners Dilemma | Steve Pavlina

Many of my readers have skills they can apply to earn incomes that are far above average — if they desire to apply those skills for that purpose. A lot of them are programmers or engineers. Some know how to invest or trade stocks. Some are just really good poker players. These people can earn six-figure incomes (sometimes more) without much difficulty.

Many of these people aren’t earning anywhere near their potential. They know this. And for the most part they aren’t particularly concerned about that. Many have found that earning lots of money isn’t fulfilling.

Some of these people made plenty of money in the past. They explored what it was like to have most of their material desires satisfied and then some. They went through that phase of material abundance, and it was fun for a while, but it no longer means anything to them now.

Others in this group never bothered to make much money in the first place, even though they had the skills to do so. They aren’t motivated to bother. The financial gains don’t excite them.

I remember talking to a programmer who was only doing the minimum amount of work necessary to cover his basic expenses, not because he couldn’t earn more but because he didn’t care to make the extra effort. He told me that he used to earn $40K per month programming device drivers, and then he shrugged and said, “So what though… it’s just money.”

Sometimes these people go through a period of mild depression, feeling down on themselves for not doing more with their skills. Some feel they should be earning more. Others feel they should stretch themselves or contribute more, regardless of the money.

Occasionally these people find temporary pleasure in interesting projects. They may still like getting paid now and then. But they don’t feel much ambition to go any further.

There may be still be some growth on this path, but it’s modest. Even learning new sub-skills feels too familiar after a while.

When considering more ambitious goals, financial or otherwise, the question that keeps coming up is: Why bother?

You explored more, and now more is boring.
You explored better, and now better seems pointless.
You explored different, and now different feels the same.
What do you do when more, better, and different are no longer satisfying?
Well… that’s when you get to have an existential crisis. 🙂

Finding the growth again

Many people find themselves with the skills to do more, but the motivation is lacking. They don’t care about earning more. They don’t care about contributing more. They barely care about covering their expenses.

Some are able to travel through this tunnel and find new fulfillment on the other side. Some seem to remain adrift indefinitely. What’s the difference between those who pull out of this funk and those who don’t?

I’d say that the main difference, if I may generalize it, is that the people who find fulfillment again perform a different kind of upgrade than those who don’t.

The ones who continue to struggle seem to circle around the same area looking for solutions. They look at their skills. They look at their habits and routine. They look at their projects. They look at their lifestyle. They may make some shifts, but they largely maintain their original philosophy of life throughout these shifts, and that philosophy keeps them trapped.

The ones who move beyond this struggle make deeper changes. They reassess their overall relationship with life, and other changes stem from there. But these people who upgrade their philosophy of life don’t all shift it in the same way. One person’s upgrade is another person’s downgrade.

These people reassess their relationship with reality, and they change that relationship. It’s almost like going through the breakup of a human relationship. The old relationship is finally done, and a new way of relating is envisioned and created.

Since your relationship with reality exists in your mind — as a collection of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs — you can change it. You can reinterpret old events to mean something different. Just as people reinterpret their human relationships before a breakup, they can reinterpret their relationship with life itself.

These people realize that little by little, a breakup has already been underway. They’ve been checked out from this relationship for some time. The effort and investment have been drying up. The rewards have weakened. Life seems dull and pointless. There’s no point in 
staying. It’s time to move on.

When someone redefines his/her relationship to reality, lifestyle changes often follow. I’ve seen people quit their jobs, go travel, do charity work, explore open relationships, and more. But these changes may have been on the person’s someday/maybe list for many years prior. What seems to flip the switch is the underlying reconfiguration of the person’s philosophy of life.

Profound shifts

These profound shifts don’t seem to have a pattern in terms of their direction, at least not one that I can discern. People go in wildly different directions. It’s much like a human relationship breakup. What happens after the breakup is different for everyone.

There’s usually a period of fear, excitement, and resolution all mixed together as the person gets moving. The word relief is frequently used to describe it.

Life is rarely perfect on the other side, but I can’t recall an instance where someone wanted to go back. They know the shift had to happen, but the shift by itself didn’t magically solve all their problems. There’s still more work to be done.

Although I can’t identify core commonalities in the new directions that people take, I have seen some patterns in how they create these shifts. These are essentially the same patterns that people go through when they transition out of a human relationship.

Usually these people begin to pay attention to the resistance and resentment they’ve been feeling. They see that they’re resisting their current situation and wanting it to be different. They resent their apparent lack of motivation. Many feel disappointed that their peers seem to have surpassed them. They begin to notice this resistance.

Next, they begin taking responsibility for creating this resistance. They see that it isn’t helping and is only keeping them stuck. They decide to stop resisting and to surrender themselves to the present situation. They gradually become less stubborn. They conclude that being stubborn hasn’t worked, so they loosen up and decide to be more flexible and observant for a while. They relax more.

