The Comeback Chronicles Podcast

Bolt #5: Harnessing Motivation That Lasts

• Terry L. Fossum

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We explore the "fifth bolt" that holds people back from success: lack of motivation to stick with goals over time. Traditional goal-setting methods often fail because they rely on single-factor motivation rather than harnessing both positive desire and fear of negative consequences.

• The famous "Harvard goal-setting study" that's repeatedly cited in motivational literature never actually happened
• Visualization and dream boards alone aren't enough to create sustained motivation
• Fear of loss is often a more powerful motivator than the prospect of gain
• The Ox Cart Technique combines both motivational forces for maximum effectiveness
• Success requires both clear goals AND a specific daily action plan
• The three components: failure scenario, action plan, and success scenario
• Daily repetition of this process creates unstoppable momentum toward goals
• The decision to succeed happens daily through actions taken or not taken

Head over to ultimatedrivingforce.com to download the Ox Cart Technique templates and start creating your personalized motivation system today. If you're ready to break through your comfort zone and reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, visit terrielfossum.com for free resources and more.


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Speaker 1:

If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past failures and you're ready to break through your comfort zones to finally reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, then this podcast is for you. Here's your host Terry L Fossum L Fossum.

Speaker 2:

The fifth bolt that we're going to blow is the lack of motivation to stick with it. You're going to love this one. I'm going to tell you exactly why what you've tried in the past didn't work, and give you a powerful system to harness every bit of energy you have in your entire being to stick to your goals, no matter what you ready, let's get started. Where there's a will, there's a way. Where there's a will, there's a way may be one of the most profound statements in the entire world. Think about it when there's a will, there's a way.

Speaker 2:

Throughout human history, this has been proven time and time again. People have overcome great obstacles, accomplished great things, even performed seemingly superhuman feats, because their will was strong enough. If the will is strong enough, fear excuses, complacency, laziness, even mental and physical exhaustion fades away. I'm going to read that again because I want to make sure you heard this If the will is strong enough, fear excuses, complacency, laziness and even mental and physical exhaustion fade away. If your will is strong enough, nothing, absolutely nothing, will get in your way. But the challenge is focusing that will enough to begin with. Then keep it strong for the long run, isn't it? This is where many of us have failed. Isn't that right? And let me ask you this have you ever started a goal and failed? I know I have. I read all of these books and listened to all of these tapes and gone to all of these tapes and gone to all of the seminars on goal setting and tried and tried again and I kept failing. In fact, in all honesty, I finally got so disillusioned that I stopped making goals altogether. Seriously, I really did. And why not? Nothing I read or listened to worked for me. So I started questioning the conventional wisdom out there, the methods, the so-called truths, and what I found out absolutely astonished me.

Speaker 2:

Here's an example you may have heard about the Harvard study. It's repeated time and time again in motivational speeches and writings and books and everything else. Here's how it goes. In the book what they Don't Teach you in the Harvard Business School, mark McCormick tells a study conducted on students in the 1979 Harvard MBA program. In that year, the students were asked have you set clear written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them? Have you set clear written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them? Only 3% of the graduates had written goals and plans. 13% had goals, but they were not in writing and a whopping 84% had no specific goals at all. Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewing again and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing. The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who had no goals at all. And what about the 3% who had clear written goals? They were earning, on average, 10 times as much as the other 97% put together. So, if I'm understanding this, all we have to do is write down our goals and we should be earning 10 times as much as the 97% of the population. Right, man? That sounds amazing. Sounds great. Sign me up. I'm going to start writing like a maniac, put them in my desk drawer and wait for the money to start flowing in. Here's the problem. It's not true. Harvard did not conduct that study, neither did Yale or anyone else who's been credited with it. The study never happened, guys. Someone made it up and it's been repeated so many times in so many places that everyone believes it's true but it's not.

