I was doing an exercise recently, in fact I’m still working on it, about motivation.  The exercise was to determine what motivates me.  I wracked my brain.  I asked myself deep, searching questions.  The only thing I could come up with was - that when my family is in a crisis of any sort, small or large, I am motivated like never before.  My focus becomes clear.  My focus is razor sharp.  My senses are like that of an animal hunting, or being hunted.  Everything to left and right fades away and only my path becomes clear, focused and definite.

 

 

But the exercise required me to mention 5 ways/things that motivate me.  I could not think of any others.  I did the exercise with a colleague.  Still nothing.  I was beginning to feel that it was odd that only a negative thing would motivate me so energetically.  So I e-mailed a couple of people to ask them what questions I could ask myself to elicit the answers.  They both replied in much the same way.  They pointed out that I was motivated every day, I just didn’t think about it.  Why would I get out of bed in the morning if I wasn’t motivated?  Why would I have tried to do the exercise in the first place, if I wasn’t motivated?  Why would I eat, read, learn, feed my family & care for them, drive my kids to their classes etc. if I wasn’t motivated?

 

So I began to see that I was looking for a huge motivating factor.  I was looking for what motivates me to make big decisions, or big changes, or take big chances.  But, while these occasions for the BIG motivator and BIG response do exist, they are not the nuts and bolts of my everyday living.  My ordinary (if any motivator is truly ordinary) motivations are the same as the big one I identified - I love my family.  I want to be loved, needed, appreciated, listened to.  I want to feel good.  That motivates me to do the things that will lead to me feeling good.  End of story.

 

I don’t mean “I need a new haircut” or “I need a holiday in Spain”.  I mean your real needs, the things that are crucial to your living a full live.  I’m talking about “I need to feel loved.  I need to be heard.  I need to pass on, to someone else, the love and joy that I feel”.  Because when you find those real, deep-down needs that you must fulfill to have a happy life, they are also the clues to the beliefs that are “hardwired” into your earliest programming. 

 

You  might say that “survival” is the most basic need, because if we don’t survive then there’s no point in worrying about the other stuff!  But straight after survival come the needs that we have that, if they are not met (either by ourselves or by others), we will have a mere survival, and not a life.  What do you want for yourself?  Just to survive?  Or to really live?

 

I have always known that family is very important to me.  As a member of a family of seven (one sister, three brothers & the parents), the actions and interactions of “family” is what supports me, challenges me, drives me and sometimes limits me (depending on what I choose).  But when I started learning about NLP and how our own internal programming and view or “map” of the world affects us, I dug down to the very core of my beliefs.  And right there, at the heart, is the fact that - for me - family is sacred.  Way beyond what is nice and cosy, snuggled up by the fire, heart-to-heart chats with family members.  It is like my “Prime Directive” (for all Star Trek fans), and my decisions and actions all stem from that.  The basis for it was built up in my earliest years, through experiences and understandings that I had as a child.

 

But is it always useful for me, now, as an adult with family of my own?  Is it helpful for me to hold sacred a system which may need to change and adapt over the years?  This is a rhetorical question, by the way.  While I myself will always be searching for the answer to this, and acting on it, it is only relevant to you in terms of what your Prime Directive is, where it came from, and whether it still supports you.

 

After survival comes belief.  Choose carefully what you believe, and keep checking to see if it supports you throughout your life, in all and changing circumstances.  Remember you get to choose.

 

I’m delighted to have my Ice Breaker speech over with. Because the weather here was bad (good night for an ice-breaker! Ha! Ha!), there was only a small number of members at the Toastmasters club. But - for me - it didn’t matter how few or how many, the challenge was to stand up in front of the group and make my first speech. It can be 5-7 minutes long and the subject is usually - yourself.

 

So I spoke about being the middle child in my family, and how that impacted on me as a child. I was trying to give out a bit of information about myself, but without getting into boring details. So I tried to make it like a bit of a story. I was very nervous sitting waiting for my turn to get up to the lectern, and was glad when it came to my turn to speak. Also, in our Toastmasters club (perhaps it’s standard throughout the organisation?) the lower stages of speeches are made first. That way I didn’t have to stand up to speak after a more advanced speaker, which was just as well since the following speakers were really good. That’ll be me someday.

 

If you’re wondering how to improve your self-confidence, or your ability to face a group and speak, I can’t recommend anything better than Toastmasters. It is supportive, positive, educational and there is a wealth of experienced speakers to draw on for advice and guidance. Stop putting it off. Go do it!

 

The time has come. Tonight I make my Toastmaster’s Ice-Breaker speech. That means it will be the first speech I make at my Toastmasters club, since I joined last September. With the weather looking none too good, it may be a very small audience to hear it!

 

I joined Toastmasters after hearing about it yyyyyyeeeeeeeaaaaaaaarrrrrrss ago from a friend of mine. She joined way back in 19?? and recommended it to me then. It always sounded like a good idea, but I constantly have a list of things that I think are a good idea. It doesn’t mean I will necessarily get around to any or all of them… ever! But this one finally came to pass because I decided it was high time I got over my anxiety about standing up in front of groups of people and speaking to them. I’m great at the one-to-one, but have some difficulties translating that into speaking to groups.

 

Also, last year, when I started the Jack Canfield Success Principles coaching, my breakthrough goal was/is to increase my self-belief and confidence. The breakthrough goal is defined as the one goal that, if you achieve it, it will have a huge impact on every other goal you have or set. For me, increasing my belief in my own skill, abilities, learning and intuition was what I identified as the biggest breakthrough I could make.

 

As part of that, it came back to my mind that my friend had recommended Toastmasters to me years ago. I thought it was a good place to start, since its whole focus is standing up and making speeches in front of people. My experience so far has been very positive and it already benefitting me and helping me towards my goal.

 

The atmosphere at Toastmasters is one of welcome and support. From the moment I attended my first meeting I was greeted warmly and given lots of information about the group and its work. Members were friendly and I was never left to feel isolated or on-the-fringe. I found the evening very inclusive, but I was assured that guests were not called on to speak, but could answer topics if they felt the urge. I didn’t! But within a couple of months I was asked if I would like to do Poet Master (which is to select a poem and to read it at a Toastmasters meeting, and to say a few words about the poet and why I chose the poem.

 

The support and goodwill at meetings is such that I found myself agreeing, and even looking forward to it. I have since done Poet Master again, and tonight I will do my Ice-Breaker speech. Wish me luck!