Motivation, the Key to Change (Part of II of a II part article)
In this blog I’m going to give you two exercises to do, to gain some understanding about your motivation about dealing with your issues. The first thing to determine whether or not you are really motivated, is to see if you read this blog (which is very short) and do the exercise, which will take you less than a half hour.
Here are the two “exercises” to begin the process:
1. Write out why you want to get past your specific issue. List the benefits and think about your world if you didn’t have to deal with these issues
2. Think about what the down side would be if you were able to get past those issues.
Note: Often time’s folks say that there would be no down side. Think harder, because if there weren’t some benefit, it would be comparatively easy to let go of these issues. I’m not saying your doing this deliberately, but I am saying, when I work with people in counseling we almost always are able to come up with some benefits that people are getting from holding on to their issues.
If you have trouble with this exercise, that is something that counseling can help you with, often times people can’t always view themselves in an objective way.
So in summary: Think about, in detail, the benefits and the downsides of what would happen if you were able to change.
There is a difference between wanting to change and doing what it takes to change. What I’m asking for you to do is to begin the process, is to do the “exercises” described above.
Making change happen in your life is all about being highly motivated and not being highly motivated, the higher the motivation, the higher the probability that you will be able to effectively deal with the problems that you are struggling with.