In the past, these people saw the road to change as requiring a change in conditions. They needed a better lifestyle. Or better projects. Or a better workspace and tools. They needed more self-discipline. More focus. More control. This is like the person who tries to work on their partner to salvage the relationship. I need you to help me solve problems X, Y, and Z, and then our relationship will be better. How well does that usually work?

Sometimes the other person in a relationship doesn’t identify X, Y, and Z as problems. Sometimes reality doesn’t seem to agree that your problems are problems either. When you try to solve those problems, it may feel like reality is deliberately working against you. Or you may sense that you keep sabotaging yourself. You resolve to make changes, and your efforts have fizzled within a few days.

Eventually the person reaches the point of surrendering to the obvious: This whole relationship is broken. In this case, I’m referring to the person’s relationship with life, the universe, and everything. That relationship has become nonfunctional. You and reality seem to be at odds with each other. You’re not in agreement.

Many people enter into a period of stuckness here. They know the relationship is broken, so they try to fix it. That usually doesn’t work, partly because they’re still running the old patterns that perpetuate this stuckness, even as they consciously try to change it.

Those who succeed tend to do so by abandoning the goal of trying to change their partner. They surrender to another obvious notion: My partner wants something different from what I want. They finally decide to allow their partner to be someone else. And with that 
comes the realization that it’s time to transition out of this relationship.

How does this play out with your relationship with reality? It’s a similar dynamic. The person stops trying to change reality and finally allows reality to be what it is. There’s no point in fighting, resisting, or trying to solve problems since reality is only going to resist.
How does such a person break up with the old reality? They do this by envisioning a new way of living and a new way of relating to the world, to other people, and to life in general. 
They envision a new way of experiencing reality. To some it really feels like stepping into a whole new reality — a whole new life.

Surrender is the key. When you stop resisting and surrender to what is, you stop feeding what you don’t want, and the undesirable relationships tend to drop away. But as long as you keep fighting for change, you’ll experience a counter-force pushing back against you, keeping you stuck.

One man decides to no longer relate to life on the basis of fear avoidance. From now on he’s going to face, accept, and welcome what he fears. He’s tired of seeing his reality shrink as he sidesteps his fears. He adopts a new rule for himself: Whatever I fear, I must face. He stops resisting life’s challenges. And lo and behold, he finds that the fear was just an illusion anyway. He was the one feeding it all along.

One woman decides she’s tired of business as usual. Her life is filled with people who look up to her for accomplishments that no longer mean anything to her. She’s done fighting her lack of motivation, so she surrenders to it and lets her business decline, regardless of what people may think of her. Eventually she wraps up her business affairs and starts her own nonprofit foundation. Henceforth her relationship with life will be based on contribution and service, which she loves but could never give herself permission to do before. She had to surrender to the fact that her business was no longer the right vehicle for her future growth and self-expression.

From tolerance to completion

These people all have their Jerry Maguire moments. For many of them, the most powerful part of the shift is when they experience profound feelings of doneness with the old way of living. They’re tired of the fear, the inauthenticity, the disconnection, the shallowness, the indifference, or some other misalignment. They decide it’s time to throw out the old way of living and move on.

One friend described life after the shift with these words: Steve, I feel aligned now.
Another guy said, while going through the shift: I am so fucking outta here.

As people shift, it’s common to experience inconsistent progress for a while. Taking two steps forward and one step backwards happens to almost everyone. That’s okay. The seed has been planted. It may take time for that seed to mature, but it will continue to grow. The more we take an occasional step backwards, the clearer it becomes that the old territory can no longer be called home.

Those who remain stuck don’t seem to reach this point of doneness. The most common reason is that people get stuck in a state of tolerance. They continue to tolerate their relationship with life as-is, even though it doesn’t serve them.

Tolerance isn’t surrender. Tolerance is still resistance. When you tolerate a situation, you permit it to exist but you refuse to surrender to it, so you can’t extract the lessons from it. 
You can’t graduate.

Tolerance is like not wanting to go to school but going anyway. You show up, but you refuse to be a student. Consequently, you learn very little. What’s the point of showing up if you’re going to resist?

When that resistance finally drops, and the person surrenders to reality and decides to stop fighting, the remaining lessons can finally come through, and the person can progress. Graduation is within reach.

There are lessons to be learned from being broke. There are lessons in a difficult relationship. There are lessons in illness. There are lessons in periods of drifting. If we resist these experiences, we resist the lessons within them.

If an unwanted experience seems to be sticking to you like glue, try practicing non-resistance for a while. Try surrendering to that experience. Give reality the benefit of the doubt, and assume that there are valuable lessons to be learned right where you are. Let yourself complete the experience. Allow yourself to have the experience you’re having without stubbornly resisting it. Let yourself reach the point of doneness. Then you can progress.

