The point is to think an action through before committing.

What are you doing wrong that needs rethinking?

Ask questions? Yes, but make sure they are the right ones.

1. motivation
2. inspiration
3. dedication
4. fascination
5. preparation
6. execution
7. solicitation
8. anticipation
9. aggregation
10. expectation
11. gestation
12. orchestration
13. juxtaposition
14. predication
15. qualification
16. relaxation
17. supposition
18. maximization
19. simulation
20. exaltation
21. ramification
22. justification
23. direction
24. elation
25. restoration

What *ation would you add to the list? What makes for success at your work?

This is the seventh cast in the series Live the Dream looking at many different parts of who we are and how we can get better. The only warning I will give you about this cast is, the topic is serious in nature.

Another personal Thank You! to everyone that listens to Motivation on the Run and all the encouragement I receive about the cast.

Stay motivated!

Music By

John Korbel
David Henderson

Now that we’re all back to reality, let’s look at why motivation is so hard and failure is so easy.

Why Do We Fail?

Ten reasons for failure

1. We procrastinate.
2. We make excuses.
3. We blame others.
4. We give into temptation.
5. We associate with people that drain us.
6. We refuse help from the right people.
7. We work hard at the wrong things.
8. We waste resources.
9. We don’t know what we want.
10. We keep doing the same thing, expecting different results.

Failure is easy because it requires no action on our part. It just happens. Before we can achieve success, we must identify our failure points. From the list above, which affects you the most? If you’re not sure, ask your co-workers or spouse. They know.

Once you’ve identified the root causes of your failures, it’s time to set the plan into motion. I don’t think it’s an accident that motion and motivate have the same root, moti.

Motivation requires action!

Don’t Procrastinate—Motivate

Motion is defined as to move, while motivate is to move to action. We can not get motivated passively. In fact, Motivation is the opposite of procrastination. Motivation is doing something … now! Procrastination is doing nothing … now! Something … Nothing …

We can not succeed if we spend our time dodging our responsibilities. We have to determine what has to get done, then do it … now!

How Can We Succeed?

Don’t make excuses

If we make excuses, we’re playing into the procrastinators hand. “I don’t have time” or “I don’t know how” are just excuses we use to do nothing. There are ways to resolve these problems, such as—make time and learn how. Easy to say, harder to execute.

Don’t Blame Others

Blaming other people for our short-comings or lack of preparation is one of the worst failings of man, in my opinion. It grows like a cancer and takes over the whole person until nothing is ever their fault. Blaming others is also as old as time. Even Adam blamed Eve when confronted by God about eating from the tree,

And Adam said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”

“It’s not my fault” Adam said, “it’s your fault , God, for giving me this woman.” This is not the way to win friends and influence people.  It’s why we lost the game, why we wrecked the car, why we lost the promotion, why we were fired …

Blaming others is as counter-productive as arguing. If we learn to take responsibility for our actions, we can succeed.

Stand firm to Temptation

The temptation of time-wasters are everywhere and are the cause of a lot of procrastination. The television and YouTube are two of the biggest time-wasters. Hours evaporate into a mist of undone tasks before we know it.

These temptations are greatest when we have the most to do. The less time we have, the more reason to watch the latest episode of Monster Car Survivor from Detox.

People are Bad; People are Good

The people in our lives can be the absolute worst thing in our lives or the very best. You must discern which group your spend the most time with. If attitude is one of the most expressive indicators of success (and I believe it is), then those we associate with have the largest effect.

If they are verbal abusers, procrastinators, blamers or under-achievers, they will bring you down to their level. The phrase,

One bad apple spoils the whole barrel

is completely accurate. Many times I have witnessed a negative Nellie bring a whole room’s mood down into the dump in no time.

Spending time with funny, upbeat, positive, energetic, go-getters is infectious if you are seeking positive reinforcement for your attitude. Spending time with negative, spoiled, down-trodden people will not.

Choose wisely whom you spend time with … it’s that important.

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

I like to work hard! There, I’ve said it. However, I sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time on the wrong project. I can work up a sweat doing all the wrong things. Sometimes all it takes to do the right thing is planning, but I’d rather be doing something. Planning seems so non-active.

