Keeping motivated through tough times (Week 9-10)
Your focus area for weeks 9 and 10 is to keep focused on the things you can control and don’t worry about the stuff you can’t control.
Spend 30-40 minutes creating your plan now, then follow it for the next 2 weeks.
Simple.
Control the controllables
What to do
Spend your time and energy on things that you can control. Know what you can influence or gain more control over and make deliberate choices about whether and how you’ll be trying to do that. Avoid worrying about things outside your control – it’s a waste of time, emotion and energy. Practice this for 2 weeks as you perfect the art of controlling the controllables!
Why do it
Feeling as in control as possible is important for your motivation. If this is the factor that most affects your motivation, you’ll find that working to increase your control will really pay dividends for you. Even if it’s not as important as confidence or connectedness, you’ll benefit from working on this. Focusing on the controllables will:
- Increase your sense of control and motivation
- Reduce your frustration and wasting emotional energy
- Help make sure you’re putting time and effort into stuff that matters within your control
- Increase your productivity and focus
- Set a great high performance tone and behaviours for others
How to do it
There are 3 steps to take with this. Read these through, look at the example and then create your own plan.
1) Your focus right now
Understand where you’re spending your time and energy on right now. What’s the stuff you’re thinking about and worrying about – what’s your emotional energy being spent on? Get a sense of which of those things you can control, and which you can’t control. Check in with exactly how much time and energy you’re spending on these things.
2) Plan the changes!
You’ve got a sense of what you’re spending your time and energy on and what’s in and out of your control. You’re now in a great place to make some changes to what you’re thinking and doing so you’re focusing more on stuff you can control, not worrying about things you can’t and making choices about what you’re going to try to increase your influence or control on.
3) Practice the skill
You know what’s happening and what to do about it. The last part is make sure you keep doing those things over the next 2 weeks and have build a routine to control the controllables.
Example plan
You’re nearly ready to start controlling the controllables! But to help you along the way, we’ve completed an example, using our example of keeping motivated through restructure and change. Read through it, get some ideas from it and then create your own plan.
1) Your focus right now
| Of the things that are taking up my thoughts and energy, what’s: | ||
| In my control | Totally out of my control | Stuff I could influence |
| The new marketing strategy
My future role after the restructure The support I provide Tim How prepared we are for the customer pitch |
The detail provided in the restructure outline
IT difficulties delaying the project roll-out What the senior management think of the team and my performance
|
How the team respond to the changes ahead
How united the departments heads are over the coming months |
2) Plan the changes!
| What can I do to: |
Spend less time on stuff outside my control?
|
Increase my control over things I can influence – if I feel it’s worth the time and effort?
|
Spend more time and energy on controllables – so I’m focusing on stuff that matters and getting better results quicker?
|
3) Practice the skill
Over the next 2 weeks, I’m going to keep my sense of control as high as possible by:
|
Coaching tips
In tough and changing times, there’s likely to be lots outside your control. Staying focused on what you do know, what you can control and what you know is coming is really important. Doing this every day will help you keep focused and in control on what you can control in challenging conditions.