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What’s Your Motivation Threshold? | Steve Pavlina

Over the past year and a half, I’ve seen just what a vital role purpose plays in the pursuit of personal growth. I believe that growth is an inborn human need to a certain degree, and apparently so does Tony Robbins, who includes growth on his list of the six human needs. However, I’ve found that if your only interest in personal growth comes from the level of biological need, you’ll be very limited in the amount of growth you can achieve. As an end it itself, personal growth is certainly motivating, but for some goals it just isn’t motivating enough.

Fulfilling our needs is obviously a strong driver of human behavior. If you’re hungry or thirsty, you’ll be compelled to seek food or water as your highest priority until that need is filled. There’s no motivation quite so great as that which comes from an empty stomach or a dry throat.

Are you familiar with the story about Socrates where a young man came to him near a lake and asked Socrates to teach him how to acquire wisdom? Socrates grabbed the man and plunged his head under the water. As the young man struggled for his life, Socrates continued to forcibly hold him under the water. Finally, Socrates let him up to breathe, and when the man, gasping for breath, asked why Socrates nearly drowned him, Socrates replied, “When your desire for wisdom is as great as your desire to breathe, then you will find wisdom.”

I love that story. I don’t know if it’s actually true, but it sure makes a great point. If your motivation for a goal is high enough (as compelling as the desire for air, food, and water), then you’re virtually assured of success if the goal is possible at all. However, in most cases our motivation to achieve a goal isn’t anywhere near the level of biological need. This is especially true when taking on growth-oriented goals.

Consider the example of waking up early each morning. For many years of my life, I wanted to become a consistent early riser. My goal was to condition myself to get up every morning at 5am. But during the decade I ran my computer games business, I largely failed at that goal despite making many serious attempts. I could do it for several days at a time, but I could never get the habit to stick consistently. I’d be lying in bed when the 5:00 alarm went off, and as my brain faced the choice between mustering the discipline to get up vs. sleeping in, invariably there would soon come a time when I chose to sleep in.

It’s not that I didn’t get enough rest or that I physically needed the extra sleep. It’s just that waking up early wasn’t motivating enough for me. The growth element gave me the drive to make the initial attempt at getting up early, but come day 3 or 4, that element was considerably reduced as the novelty wore off.

When I was at my best — when I made the decision to become an early riser — my motivation was at its peak, and I felt certain of success. But at those pre-dawn moments of decision when I was jolted awake by my alarm, my brain still drenched in sleep hormones, the power of my conviction couldn’t always overcome the desire to continue sleeping. So I’d sleep in.

However, months after starting my personal development business, I made the attempt to become an early riser again. And this time I succeeded right away. Yes, I had a good strategy, and certainly the previous attempts helped a little. But the main difference was that my motivation to get up early was now much higher. And that extra motivation boost was just what I needed to get past the hump and establish the habit once and for all.

Why?

My main reason for getting up early was to be more productive. I wanted those extra early morning hours while the rest of the family was still sleeping, so I could get a head start on my day. I also loved how I felt about myself when I got up early and dove straight into action. It felt wonderful when I could actually do it. The difference in motivation came from what I was producing though. What was the real value of that extra productivity? What was I going to do with it?

With my games business, those extra hours would ultimately mean producing more entertainment value for people. With my personal development business, it meant spending more time helping people grow. For me, the former seemed moderately motivating… perhaps a 7 on a scale of 1-10. Most of the time, I genuinely enjoyed running my games business. But getting up early to help people grow was far more motivating… on a scale of 1-10, it was an 11. And the motivation I needed to get up early every morning was about an 8 on that scale.

What made the difference between success and failure was purpose.

I think one of the reasons many people will initiate new goals and then fizzle out after just a few days is that the motivation to succeed just isn’t strong enough. If you’ve been struggling with a goal where you’re suffering from this pattern of repeated failure, instead of beating yourself up, get curious instead. Ask yourself what the ultimate purpose is. If you were to succeed in achieving your goal, what would it ultimately mean to yourself, to others, and to the world? What’s the actual value your goal would create?

We’re all unique individuals, so we may each have a different motivation threshold for achieving a particular goal. Establishing the habit of getting up at 5:00 each morning required me to have a level of motivation of about an 8 on a scale of 1-10. For some people that same habit may only require a 3, while for others it may require a 10.5.

Interestingly, I not only mastered the habit of early rising, but later that same year, I blew that accomplishment out of the water by adapting to polyphasic sleep (which for me required about a 9.5 in motivation). And once again purpose was a key factor in my success. I’d love to be able to report that having all that extra time for myself was enough to succeed, but that isn’t remotely true. If that was my source of motivation, I’m certain I would have failed. But being able to share the experience with thousands of other people pushed me over the edge.

If you find yourself facing a big goal and you just aren’t making much headway with it because you keep giving up after a time, consider the motivation threshold for the task. On a scale of 1-10, what level of motivation do you feel is required to succeed? Notice that different goals have different numbers. Your motivation threshold for checking email might be a 2, whereas the motivation threshold for doing public speaking might be a 9.5. Everyone is different, so your specific numbers may vary.