Speaker 2:

You can't just write down your goals and expect them to happen. Is writing your goals down important? Absolutely it is. Writing your goals down is critical. Is it enough to motivate you to get going and keep going when all the distractions get in your way? No, it's simply not. Or there would be a lot more wealthy, physically fit people in the weeks following New Year's resolutions. Now the next one many of us have heard of Visualize your goal and the universe will move to make your goal come true. Visualize your goal and the universe will move to make your goal come true. Tens of millions of books and audios have been sold worldwide espousing this theoretical truth. I bought them.

Speaker 2:

The problem is it's not that simple. You can't just wave your mental magic wand and have the rabbit appear out of the hat. You can't just wait for your ship to come in. You have to swim out to get it. I've been visualizing winning the lottery for years now and I haven't won a single dollar. Now, granted, I haven't bought a ticket, but that's not what the visualize and the universe will move to make it happen. Theory teaches I should just visualize health and prosperity and happiness, and all of those things will happen by the will of the universe. But for me, until I actually took action, the universe wasn't willing.

Speaker 2:

So listen, I make a little fun here, but I do want to give this concept some credence as well. There's no doubt in my mind that there are forces out there stronger than what we currently understand. There's no question about it. There's so much we simply don't know. I'm not going to say that there's no merit at all to this, because I believe there is, but there's a phrase that I also believe is true God helps those who help themselves. Again, god helps those who help themselves. Understand this, again, I don't care what your belief is, whether it's a supreme being or the universe or whatever. Putting it out there to the universe alone isn't going to make your goals and dreams come true. It's going to take consistent action, and this follows right along with the concept of dream boards.

Speaker 2:

Now, before all you dream board believers out there start to get unhappy with me, I believe in dream boards. It's okay. I believe in them. I really do. That was a close call. Okay, for those who don't know what a dream board is, it's where you put pictures of what you want to accomplish, obtain and become up on the wall, where you'll see it every day. Now it can be powerful. It really can, but not all powerful and, in fact, not powerful enough for most people. See, there's a reason why most people who put up dream boards never actually achieve those dreams. Now I can hear right now the people who did achieve them saying hey, I did, congratulations, fantastic, I'm truly happy for you. You're one of the exceptions.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, it doesn't work for most people by itself, and that's true for many reasons. By itself, and that's true for many reasons, some people have such self-limiting beliefs that even though they put pictures up there, they can't believe it can be true for them. And if their subconscious is saying you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not worthy enough, it's not really possible, etc. Then those self-limiting beliefs will hinder their efforts. Those pictures are ineffective. Another reason is that those are goals, hopes and dreams far into the future, and all too often more immediate needs trump the efforts towards the long-term goals.

Speaker 2:

Things get in the way that require your immediate attention, right, and before you know it, the dream board just becomes another thing in your house, collecting dust. Just more goals that were never reached and dreams that never came true. Now listen, I'm speaking from experience here. I tried all of these things. I really did, and I'll tell you there are very few things more demotivating than throwing away your dream board. It feels like you're throwing away your hopes and dreams. Man, in all honesty, I'm getting down just remembering that. Remembering doing that it hurts. So let's move on to the solution. I've gone through what doesn't work, things many of us have tried in the past, but what does work Now. I'm not going to pretend to know what works for everybody okay, there's probably no such thing but I am happy to say that through decades of trial and error and trial and error and trial and error, I developed a system that was insanely powerful for me and a whole lot of other people too.

Speaker 2:

As you've probably heard, I came from humble, sometimes very challenging beginnings and was, and I quote, never supposed to grow up to be anything. Now I'm going to say a couple of things that are going to sound like bragging, but I just want you to know what's happened to me since then. Even though I was never supposed to grow up to be anything, I had a very successful military career where I was officer of the year for Fairchild Air Force Base. I was humanitarian of the year for the entire strategic air command. I had a very successful business career where I built sales teams around the globe and made lots of money and helped lots of people in the process. I've had success in acting and producing, winning Best Supporting Actor and Fan Favorite at the 21 Christian Film Festival. I'm a best-selling author, hitting number one on the Wall Street Journal, amazon and Barnes Noble bestseller lists. I'm an international keynote speaker. I've had wilderness adventures and philanthropic projects all around the world, and there's a few other things thrown in there, but that should be enough to prove the point.