Plan your work … work your plan, is the true way to success. If you are going to work hard, you should spend the effort on the right project.

Take the time to think about what you should be working on.

Resources Anonymous

We never have enough resources that wasting is a good idea. Short supplies of time, money and friends should cause us to gain a new appreciation, rather than squander them. We throw our money away, we drop time into the bottomless pit, and we take advantage of our friends. Never a good plan for success.

Appreciation of these resources is vital to our success, not for keeping score, but for measuring success. Our attitude toward time and money, and how we treat people, is a good indicator of our character and without character, there can be no long-term success.

When I grow up …

Success if harder when we don’t know how to definition the word in our lives. If you don’t know what you want out of life, how will you know when you have it. If you don’t define success, you can never reach it. It really is that simple.

Sit down and work out what you want. Sure, you’ll have to figure out how to get there, but first discover where there is. And the most important part—don’t procrastinate.

Insanity

We are all guilty of this antithesis to success. We will do the same same over and over, being surprised when the results are the same. This definition for insanity is attributed to Albert Einstein, and he was smart enough to understand the implicit nature of insanity.

Oscar Levant said, “It’s a thin line between insanity and genius” and I think that same line runs between success and failure.

• Failure is never permanent, but success lingers on forever.
• Failures are forgotten, but successes live forever.
• Failures reach their peak early, successes lasts a lifetime.
• Failures lose, successes win

As with most things in life, it’s our choice. Which will you decide?

Call to Action

Do you want to succeed? Then stop procrastinating, making excuses, blaming others, giving into temptation, hanging with the wrong people, refusing help, working hard on the wrong things, wasting resources, wandering aimlessly, and acting out the definition of insanity.

There … I feel better, how ’bout you?

Wiki2008 is officially live and ready to go.

For some, I’ll quickly explain. One of my year-long learning goals involves wikis. I plan to learn about them and determine where I might use them to improve efficiency and productivity. What information is better stored and retrieved from a Wiki rather than a database or memo file? That’s what I want to explore.

The next question, which Wiki works best for business or personal use? It will depend, but if someone knows the criteria for their Wiki, how do they choose the right one? There are hundreds of Wikis available, so it can be very confusing.

For more information and to see how you can participate, visit the Wiki2008 page here on Motivation on the Run then head over to the learning wiki to join in on a year-long of learning. You’ll need the KEY if you plan to add to the wiki—that is MotRWiki2008.

Come on and join the fun and learn at the same time. If everyone takes one wiki to review, we’ll have dozens of reviews for each one. That would be terrific.

This is episode six in our series Live the Dream and I talk about confidence. What is it, why is it important and how can we effect it in our lives. I’m confident you will enjoy this episode and come away with more confidence in your own life.

On the podcast, I quickly mentioned a new project I’m starting in a few days. As you’re aware, this is my Year of the Wiki that I’m titling, Wiki2008. I will be announcing an exciting, new project for group collaboration that will change your life and make you very rich. OK, maybe it won’t change your life or make you rich, but it will be cool. Give me a few more days to iron out the details and I’ll write about it here on Motivation on the Run.

Music By

John Korbel
David Henderson

Learning about and using wikis as an information source is very appealing to me. We all have knowledge in our heads, which is of little use to others unless they can access the information easily. Wikipedia is the classic example of accessible knowledge. It is driven by thousands of people (or more), each contributing from their own experience.

My initial goal is to build a personal wiki containing all my knowledge, which should take a day or two, then next week (several months in reality), begin a shared wiki related to Motivation on the Run. The wiki will pertain to motivation, but I will entertain suggestions about the details.

My first step in learning about a new product is setting up searches and subscribing to the RSS feeds for those searches. This video shows the process for those who haven’t ventured into that territory. This is my first attempt at video capture and will need to sharpen my technical skills a bit.

I’m using the free tool, Camtasia Studio 3 for the capture and am very pleased with the power of this application. I will add it to my software learning goals for 2008, getting more proficient with this utility. It requires a few steps to attain the free version 3, but a quick Internet search will turn up the details.