We often get blindsided by failure because we compare the success threshold to our level of motivation when we’re at our best. When you’re at your best, your motivation may be a 9 or 10. But that isn’t where you make the decision to give up. When you’re at a 9 or 10 in motivation, you will get out of bed early, you will make the trek to the gym, and you will read that book that’s been sitting on your shelf for months. But we aren’t always at our best. There will be times when you aren’t at your best, and you’ll still have to make the decision between getting up vs. sleeping in, between going to the gym vs. going out to dinner, and between reading a book vs. watching TV. Where will your motivation be in all these moments of decision? Will your motivation to succeed ever dip below your goal’s motivation threshold?

An inspiring purpose is like getting an automatic +4 for all of your 2D6 attacks. That’s a role-playing analogy that loosely translates as, “Purpose provides a motivation bonus for every goal you set, making it more likely that you’ll pass your motivation threshold.” Suppose your goal’s motivation threshold is an 8. And suppose your level of motivation for this goal normally falls in the 4-9 range. When you’re at your best, you’ll succeed, but there will eventually come a time when you aren’t at your best, and then you’ll fail. But with a +4 purpose, now your whole motivation range shifts from 4-9 to 8-13, and in every situation, even when you’re at your worst, you’re still above the goal’s motivation threshold. So no matter what, you’ll succeed.

With a strong purpose, you’ll score more hits and suffer fewer misses. Just as a 2D6+4 will grant you victory in battle against fiercer opponents than a plain old 2D6, a compelling purpose will enable you to successfully achieve more goals and establish more new habits than you’ll be able to achieve without it. For my RPG-challenged readers, a 2D6 means to role two regular six-sided dice, and the total you get represents the strength of your attack (higher numbers are better). A 2D6+4 means to take your 2D6 roll and add 4 to it. So the range of possible rolls for a 2D6 is 2-12, but the range for a 2D6+4 is 6-16.

Now if as you read that description, you were thinking, “You forgot to mention fumbles and criticals,” you really need to get out more. 😉

All purposes are not equal, so you may need to experiment to see what purpose gives you the greatest motivation bonus. For me, entertaining people is perhaps a +2 bonus, but helping people grow might be a +4 or +5. The former is like a short sword, while the latter is like a two-handed magic axe. For someone else, however, such as a stand-up comedian, those numbers might be flip-flopped. What motivates you most is something you’ll have to discover for yourself, but I will suggest that it almost certainly has to do with finding a way to be of genuine service to other people.

What would get you out of bed early every morning? What work would be so compelling to you that you’d joyfully lose yourself in it? What do you find so motivating that you’d even ignore a growling stomach for hours just to stay with it?

Purpose isn’t the only thing that provides a motivational bonus. Consider that all parts of your life either add a motivational bonus or penalty. Is your job a +4 or a -2? What about your relationship, your home, your friends, your family, your diet, your income, your spiritual beliefs? Are these giving you positive bonuses or dragging you down with penalties? If you really want to learn about yourself, make a list of the various factors of your life, and assign each a bonus number, perhaps in the range of -5 to +5. Sinking into debt might be a -3, while falling in love may be a +5. This will show you where you have the greatest opportunities for growth.

If you’re mathematically inclined as I am, you may enjoy thinking of personal growth as a numbers game. Look at all the bonuses and penalties in your life, and see how they add up. Where can you add new bonuses? Where can you eliminate penalties? What can you do to take your character to the next level?

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Motivation - Change Your Life

Powerful motivational video (starts at 30 seconds)
"Progress = happiness." "Take full responsibility for your life."   "We can accept conditions as they exist, or we can take the responsibility to change them." "It's possible that you can live your dream!" "It's not over until I win!"

Music: Inception - Time and Logic - Inception

Speakers: Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Eric Thomas

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How Perception Affects Motivation | Kevin Johnston

You cannot force your employees to be more productive. You cannot coerce your sales force into creating more sales. People do what they want to do. If you help employees want to do things that make your business successful, they become more productive. Once they perceive that work they perform not only meets your needs but theirs as well, you have the three elements in place that lead to business prosperity: perception, motivation and action.

Self-actualization

Psychologist Abraham Maslow identified a set of needs that motivate people. One of the top motivators is self-actualization. This encompasses growth, advancement and training. When employees perceive that you care about their personal improvement, they become motivated to do better and do more. Promote this perception by offering opportunities for employees to get raises, learn new skills and take on greater responsibilities.

Self-esteem

Consider ways to let your employees know that you care about their need for approval and belonging. Create awards and hold recognition ceremonies for outstanding employees. Increase authority for employees who demonstrate excellence. When you foster the perception that your workplace is an environment where employees can feel better about themselves, you get motivated workers.