Speaker 2:

So what did all these decades of failure and then success teach me? Well, it taught me that we needed more than what we were being taught. Positive visualization, though important, wasn't enough. Just writing it down, though, important, wasn't enough. Putting it out to the universe, though, important, wasn't enough. I needed a system that gave me the willpower not to just get going, but to keep going, even when the times were tough and I didn't want to. Even when the distractions got in the way, when the fear started winning out and the excuses started to make sense, I started to believe them. I needed more. In fact, most of the population on the earth needed more or more. People would have been reaching their goals, and in developing the system, I learned something I never would have been reaching their goals. And in developing the system, I learned something I never would have thought, something that was counterintuitive to what I'd been taught.

Speaker 2:

See, this might sound strange, but depending on the situation and the person, oftentimes the fear of loss is a greater motivator than the prospect of gain. Let me say that again the fear of loss is a greater motivator than the prospect of gain. Now, when I started thinking of this, things started making sense to me. Dream boards showing all of these things that successful people have didn't work for me. I don't care about all the trappings of being rich Heck, I'm most happy in a tent on top of a mountain somewhere. Now, don't get me wrong. I like all these things and, quite frankly, now I have many of them. But those things were not enough.

Speaker 2:

When the distractions got in the way, or I had my 20th failure in a row, or people told me I was an idiot again, and sometimes I said it to myself no, you know what kept me going? The fear of loss. I didn't need to be rich in my old age, but I darn sure didn't want to be poor. Okay, back in my day we had a McDonald's commercial where they showed some old retirement age guy, theoretically excited to be going to work at McDonald's. He's smiling, he's putting his McDonald's hat on and he's asking do you want fries with that? Are you kidding me? That scared the heck out of me. Now, great for him if he actually wanted to be doing that in his retirement years. But that's absolutely not what I wanted to be doing and there was no way in cold Hades that I was going to let that happen to me. I don't care how many people tell me no, how many times I fail, how many people think I'm crazy, how many times I get knocked down. I don't care. I'm sure as heck never going to have to do that.

Speaker 2:

In my old age, the fear of loss was a much greater motivator than the prospect of gain. Now this same concept works great in a relationship too right. I will always be faithful to my wife and do all the things that need to be done to keep a marriage growing strong, for two reasons. First of all, I love her. I'm head over heels in love with her. I want her to be happy. I want to have a lot of amazing years together, with all that that brings, but you know what. The second thing is I don't want to be divorced again. Divorce sucks, and the thought of hurting her and living without her, that sucks even more.

Speaker 2:

So if I'm getting tempted, do you think merely the prospect of gain is the most powerful or the combination of both? Certainly, I can assure you the combination of both. Certainly, I can assure you the combination of both. In fact, that same concept works for pretty much any goal. If you can figure out how to harness both the prospect of gain and the fear of loss, you have a force more powerful than anything on the face of the earth, a force that will keep you going in the right direction, taking the right steps and propelling you forward to your goal, even in the midst of the adversity, the fatigue, the distractions, the fear and anything else that might get in your way.

Speaker 2:

So how do you do that? That's where the Oxcart Technique comes in. Now. Odds are, if you're listening to this recording, you've already read my book, the Oxcart Technique Blueprint for Success. So everything you've heard so far is really ringing true, and this is serving as a great refresher for you. As the technique itself points out, repetition is a very good thing. Now, if you haven't read it yet, read it. Okay, let me be blunt here. Read it, look it hit number one on all of those lists for a real good reason Number one on the Wall Street Journal list, number one on Amazon, number one on Barnes Noble. It's a pretty good book and it's going to give you a different perspective, examples and everything else to add to what you're learning here.

