Motivations - are you towards or away from?!

It’s in our nature to move towards pleasure and away from pain. In life coaching and NLP we call this our towards and away from motivations. Exploring our towards and away from motivations helps us understand whether we are working towards our goals, or away from our current situation.

Using towards and away from motivations to set great goals

When we set great goals we must state them in the positive - see my article on How to Set and Achieve Great Goals for more on this. As we move to achieve our goals it’s really useful to understand whether we are employing mainly towards or away from motivations. We need both to an extent but, if our away from motivation is the stronger one we are less likely to achieve our goals and it can cause us to get stuck in a cycle of stress. 

Look at it this way; our away from motivation lights our fuse but our towards motivation is the fuel which propels us forward. For example; you’ve just had a really bad argument with your boss at work and decide to set a goal of getting a new job. Your away from motivation has kicked in and your fuse is lit, ‘I want to get away from my current boss.’ But as you browse the jobs available you see one with a really exciting project you want to work on. Now the fuel of your towards motivation kicks in ‘I want that job so I can work on that project.’ It’s really important that the goal you set has positive, towards wording.

How do towards and away from motivations work?

As the away from motivation is often a stressor, such as not getting on with your boss, it’s very helpful in starting us on our journey to reach a goal. However, as we move away from the stress, if our towards motivation isn’t strong enough, we relax and stop moving towards our goal. A great example of this is deciding to get fit. You feel very unfit and struggle to run. So, you set the goal of running 10km. You start off running a few times a week and it’s tough at first but, as you get fitter you start to feel better. So you ease back a bit; you feel good enough to not need to keep going. Gradually your fitness slides and you are back where you were. How about if you had a really good towards motivation too; such as entering a 10km race every six months or getting sponsored for charity?

Making your motivations work for you.

Luckily, our motivations are part of the language patterns of NLP (neuro linguistic programming). This means you can change a motivation from away from to towards just by the words you use. Here’s an example of how to do this;

Goal: I would like a better relationship with my brother.

Away from: I can’t take the constant arguments anymore.

Towards: Hosting a happy family event without confrontation.

Same goal, same reasons but different motivations.

Each step towards our goal gives us a good feeling. Each step not taken makes us stressed. So, setting interim goals to work towards is really important in keeping motivation going. Don’t forget though, your away from motivation is still important and you can use it. If you’re ever struggling to move forwards remember why you set your goal in the first place. What are you moving away from? With the running example, an interim goal might be running a 5km race without stopping. With looking for a new job it could be updating your CV.

One of the interim goals you could set is to contact me for extra help in reaching your final goal. As a life coach I work with you, using person centred techniques and NLP tools to help you realise and reveal the amazing resources you already have inside. You can read more about life caching options here, or just get in touch for a free chat about how we can work together to reach your goals.

Try it today

Have a play with your towards and away from motivations today. Write down a goal you are working towards? Have you stated it in the positive? Can you identify your towards and away from motivations in reaching that goal? Does it make it clearer on why you might not have reached that goal in the past ? What interim, stepping stone, goals can you set to keep your towards motivation strong?

I’d love to hear how you get on! Pop a message below or email me directly to let me know if you found this useful.