Belonging

Human beings like to feel that they belong. You can increase the perception of belonging at your place of business by putting employees on teams, creating friendly departmental competitions and providing mentoring. As the perception grows that your business is a family, employees become more motivated to stay and help the group succeed.

Safety

When employees perceive that they are safe, they can turn their attention to productivity. Your safety measures, safety-training sessions and health insurance benefits improve the perception that workers can count on safety at your company. This perceptions leads to improved performance.

Physical Needs

You can lose sight of the fact that people work to meet basic needs of food and shelter. When your offer good wages, plus adequate heat and air conditioning, you take care of physical needs. The perception that your company promotes the physical well-being of your employees goes a long way toward creating a productive workforce.

This relates to employees, but also applies to us as individuals.  Please let me know what you think below.  

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The Medium vs. the Message | Steve Pavlina

This article is designed to get you thinking about your life from a new perspective. For the sake of clarity, we’ll focus primarily on your career, but by the time you’re done reading, you should be able to apply these ideas to other areas of your life as well.

Consider a physical recording medium like a CD or DVD. By itself it’s an empty vessel. The “message” is the information contained within that medium, whether it be music, a film, software, or some other information. The message is what provides the value — the actual recording medium is often inconsequential. You may pay $20 for a CD that contains music, or you may pay $300 for a CD that contains certain software. But the physical CDs are essentially identical except for the information they contain. This price difference isn’t due to a difference in the medium but rather due to a difference in the message.

Now let’s extend this concept of the medium vs. the message and apply it to your career (or any other part of your life for that matter). For example, in most cases your job title represents the medium of your career. Career media include being an attorney, a salesperson, or a computer programmer. Think of your career medium as the vessel through which you work.

Much like a recordable CD, your career medium is an empty container waiting to be filled. If you identify yourself as an attorney or a salesperson or a computer programmer, that doesn’t give you any sense of the value your work provides. Those professions are conduits for providing value, but they contain very little value in and of themselves. Some attorneys earn $300/hour while others charge $3000/hour. And you’ll find tremendous pay differences in other fields as well, even among people who appear to have the same job title, whether it be secretary or CEO. The medium of the career (i.e. the job title) cannot account for these differences.

It isn’t hard to recognize that the primary value comes not from the medium of your career (i.e. your particular job) but rather from the message of your career. The message is what you bring to your career. It’s what fills the otherwise empty container.

For example, I can identify my career as being a writer, blogger, speaker, web developer, entrepreneur, computer programmer, etc. Or I can more broadly say that I’m a communicator. But that would mean defining my career as a medium — an empty container. It’s like saying that I’m a microphone.

The message, as opposed to the medium, is what specific information I communicate through these various vessels. What am I saying? What information is traveling through the microphone?

In my case the message is that I’m here to grow and to help other people to grow. The media I use to convey this message will change and evolve over time, but the message is a constant. And the message is a much better description of my true career than the media that I currently use to express it.

Changing Perspectives

Chances are that you currently think of your career primarily in terms of the medium (i.e. your particular job) rather than the message (i.e. the unique value you bring to your work). I want to dive a little deeper into this distinction with you and show you some perhaps unexpected benefits that may arise when you shift your focus and begin thinking of your career primarily in terms of the message.

There are two significant risks that come from defining your career in terms of your primary medium (i.e. “I’m an attorney” or “I’m a programmer”). The first risk is that you’ll unnecessarily limit yourself. You will only recognize opportunities that present themselves in the form of a nail because you’ve defined yourself as a hammer and nothing more. You’ll fall into the trap of thinking, “Dammit, Jim! I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!” As a human being, there are many ways for you to express and deliver value to others. The current medium of your career is only one of them. When you think of your career as being greater than any single medium, you’ll open yourself to new opportunities that lie outside your current primary medium.

The second risk is that by focusing too heavily on a single medium, you’re likely to lose sight of your message. Your message is far more important than any one medium, so by putting the medium first, you’re likely to suffer from a gradual decline in motivation regarding your work. You begin a new job, and it’s very exciting at first, but the longer you work at it, the less enthusiastic you become. Does this seem familiar at all?

For example, today you’ll find people who define their careers as professional bloggers (the medium), and so they blog about anything and everything. But after several months or perhaps a year of this type of work, it isn’t uncommon to see them becoming apathetic and even depressed about their work. Why? Because the medium (in this case, a blog) is hollow by its very nature, and something hollow cannot provide lasting motivation.

Defining your career in terms of some arbitrary medium, like being a professional blogger, is like a garage band saying, “Yeah, man, it’s all about the CDs.”