Speaker 2:

The technique starts with an adaptation of an old parable, as have some of our most important truths that have stood the test of time. The story is called the Farmer and the Ox Cart. There was once a farmer who lived on very fertile land but had no way to get his crops to the market just to cross the river. Well, why don't you build a bridge? The village elder asked him. I'm a farmer. He replied I don't know how to build a bridge. Ask the carpenter. The elder suggested he knows how to build many things. And sure enough, the farmer learned from the carpenter how to build a bridge and got to work building it.

Speaker 2:

Now the farmer had his bridge, but he had no way to pull his cart full of vegetables across the bridge to the market. So he bought an ox from the village elder. It was a good ox, a strong ox. But when he brought it home and attached it to his cart. It refused to pull the cart anywhere. This ox is no good. He said to the elder I want my money back. Well, how did you motivate him? The elder asked Motivate him. He's an ox, he should know what to do and do it. Do you always do what you're supposed to, or do you need to be motivated sometimes? Find out what he likes and reward him when he does right.

Speaker 2:

Well, the farmer knew the ox's favorite treat was carrots, sweet and juicy. So he dangled a carrot just in front of the animal's head and the ox moved forward to get it, pulling the cart behind him. Every once in a while the farmer let the ox catch the carrot so he wouldn't get discouraged. Well, that worked great as long as the ox was hungry, but when he wasn't, it didn't work at all. Angry again, the farmer approached the elder. What am I supposed to do when the carrot doesn't do the trick? Sit beside the road until he's hungry enough. That just won't do. What do you do when you don't feel like working but know you have to anyway? Well, I think of how the crops will rot in the field and my family will starve. That gets me out of bed, no matter how tired I am. So what is it that the ox doesn't like? Well, he hates for anything to touch his tail. My son made the mistake of grabbing it one day and nearly paid the price. At the times when the carrot doesn't work, try tapping his tail with a stick. That worked so well that most times just showing the ox the stick was enough to get him going. The farmer was sure proud of the shrewd purchase he had made. That's the best ox I've ever had. Sometimes the carrot worked, sometimes the stick worked, but he always got his crops to the market.

Speaker 2:

Now you've probably already surmised that the carrot in the story is all of the positive things we want to go toward. It's all the benefits that will come from succeeding at our goal, both emotional and physical. The stick is all of the negative things you want to make sure never happen and will do whatever it takes to avoid. What the Oxcartique teaches you is to write down a list of both of these categories and call them your success scenario and your failure scenario, depending on the time, the circumstance and the person. Either the carrot will motivate you more or the stick will motivate you more, but either way, you're going to have both of those powers propelling you to reach your goal like never before, harnessing both the power of the stick and the carrot. You're going to find yourself taking the steps you need to take every single day to reach your goals. But wait a minute. What are those steps? You know it's funny.

Speaker 2:

I ask people what their hopes and dreams are and they can usually tell me very quickly what they are. But then I hit them with the follow-up question what's your plan to get there? And I get a pregnant pause. I get the glazed over. Look, listen, a goal without a plan is merely a pipe dream. It's just a thought, a hope, and a plan without the consistent, long-term effort behind it isn't worth the paper it's written on. It's not reality until you make a plan and put the work behind it.

Speaker 2:

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had a dream he wanted to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Others had tried it and many died doing so, but he was going to be the first. Now understand what this means. Antarctica is literally the coldest place on the face of the earth. Temperatures have been recorded at minus 35 Fahrenheit. Wind speeds can go over 200 miles per hour. At that temperature, skin will freeze within seconds, and not only skin, but muscle and fat as well. In fact, if your mouth isn't shielded, your lungs can freeze in your body. And yet Amundsen and his team had to travel over hundreds of miles by foot with nothing but what they and their dog teams could carry.

