What would it take to make you take action?

[Tuumble]

Imagine you wrote a letter that contained a variety of humilating and embarassing information about yourself and you gave it someone - sealed - who you wouldn't like knowing that stuff. Then imagine setting a target of earning say, $10,000 in 30 days and if you failed, they get to open the letter.

Can you think what you'd do to make reaching that target possible? Would those kind of consequences of failing force you into action?

S'funny. Just the very idea of this scenario made me think more laterally. Maybe you'd like to try the process to see how it makes you think.

What potential 'pain' could you risk inflicting on yourself into doing what you need to do to get to where you want to be?

[ChaosKiwi]

When I read this post I thought "That person reading the humiliating stuff would be a relief". I don't know why.

Maybe its because the humiliating stuff (for me personally) isn't really that bad. And would give the person reading it a better understanding of me.

If your not passionate enough about the goal to seriously attempt to follow through, then why bother inflicting pain for failure, what's that going to achieve?

[oscardelben]

That's forcing to achieve a goal. I don't think it would work in the long run. You must cultivate a burning desire inside to find motivation.

[pushbutton]

It's an interesting concept and if the information was embarrassing enough it would certainly make me motivated to earn the $10,000 in 30 days.

However I have no idea how I would do so, and can't help feeling it might be impossible.

Thinking laterally, I could sell my car in 30 days and have $10,000, but that's not really earning it is it?

[Abitofzen]

Originally Posted by ChaosKiwi

If your not passionate enough about the goal to seriously attempt to follow through, then why bother inflicting pain for failure, what's that going to achieve?

I agree with this, but understand the idea of the technique as well.



It sounds like you have a tendency that NLP calls "Towards" motivation... that is to say you are primarily motivated by getting the benefits of your goal.

Other people have "Away From" motivation... they are primarily motivated by avoiding the negative results of not getting the goal.

Most people actually have some mix of the two... so it can be useful to be aware of both the benefits of getting the goal as well as the drawbacks of not getting it.

What I don't like about the 'list of embarassing stuff' technique, is you're essentially blackmailing yourself.

Why?!

If you are going to gather motivation for a goal, it seems to me it should directly relate in some way to the goal.

If this embarassing list is the only thing that seems to work, I would say "use it"... but it's definitely not for me

keep smiling,

Ben

[jamesbiz]

I'd probably still figure out a way to sabotage myself lol. I've risked far worse and lost far more over time through other means.

[GlobalMind]

Thank you Tuumble - your post really made me think about goal setting and motivation. I have only discovered the powers of goal setting 1 year ago (and with that I mean setting SMART goals and writing them down) and I am amazed by how powerful it it, my husband and I managed to meet almost all the goals we set last year.

Now, we're working towards achieving some pretty ambitious financial goals, and it is an uphill struggle. That makes me wonder what I can do to stay 100% focused and motivated. And 'the letter' would probably work. But then, like Ambitofzen says; do I really want to blackmail myself? Maybe it's healthier to look at my dream board more often :-)

[Gozunn]

I think that technique could be a short-term solution to achieving your goals but if you do that over and over again the stress of the situation will get to you and you'll find yourself slowly accepting the consequences of not achieving your goals.

If you really have to resort to such a method than you don't really have enough motivation to 'earn $10,000' or any other end result. Its true that the mind is more effective and motivated when faced with a difficult situation but you're ruling it on fear.

It sort of reminds me of a story I read when i was a child. It was about this dog who learned tricks from his master because if he wouldn't then he would get beaten. Then the dog encounters a new master who would reward the dog if he learned the tricks. You see? In this scenario, the earning of $10,000 is the tricks to be learned and the beatings are the consequences of your friend opening the letter. The brutal master is yourself prior to setting up this situation for yourself.

I may have complicated things a bit but long story short : the method you are implying is effective- very effective but its not very healthy towards yourself. Its better you should motivate yourself and try to think laterally from the outset than putting yourself in such a situation.

These are all opinions of course, so everything is open to discussion.

[Tuumble]

Thanks for the feedback people.

I never intended this method to be regular method of motivation but as I said, the 'idea' of using it made think in different ways of how to solve the problem. I was putting myself in the situation and was looking to see how I reacted.

Sometimes we just need different ways of looking at goal. If it changes your perspective, if only by 1%, it has to be worth a shot hasn't it?