Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of your Brains Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brains Coach and Executive Coach 360, who is so passionate about bringing you tools, practices, best hacks and tips from the areas of brain, body performance, optimization and adjustments, all with the purpose to help you and us all of us to master our emotions, our thoughts and, most importantly, to take better actions every day. So every day, we could get closer and closer, like 1% closer towards the version of self and our life that we absolutely enjoy being and living. So, you guys, we're talking about motivation, as you guessed from the name of this podcast. And yes, by the end of this not that long podcast, you're going to be in 5% of people who know maybe even less than 5% of people, because 5% of leaders only 5% know how to motivate people and themselves, probably long-term, for long-term goals. You know those pursuits that we make resolutions about on New Year's for the next six months a year, maybe even two, three years, maybe a decade long-term goals. You're going to be in five percent of people, or maybe less than five percent. We actually know number one factor that motivates people.
Speaker 1But before we begin, I want to start with a story, a client of mine. We were having a conversation on Saturday and we usually talk about what happened during the week where we could see potential leverages, things we could work on, improve, and he, like almost at the end of our conversation, he said you know, actually? And almost at the end of our conversation, he said you know, actually, there was something that happened on Monday that was quite significant. They invited this motivational speaker, a Norwegian woman. So this is the story of my client who she and her team were trekking to the North Pole and, as I understood, they didn't reach it. They faced an icy hill. There was this instance where they faced an icy hill that seemed to stretch endlessly. There was no way of knowing how long it's going to take to go up. Should they go to the right, should they go to the left? There is no map. There is this big icy thing and you have no idea how to navigate. You cannot use any equipment to figure out what's the best way around. That Tell me of not having playbook in a situation like this. So you just gotta make a decision. So they decided to go over it, through it. But they also realized, because they didn't know when it's going to finish. So the woman realized that they needed something to keep them going. They needed to set up some milestones, some indication of progress. By the end of the day, they get to celebrate something, they get to achieve something, so then they get to look forward to something the next day. So what they did is every day they would set out a dot, a spot in the distance, and that was their destination. And every day, when they reached it, they had something to celebrate. They did it, they made it right. So it got closer, one step closer, even though that step was only in their imagination and they had no idea of knowing how long it's going to take.
Speaker 1But don't you think there is some similarity to our goals that we set? Yes, you can set a goal to achieve certain income or certain health state on that date, but you know, a lot of things are outside of our control. Yes, there are also a lot of things that are inside of our control, specifically our actions, our attitudes, our thoughts, our emotions, how we make decisions. But we are never guaranteed that life is going to exactly align to meet our plans. You know, aligned to meet our plans. You know man plans. God loves meaning that, yes, we can make progress, but the exact date when we achieve this exact result it's not definite and sometimes it can come sooner, sometimes it can come later and you just gotta figure out how to keep yourself going. Until you figure it out, you gotta keep your motivation going, the drive to persevere, to continue, the desire to stay disciplined. You gotta know how to get it going. And so you're gonna be again, as promised, in 5% of people who know what motivates, number one factor that motivates people long-term.
Speaker 1Speaking back to that woman and the story and how she broke down a long, indefinite pursuit towards finding that North Pole into smaller, manageable daily goals, she probably knew that she probably was in 5% of those leaders who knew that what motivates people the most, what keeps people going, is the sense of progress. Research shows that people find the most motivating thing number one factor to Progress towards meaningful goals, towards meaningful pursuits. Now it's up to you to define meaning and you can define and redefine and connect, reconnect, clarify it to make it stronger. So that's very important for goal pursuit. But once you understand that this goal is truly meaningful, tracking progress, breaking down your long pursuit into smaller milestones, that's what keeps the motivation high. And here's the thing If only 5% of leaders they actually did research on that, on managers specifically know that number one factor that motivates people, no wonder so many people think that motivation doesn't work, that it doesn't last. Maybe because nobody taught them how to create more of that by breaking down your long-term projects into smaller and smaller milestones.
Speaker 1Here's another piece of research for you. Researchers found that people are motivated the most in two places, in two times, at two times pursuing goals, a goals. So we are very motivated and that is across the board. As long as you have a human brain not even human brain, mammal brain it works even in mice. So we have the most motivation. At the beginning of pursuit of the goal, we are excited, we're high on it, we can't wait to get started and get our first wins and feel like, yeah, we're capable, it's possible. This new level of I don't know excellence or financial income, or a new fitness goal or a new body, we are eager to work on it right. So at the beginning, research shows that's one of the times that we find a lot of motivation, naturally. And then the second time is at the end of pursuit of the goal. So when we feel like we're getting closer to the reward, to the ends, to the point where we can celebrate and we can show off our achievements and we can get the reward internal, external, whatever that might be that's where we also speed up and we intensify our efforts, we feel motivated. But then guess what?
Speaker 1The lowest point of motivation is in the middle, and the problem with long-term goals is that middle is quite the middle and the problem with long-term goals is that middle is quite freaking long. You take six months project, yearly project two, three or a decade project. Like your middle is a lot of years or a lot of months, a lot of weeks. So how do researchers propose you deal with that? And what works in research for human psyche? What works to bump up our motivation in that middle? We artificially sometimes we also have those milestones, but very often, like that Norwegian woman, we artificially create milestones that we get to celebrate often, ideally every day. Sometimes you work on something that hard that you need to celebrate something several times per day. So creating those small milestones, making the middle shorter and showing your brain that you are moving towards the goal, that you are making progress, which is number one factor that motivates human brain Breaking down your goal into smaller milestones that you get to celebrate very often, very frequently. That shows your brain that you're making progress. That is how you make your motivation last throughout the longest project.