Speaker 2:

Now let me ask you this Do you think he spent months and months planning this expedition? Or did he say, ah heck, let's just wing it and see what happens? It's a ridiculous notion. Right In that situation, if you don't have a very good plan, there's no way in the world you're going to reach your goal. And yet that's the way most of us live our lives. We're hopies. We hope things will go well. Don't be a hopie. If we don't have a business plan, we won't have a business. If we don't have a financial plan, we won't have finances. If we don't have a marriage plan, statistics are we won't have a marriage. It's crazy. People spend more time planning their vacation than they do their life.

Speaker 2:

But it boils down to this you can't hit a target you can't see. You can't hit a target you can't see. Don't believe me. Try this. Okay, go to an archery range, pick up a bow, put an arrow on. It Sounds pretty good so far. Okay, awesome. Now put a blindfold on, spin around, start shooting and hope you'll hit the target. By the way, I recommend that you do this one by yourself. Make sure no one's kind of anywhere near you on that range. Okay, go ahead, try to hit a target. You can't see How's that going to work for you? Well, probably not real well, and yet we do it in our lives every single day. Hey, if I shoot enough arrows, eventually I'll hit the target. Sure, but it'll take a lot longer and at some point you're going to run out of arrows and you're going to run out of the energy to shoot them.

Speaker 2:

Imagine a rocket on a launch pad without a guidance system. You can have all the energy and excitement in the world, you can travel at thousands of miles per hour, but if you don't have a guidance system you won't get where you want to go. You're just kind of hoping. Don't be a hopey. The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland cracks me up. Alice asks him would you tell me please which way I ought to go from here? And the cat replies that depends a good deal on where you want to get to, I don't much care where, then it doesn't matter which way you go.

Speaker 2:

See, the wrong action, not having a plan never lets your dream come true. You're busy but you're not productive. That's activity versus accomplishment, just like in the cartoons your legs are running but you're not getting anywhere. You need to be taking the right action, and that comes from having and following a plan. I see people wear themselves out all the time because they're running and running and running to reach their goals, but they don't have a map, so they're just running in circles. Can you relate to any of this? Okay, it's time to change all of that.

Speaker 2:

What is it that you would like to accomplish? It can be a business goal of some kind, but it may not be. It could be a relationship goal, such as having a happy marriage. Wait a minute. I have to have a goal and a plan to do that. I sure hope so. This isn't something you want to just hope for the best on. So nail it down Exactly. What is your goal? Is it to be the top salesperson in your company? To have a happy marriage? To double the size of your company? Whatever your goal is, be specific.

Speaker 2:

Now and this is the important part. Listen, you need to write out a daily action plan with activities that, if you actually do them each day, will absolutely enable you to reach that goal. Just like the farmer and the parable, you need to build your bridge, the structure that will bridge the gap between your failure scenario and toward your success scenario, the plan that will allow you to walk away from your failure scenario and toward your success scenario. And you need to be very specific in what you write. But wait a minute. What if you don't know what it takes to become the top salesperson or an award-winning actor or double the size of your company? Well, just like the farmer asked the carpenter how to build a bridge, you ask someone who knows, someone already successful in the area you want to be successful in. Now, those are the components of the system, the parts. But how do the parts go together to make an extremely powerful whole?

Speaker 2:

