Top 9 Ways to Motivate People to Do Their Best
Whether or not you consider yourself to be a leader, you still need to know how to motivate and inspire other people. We often find ourselves in situations, where we have to motivate others, be it talking a friend into joining a gym with us, convincing our future employer that we are the best person for the job or encouraging our co-workers to work on a project.The real question many of us ask ourselves is how do you motivate people? How do you encourage them to be the best that they can possibly be?
It is not an easy question. And as in most cases there is no straight answer or secret NLP trick that will work for everyone. There are, however, a few things that I have found helpful when it comes to inspiring people and motivating them into taking action:
1. Be inspired
It may seem strange that the first and the most important step to motivate others is to motivate yourself. Just like fire, enthusiasm is catching. A candle that is not burning cannot light another candle. Similar, if you are not motivated or do not believe in the idea you are sharing with others, they will never be inspired by your words. If you want to inspire others, you have to be their inspiration.
2. Make it look like fun
Do you remember “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain”? The main hero, Tom, as a punishment has to whitewash a fence around his aunt’s house. His friends are making fun of him for having to work on a hot sunny day. “What do you call work?”, Tom asks one of the boys“ I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” 5 minutes later the boys end up paying Tom for letting them whitewash the fence, while promising to do a great job.
It is all about perspective! If you think about it, there are a few really boring tasks that no motivational speaker on Earth can make sound more appealing. In 99% of cases there is not that much of a difference between hard work or a challenging, yet fun activity, and it is up to you to choose how to present it.
3. Trust people to do a good job
In psychology there is a concept called self-fulfilling prophesies. It has been demonstrated time and again that people’s behavior greatly depends on expectations we place on them.