Speaker 1And again, many people just don't understand how it works and you skip this step. Heck, I still skip this step with my clients because at the end of the story I didn't finish. The client told me you know, I feel like I don't actually have this. We're working on this goal. So we lost, with my client, 20 kilos and we are working on the last 10 percentages of body fat, because now he cares more about muscle mass and body fat. And we are working on the last 10 percentages of body fat because now he cares more about muscle mass and body fat. So we are working on that. But it's still a long goal. It can take 10 to 20 weeks to reach that. And he told me you know, angela, I don't feel like we have this. We're just working on this big goal and I don't feel like I'm winning ever. And I said to myself ah, I did a bad job. And I told him I did a bad job here by not helping you to break down this longer goal into smaller micro steps and milestones that we get to celebrate every day, every week. So we did that after.
Speaker 1And then I looked at my 100-day challenge, where I decided that I'm going to endure and I'm going to work every day, where I decided that I'm going to endure and I'm going to work every day. And also I decided that I'm going to read 33 books, which I read four of them already. But I also realized that I don't celebrate when I finish the book, that I don't have any milestone except that endure for 100 days. But how do you know if you're making any progress, if you are enduring for something? And I asked myself these questions and I had no answer. I'm like, yeah, you did not set up any milestones, you did not make it meaningful, you did not make the middle shorter, and no wonder it's day 12 and you're feeling deflated, like you've made no progress, you made no wins, and it's only day 12 and you have so many to go and maybe you're going to fail. That's what my brain is starting to tell me.
Speaker 1When we don't break down big, long goals into milestones and we have only one win, at the end, your brain starts talking yourself out of it because it doesn't feel like you're making progress. The number one factor that motivates human being progress and your brain doesn't see it. And that's when we're quick, when we fail, when we make decisions that it's not worth it, that it's not working, and maybe it's not supposed to work for the next 100 days, but fully, and maybe it will take more than 100 days or whatever that goal is. But you need to make sure that you're moving somewhere, that you are making progress, and you need to show that to your brain. In breaking your long goals into milestones, I also defined it very well like what progress means.
Speaker 1With the client, we decided you know, I just care that's what he told me about my body fat at this moment going down. So now we're at 30 and I want to see it at 29, whatever that is, but at 29. I'm like, okay, that is a doable, manageable milestone for the next week. And then we brainstorm okay, how are we going to make sure that we are making progress towards it? Where can we make improvements? And we brainstorm suggestions from clients' life and then we chose a couple. Right? So these are the things that might be missing for you and that's why you don't feel motivated when you set goal. It's only January being end of January.
Speaker 1Maybe you're listening to this podcast at some other time but realize if you are right now at a spot where you have a big goal and you start feeling like maybe it's not worth it, maybe I'm not capable, maybe it's the wrong, maybe it's not the wrong thing, maybe it's the right thing, but you need to break it down into milestones and define clearly what progress means so you can track that progress, so you make yourself feel like a winner, so you could see tangible progress towards that goal in some way. So your brain feels like you're making progress, so you feel the celebration, so you shorten the middle where your motivation is at lowest, and you hit all these points and you get your motivation to be higher than average, so you get the energy to pursue those long-term goals. You know you take Elon Musk, you take Richard Branson, you take any artist, entrepreneur, like whoever you admire. It takes years to get significant progress and get some recognition, some great recognition from the world. How are you going to continue for those years? This is how you define progress. You break down your goal into concrete, smaller milestones that you get to celebrate and you make it a point to acknowledge your wins.
Speaker 1If not every day or several times per day, then I don't know every other day. It's got to be pretty damn frequent. And don't forget that only 5%, even leaders, know that this is the number one thing that motivates people. That's been proven in research. So don't be surprised if most people don't do it. Heck, I forget to do it. With 15 years of coaching under my belt, I forget to do it for myself. And then I'm surprised why am I not motivated? And I'm deflated.
Speaker 1And the thing is with your motivation. Not only your motivation goes down, your energy goes down. This is the way of brain of telling you this is a waste of our time. Go switch, your energy goes down. This is the way of brain of telling you this is a waste of our time. Go switch your attention somewhere else. You lose energy, you lose motivation just to get there. And you'll notice as soon as you start doing something new and that's where entrepreneurial jump around happens you start doing something new, you get back this energy and you start thinking, oh, this might be the thing. No, it just. Your brain got tired of seeing no progress for so damn long that anything will feel like an improvement and that's it. That's the trick of our psychology.
Speaker 1So you have a long-term goal right now. Make sure that you know how you measure progress. Ideally, you have several indicators of progress, that you are on the right track. Even more ideally, you have the quit criteria. Maybe this goal, or the way you do it, isn't working or is not going to work, so you need to have a criteria when you know whether it's working or not. But beyond that, make sure to break down your goal into milestones, something to celebrate daily, something to show the progress to your brain, so you get your motivation higher, so you get your energy higher, so you get to pursue long-term goals and create excellence. And that's, my friend, what I wanted to talk to you about.
Speaker 1If this podcast was helpful, please do share it with at least one other person, because so many people have no idea how to motivate themselves and we are losing so much of human potential to nothingness. So please do share this podcast episode. We don't run any ads and we appreciate you sharing and making and helping me to help more people, help people with dreams and goals and wanting to make a world a better place to do so right. So share this podcast episode, the most important thing except besides the learning and improving yourself. Then also do rate, review this podcast. It also helps us to reach more people on any platform where you find this podcast.
Speaker 1Thank you, guys, for listening. Thank you for paying attention. Today is Monday on this side of the world, no matter what day it is, for you realize that your brain has the thing, the progress that you need to create sense of if you want to go after long-term goals and go get after it, no matter what day of the week it is. You can do it. You have what it takes and that might be a worthy pursuit. Just learn how to self-motivate and teach others. Thank you, guys, and I'll talk to you very soon.