That's where the technique comes in To begin with you're going to write out your failure scenario on a piece of paper no, not just on your computer, because you're going to print it out, post it where you'll see it and read it out loud every single day, in fact twice a day, every single day. Can you imagine just for a moment just how terrifying that's going to be? Living out your nightmare scenario twice a day, every single day? How do you feel already? Just thinking about it? Probably pretty bad. You might even be thinking now wait a minute, I'm not sure I want to do that. I don't know about that. One Perfect, it's working already. You'll start seeing the simple brilliance pretty quickly here At the bottom of that failure scenario you're also going to write. My future will be different. I have the power to ensure my success scenario becomes my new reality. I will do the following to make sure I succeed in reaching my goal. Now. Don't worry about writing that down right now, okay, because you can go to wwwultimatedrivingforcecom and the pages are already provided for you, so you don't have to worry about writing it down. But let me read that again, because it's very important that you do this. After you've read that terrible failure scenario that you're going to write, you're going to read, my future will be different. I have the power to ensure my success scenario becomes my new reality. I will do the following to make sure I succeed in reaching my goal. If you've done this effectively, your entire being is going to be rushing to do the activities on your action plan and that's why you post it to the right of your failure scenario and read it next. So you go through out loud again the steps you need to take today to make sure your failure scenario does not happen. That's on the action plan, and then you post to the right of that and read out loud your success scenario. This is how that aspect of your life is going to be, because you did the steps in your action plan today and you'll follow that with. This is my future. I will do whatever it takes to make this happen today. I will take the actions in my plan so I may enjoy the happiness that I deserve Now. Again, you don't have to write any of this down. It's on the website, but let me read it again for you so it kind of soaks in a little bit right now. This is my future. I will do whatever it takes to make this happen Today I will take the actions in my plan so I may enjoy the happiness I deserve. Can you see how insanely powerful that is? If you follow it along?

Speaker 2:

You start with the stick the failure scenario what will happen if you don't reach your goals? That feeling makes you want to do whatever it takes to avoid that. What do you need to do to avoid that? The action plan that you read next. So you started with the failure scenario. It made you want to do the action. You read the action plan next. Then, because you're going to do the points on your action plan, you end on a very positive note your success scenario. You read your failure scenario first, then the action plan and then the success scenario. And as another simple but powerful note, I'm going to have you put an arrow at the bottom of the sheet in the middle which was your action plan. That arrow will point both left toward your failure scenario and right toward your success scenario. That serves as a visual reminder that either one could be your future and it all depends on whether or not you take those actions Now. Again, that's already done for you on ultimatedrivingforcecom.

Speaker 2:

So listen. The decision to succeed does not happen once. It happens every single day, in fact several times a day, by the actions you take or do not take. Let me say that again the decision to succeed does not happen once. It happens every single day, in fact several times a day, by the actions you take or do not take. So you need to write these out, you need to post them and you need to read them out loud twice a day. Even after you've reached that goal, you need to continue doing it for a while to avoid backsliding, getting in the same old habits and falling backwards.

Speaker 2:

Now listen, I'll be the first to tell you that this technique is not for the faint of heart. This is for people who are willing to do what it takes to actually reach their goals, to go that extra mile, to take that extra step. If you're one who gets their feelings hurt easily, this may not be for you. Hey, this is going to evoke some strong emotions. It's supposed to. That's why it actually works. Or maybe it is for you.

Speaker 2:

Maybe you're tired of not reaching your goals. Maybe you're finally tired enough, fed up enough, that you're ready to step up your game. In fact, maybe you have more strength in you than you thought you had. Maybe you have more power, more willpower, because where there's a will there's a way, and you're ready to finally stop failing and start succeeding. I believe you do.

Speaker 2:

I believe you do have more strength in you, more willpower. In fact I know you do because in my belief, there's a power that put that strength in you, that will to succeed, that is more powerful than we can possibly imagine. And we may not be perfect, but we are powerful. You are powerful, powerful enough to overcome the fear, the excuses, the complacency, the laziness, the self-doubt, even the mental and physical exhaustion and everything else that has held you back in the past. And now you know how. Now you know how to harness that passion, that willpower and finally reach those goals. Now listen to this recording again, if you have to. Then write out your own ox cart and start taking the action to make those goals and dreams come true. Blow that bolt.

Speaker 1:

So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback Chronicles. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and subscribe to the show. If you're ready to get over your fears, self-doubts and past failures and break through your comfort zone to reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, head over to terrielfawesomecom to pick up your free gifts and so much more. We'll see you next week on the Comeback Chronicles podcast.