So what happens when you put the medium before the message? You define your life in terms of the container instead of what fills that container. You put emptiness before fullness. And this can lead to procrastination, lack of motivation, and low energy. How motivating is it to define your career as being a professional blogger (or any other arbitrary job title)? On a scale of 1-10, maybe it would start at around an 8-9 the first few weeks, but where will it be after five years? Probably a 4 or 5 at best. But by defining your career as the message instead of the medium, you’re probably in the range of 8-10, and five years later you can still be up there. In my case the message of personal development is indeed a 10 for me. My level of enthusiasm for writing, speaking, blogging, or programming waxes and wanes over time, but my interest in personal development remains perpetually high.

The feeling of being driven comes from the message of your work, not the medium.
When you wake up each morning, how do think about your work? Do you say to yourself, “Today I’m going to write something (medium)?” Or are you thinking, “Today I’m going to improve the human condition in some small way (message)?”

Which perspective do you think is more intrinsically motivating?

Certainly both the message and the medium are each an important part of your career, but 
with the rapid pace of technological advancement, your medium is likely to be far less permanent than your message. Notice that medium-based work is highly subject to automation. A salesperson is replaced by a web site. A secretary is replaced by a PDA. A PR firm is replaced by a blog. But automating the message that’s provided by a conscious human being, now that’s a lot tougher. How would you automate the message of personal development, for example?

Finding Your Message

Now how do you identify your message? Your message is essentially your purpose, which I’ve addressed many times in various blog entries. But here’s yet another way to discover your message:

Think about what you bring to your job or career (or even to any random task or project) that’s different than how the “average” person would do it. What’s different about your approach to your work vs. how other people would do the same job?

For example, when I primarily worked as a computer programmer, I was extremely aggressive about improving my skills, and I’d enthusiastically share what I learned with other people. In building my games business, I did the same thing. You can put me in virtually any job, and I’ll bring these same qualities to it. I’ll aggressively strive to get better and better, and I’ll share with others what I learn along the way. That’s the “message” that’s uniquely me.

Imagine yourself working at different jobs and in different fields. What qualities would you bring to your work that are uniquely you? Do you spread good humor, harmony, or passion? Do you provide analytic depth, intuitive insight, or a rational outlook? Do you bring loyalty, teamwork, or honesty to your workplace?

You may find it helpful to try to define yourself in terms of a metaphor. Are you a rock? An eagle? A storm?

If you have trouble figuring this out for yourself, ask people you know for their opinions. (You may want to have them read this article first, so they know what the heck you’re talking about.) Often other people can see us more clearly than we see ourselves.

Embracing Your Message

Once you develop an understanding of your own message (and your understanding will surely evolve over time), you can begin to express that message more consciously. You can redefine your career in terms of that message. Believe me — this is likely to feel very awkward at first. But over time if you can overcome the social conditioning that tries to pigeonhole you into a single medium instead of embracing your message, I think you’ll find it a much more fulfilling way to think about your career.

In school we mostly learn a medium. In high school I learned the medium of writing. In college I learned the medium of computer programming. In Toastmasters I learned the medium of speaking. And from other bloggers I learned the medium of blogging. But the message that I bring to these multi-media isn’t something I learned in school. The message is something that’s been a part of me since childhood, although my awareness of it has certainly increased as I’ve grown up.

When I switched careers from game publishing to working in personal development, it was more than just a job change. It was a shift from medium-based thinking to message-based thinking. Writing and speaking and blogging are better media for my message than developing computer games. And as technology continues to evolve, I have the flexibility to embrace any new media that arise. The media are just empty containers. The message is what fills those containers.

Once I began defining my career in terms of the message instead of the medium, I felt much more in tune with my work. Sometimes I tell people I’m a writer or a blogger or a speaker — all of those are true for now. But internally I feel that any one of those containers is too small a description of the real work I do. Have you ever felt the same way… that your job title is too small for you? How do you feel when you say, “I’m a _____” (fill in your current job title)? Say it right now, and notice how it makes you feel. Does it really describe the totality of the work you do?

How could you give yourself a more expansive message-based career name? Instead of thinking of yourself as an attorney, for instance, how about giving yourself the job title of “Peacebringer” (someone who resolves conflicts and restores peace)? Or instead of being a salesperson or a computer programmer, try adopting the job title of “Problem Solver.” Wouldn’t that be more accurate? How would you react if someone handed you a business card that said, “Jane Smith, Peacebringer?” I’m sure some people would give more credibility to a card that says “Attorney at Law,” but I’d rather hire the Peacebringer, since that title tells me this person understands that the value of their work extends beyond any single medium.

What does your business card say? Does it only list the medium of your work, or does it convey the message? What would be a more appropriate job title for you?

Beyond Career

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, you can apply this concept of the medium vs. the message to other parts of your life beyond your career. I’ll leave it up to you to think about how you might differentiate between the medium and the message in terms of your health, your relationships, your spiritual beliefs, and so on. And for another perspective that overlaps this one, you may enjoy reading this blog post: End Goals vs. Means Goals.

