Investigating Emotions: Feeling Motivated

A while ago, I started another side project. While reading the great book “Permission to Feel” by Marc Brackett, I got excited about the prospect of having a method that helps you to identify your emotion and simultaneously broaden your emotion vocabulary. And although this is a long-term project, I will write about some of it from time to time. Like today.

Motivation is an interesting topic. There are many books and movies out there how to motivate yourself and others. One of the most common questions asked in a leadership training is: How do I motivate my team? And although there is good advice out there, I want to tackle this from a different angle by concentrating on the emotion and what can be done to harness this emotion to make it available in times of need.

One wonderful way to do this was introduced to me during my coaching education. The method is called Positive Portfolio. Although this method is not aimed solely on the feeling of motivation, it is still one that promises a lot of benefits. And I say promises because I just recently started using this method consciously.

I think we can all remember times when we watched a movie, or a video clip, or we listened to someone, or we read something and, all of a sudden, we felt motivated. If you cannot remember feeling motivated, maybe you can remember feeling energised, excited, intrigued, passionate, curious, inspired, powerful, alive, vigorous, filled with conviction and/or enthusiastic. Those emotions can all hold this spark of getting into the doing mode.

And that is the most important one. Doing. What I did when watching a movie and feeling motivated was that I started in my mind to plan and discover and reflect and and and… But it all remained in my head. Furthermore, I wanted to stay in this emotion of feeling the energy in my body but still remaining in the comfort of my couch. Sometimes, I also thought that if I continue watching it, then I will become even more motivated and then I will start acting right after. I think you can imagine what happened instead.

The key of harnessing this feeling is to directly act upon. When you watch a movie and something motivates you, pause and do whatever it was motivating you to do. Even if it is just a tiny step, like writing down the thoughts to a book you want to write, or doing some exercises, or looking up a new recipe you want to try out. Do it now. But what if I am together with my partner while watching a movie during date night? Still the same. Tell him/her that you felt really motivated by that and you want to take a first step doing xyz. Actually, this is rather attractive because it shows that you have drive and passion for life. However, in this instance, really try to take only a tiny step as it is also important that you stay true to your word and spend the rest of the date focused on your partner =).

So what about this method I spoke of earlier?

The task is to create a portfolio of photos, music, poems, quotations, memorabilia, objects, videos and films, diary entries, tastes and smells and everything that creates the feeling of motivation for you.

Spend at least one week 15 minutes a day every day with your portfolio and observe the process. And here are some valuable tips for creating your Positive Portfolio…

Use different things, be sincere and honest with yourself, create emotional depth, have it always ready, take your time to develop the portfolio, try not to analyse it but to feel it and use a new portfolio if it loses its effect.

What do you do to motivate yourself? And what works best for you? Let me know in the comments.

Have a wonderful day, Stephan