Finding your “Why” in life.

Alfousseni SIDIBE, President of BETC

Can you really motivate other people, if you cannot motivate yourself? 

Kemmons Wilson “A successful person realizes his personal responsibility for self-motivation. He starts with himself because he possesses the key to his own ignition switch”.  

One of the hardest challenges we face every day is how to create motivation. How to motivate ourselves to keep going, even when things get hard. 

Fellow Toastmasters and Distinguished Guests, 

No matter who you are, where you are from and how you look like, everyone is trying to motivate someone. Parents try to motivate their children to study well at school, Bosses try to motivate their employees to work faster. Even some people try to motivate themselves to lose weight.

Unfortunately, motivation often fails because it’s an external force that requires either a threat or a reward. A threat because you are afraid to lose something or a reward because you are happy to get something.

Fellow Toastmasters and Distinguished Guests,  

But how can we create this inspiration in us? Here are few steps to follow:

First step: Find a mission  

Having passion is not enough, you have to be objectively oriented and have something you deeply care about, and want people to succeed. For Example in the popular TED talk of Simon Sinek, he highlights the importance of finding your “why” in what you do. So I recommend you to find your “why” which will guide you as a fire flame. Once you have your why, you don’t need an alarm clock to wake up; you wake up before the alarm ready to dive into a new day. When you have your “why”, you don’t need to be told what to do at work; you’re already thinking of ways to make your work even better.

Once you know your “why”, motivation comes, and your “why” can be:

-      Either a material reward 

-      Either a personal gain 

-      A feeling of accomplishment 

-      Or a step closer to your bigger goal 

Step Two, Fuel your Motivation 

Zig Zigglar “Motivation is the fuel, necessary to keep human engine running”.

While getting addicted to smoking and drugs is bad, being a “quote addict” is good for you. The more you are surrounded by inspiring quotes, the more motivated you become. But, I took it to an extreme: I subscribe to dozens of Facebook pages that post inspiring quotes every day. Because for me, Facebook is no longer a place for gossip, but rather a source of inspiration and hope.

Watch constantly motivational videos on Youtube (to me it is virtual University) that provide motivation and inspiration for your leadership and communication journey. Still about inspiration, Jim Rohn said “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” In other words, birds of feather flock together. Inspiration is contagious. When you hang out with inspiring people, you become inspired.

Step Three: Love what you do

When it comes to motivation, attitude is everything. Different people may have completely opposite feelings towards the same task: some will hate it, others will love it. Steve Jobs said “If you don’t have fun doing what you are doing, you will give up, because success is so hard that any rational person will give up”. Love what you do and have fun doing it.

 

Step Four: Take different approach: 

 

Albert Einstein says “You can't keep doing the same thing every day and expect different results”. You have to change your approach if one doesn’t work change it to a different one.
Some people think that trying a different approach means giving up. Don’t be stubborn, try other options to get towards your goal.

Step Five: Self Evaluation

Check whether you are getting closer to your goal or not then adjust it.

Conclusion:   

Finding your “why”, I repeat your “why” in life determines your degree of motivation and guide your power of inspiration. Ross Perrot said “You don’t have to be the biggest to beat the biggest”. 

Bamako English Toastmasters Club - BETC

Speaker: Alfousseni Sidibé

Project 5 (Competent Communication Manual)