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How To Become Motivated When You Want To Stay In Bed | Laura Jane Hand

If you'd rather stay in bed when your alarm goes off and you have little or no motivation to get up, the first thing to realise is how common this feeling actually is. You are not on your own. Everyone goes through periods in their life where they feel like this. You may feel like you are lost, unsure of what to do next and embarrassed because you feel like you are falling behind.

Here are my 3 steps to getting your motivation back and waking up happy:

1. Be honest - It's OK to feel like this. You don't need to ignore how you feel or lie about it. It's better to speak up and talk about how you are feeling. Don't keep it bottled up. You don't need to tell everyone, but acknowledge how you are feeling and be honest with yourself and those closest to you.

2. Make a date with someone - It's so tempting at a time like this to hide away, to cancel plans or not make any new plans. You may not feel like meeting up with people at all, you will probably prefer to avoid the questions and having to explain what you are doing and how you are feeling. But hiding away isn't going to do you any good. Just because you are feeling like this, doesn't mean you are not good company. You need to get out and see new places, meet friends, be in inspiring surroundings. By doing this, you will find that your enthusiasm comes back and you may even have moments of inspiration which will put you right back on track.

3. Take action - By doing nothing, by going back to bed or avoiding people, you are being a victim and are allowing defeat to take over you. Don't let how you are feeling stop you from taking even a small action. Do something that makes you feel good. Clean out drawers, give unwanted items to charity and de-clutter your life. Sign up to a personal development course. Arrange a coffee with your best friend. Book a yoga workshop. Do whatever it is that will lift your mood.

It is important to realise that these periods in our lives when we feel lost, lacking motivation and even feel like we are falling behind, can actually be good times. They can give us the space, the time and the opportunity we need to grow.

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The Meaning | Jim Carrey

Inspirational words from Jim Carrey.  Enjoy!

"How will you serve the world?  What do they need, that your talent can provide?  That's all you have to figure out."
"The effect you have on others is the most valuable currency there is."
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Motivation is Like Love: Coping When Your Passion Fades | Ali Hale

We’ve all experienced it: that surge of powerful motivation at the start of a project.

• It’s January 1st, and you’ve started your new fitness regime.
• You’ve just started a novel, and you’re pounding out a thousand words a day.
• The launch of your new blog was a week ago, and you’re telling everyone you know about it.

Yet somehow, after a few weeks, that motivation high has gone. One in five gym members go to the gym once a month or less, and several consumer surveys indicate that 80% of new gym members drop out within 8 weeks. Among bloggers, Perseus News reported that of the 4.12 million blogs they surveyed, 66% had not been updated in two months, and 1.09 million were abandoned after only their first post!  Their initial motivation was there, but it didn’t last.

The same happens to you, when you hit a slump, a dip, a low point: the project you were previously so excited about feels like a burden. But if you push through that slump, you’ll find a steady, lasting drive that can carry you onwards until you achieve the goal you’ve set.

From the time we embark on a new project until we are deeply entrenched in following through with it long term, we go through a few different changes and emotional highs and lows: fluctuations that aren’t so different than what we experience elsewhere in our lives.

The “Madly In Love” Phase Of Motivation

“When I start with a new exercise program, or any new goal really, I am rarin’ to go. I am full of excitement, and my enthusiasm knows no boundaries.”
– Leo Babauta, The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal

Let me pause here, and ask you to think about falling in love. When you’re in love, you:

• Forget to eat or sleep because you’re thinking about your loved one.
• Spend every moment you can in their company.
• Tell all your friends how wonderful they are – or alternatively, you keep it to yourself because you’re afraid of spoiling your love by sharing it with the world.
• Walk around with a goofy smile on your face whenever you think about them.

Doesn’t that sound rather similar to what happens with a new project? When you come up with that wonderful idea for a new business venture or goal, you:

• Forget to eat or sleep because you’re thinking about your project.
• Spend every moment you can coming up with schemes and plans, and working on your project.
• Tell all all your friends about your amazing new venture – or alternatively, you keep it to yourself because you’re afraid that talking about your ideas will somehow spoil them.
• Walk around with a goofy smile on your face whenever you’re thinking about how cool your project is.

Love and motivation don’t remain at that high peak for long, but this initial surge of enthusiasm is a great time to enjoy throwing yourself wholeheartedly into a project. While you’re in this stage:

• Draw or write a full, rich description of your ultimate goal – what are you ultimately hoping to achieve? (Writing down your goals leads to success.)
• Write a letter to yourself in a month’s time. In the letter, put words of encouragement, and record how excited and keen you’re feeling at the moment. Seal the letter in an envelope, mark it with your name and the date, and put it somewhere safe. Sadly, you’ll be needing it soon…

The “Panic Dip” Phase Of Motivation

“There have been plenty of high peaks in our marriage when loving each other was natural and easy. There have also been some deep valleys when we thought we just couldn’t get it together.”
–  Alex Blackwell, 23 Heartfelt Reasons I Will Always Be Faithful To My Wife

No-one stays passionately, madly in love for the entire duration of a relationship. Maybe it lasts for a few weeks or months, but then reality sets in:

• Your partner has annoying habits.
• You have different interests, and enjoy some alone time.
• The relationship means changes and extra demands that you didn’t expect.

If it’s the first time you’ve fallen in love, you might panic. You might decide that this girl or guy just isn’t “the one.” But as anyone who’s been in love, and stayed in love, can tell you – it’s normal for that incandescent fire to turn into a more bearable, steady flame.

Similarly, the burst of motivation when you first start a project doesn’t last for long, either. Maybe it blazes like that first fire of love to begin, but you may realize that:

• Aspects of your venture are irritating, annoying or tedious.
• You want to carry on with other hobbies, and sometimes you just want to kick back and relax.
• The project has caused changes and extra demands on your life.

Like love, motivation has natural ups and downs – and it requires hard work. There are times when feeling enthusiastic about your project is “natural and easy”, and times when you want to give up.

So, when that initial surge of motivation vanishes, don’t abandon your project. Accept the peaks and troughs, and start looking for that quiet, steady flame of motivation. Some things which have helped me are:

• Looking back on diary entries from the very early days of the project, when I was filled with enthusiasm and boundless optimism.
• Writing down a list of things that motivate me to carry on with the project.
• Talking to others who are working towards similar goals, and asking for their encouragement and support.

The “Long-Term Commitment” Phase Of Motivation

“What is the best way to motivate yourself for your daily work? Obviously, enjoying your work and having a clear vision are very important, but I don’t believe that they are the most important things for keeping going during the daily grint. On the contrary, I believe that what gives us the most energy is the feeling of being totally on top of our work.”
–Do It Tomorrow by Mark Forster, emphasis mine.

Committing Internally

When you’re in a relationship, part of your responsibility is to help yourself to stay in love with the other person. That doesn’t mean being wildly romantic, pretending that your every thought revolves around them, or refusing to let yourself ever express any reservations about an aspect of their personality or behaviour. But it does mean:

• Giving them not just your time but your serious attention.
• Thinking about the future of your relationship, not just the day-to-day.
• Confronting and working through problems, rather than ignoring them.

It’s the same with your any other serious project. You need to help yourself to stay motivated about it. This means doing the same things as you would in a relationship: devoting time and attention to your project, and being willing to accept that there will be some tricky patches along the way.

Committing Externally

When a couple decides to commit themselves for life, they often get married. This is a commitment to one another, made in front of friends and family. When difficulties arise, that commitment, both public and personal, can provide extra motivation to work through them.

“None of us likes to look bad in front of others. We will go the extra mile to do something we’ve said publicly. … you can do it with friends and family and co-workers, and you can do it on your blog if you have one. And hold yourself accountable — don’t just commit once, but commit to giving progress updates to everyone every week or so.”
– Leo Babauta, The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal

Making It Through the Dip

“There are two great times of happiness – when you are haunted by a dream, and when you realize it. Between the two there’s a lot of uncertainty, a strong urge to let it all drop. But you have to follow your dreams to the end.
There are abandoned bicycles in every garage because their owners’ backsides got too sore the first time they rode them. They didn’t understand that pain is a necessary part of learning. I almost gave up a thousand times before reaching those moments of happiness when I forgot that I was cold. 

You can accomplish this through painting or music, provided that you concede that, before you can play a Bach sonata, you must first learn to play scales. It is only through perseverance that each of us can find himself. It is up to each of us to find his own Pole.”
– Dr. Jean-Louise Etienne, the man who walked alone to the North Pole

This is a hugely powerful quote, reminding us that there will be difficult, tedious, even painful moments on the route to any goal. As with love being strengthened by marriage, you will find that your motivation is strengthened by making a firm commitment. This means:

• Writing down a promise to yourself. For example, “I will commit to working on this project for at least six months, regardless of whether I am seeing any results.”
• Ideally, making your commitment public. Post it on your blog or a web forum. Tell all your friends that you’re going to lose 10lbs before Christmas. Let everyone know that you’re writing a novel.
• Focus on what you’ve achieved and learnt so far, and celebrate how far you’ve come. Look back at all the ground you’ve covered, before you turn your eyes towards what lies ahead: and look foward to the next stage of your journey.

Are You Dipping or Soaring?

[reddit-me] If you’ve been worried because your initial surge of motivation has worn off – stop being concerned, and realize that going through this dip is a normal phase in any long term endeavor. Focus on finding that steady flame of lasting enthusiasm for your projects.

If you want to make, or remake, a public commitment, please feel free to add it in the comments. I’d also love to hear from anyone who’s ridden out motivational dips and dry spells to finally achieve their dreams – whether in a business, personal or social venture.

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