Internal and external motivators are great ways to fuel the productivity and commitment required for following through. But they won’t do anything for you if they are out of sight and out of mind.
According to Psychological Science, people are more inclined to follow through if they are exposed to stimuli that remind them of their motivators. Seeing or hearing their motivators can drive them to maintain motivation. In other words, sometimes the simplest solutions work best: constant reminders will keep you on track because our minds can only fixate on so many things.
Additionally, Katherine Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania developed the hypothesis that reminders through association could aid people in remembering goals and following through with them. To confirm this hypothesis, she conducted a study whose participants were asked to complete an hour-long computer task. They were promised compensation as well as a dollar donated to the local food bank. They were asked to make sure their donations were made by picking up paperclips when they got their compensation. The control group was told this and then thanked for their time. The test group was told that the paper clips would be waiting by an elephant statue.
It turned out that 74% of the group told about the elephant statue remembered to get their paper clips at the end of the study. Only 42% of the members of the other group remembered to do this. Having the visual cue of the elephant statue actually made it easier for students to remember to complete the simple task. When students saw the unusual statue, it sparked their memories far more than ordinary-looking notes.
On top of that, Rogers and Milkman discovered that having very noticeable cues worked better than cues that did not stand out. For example, a written reminder did not remind study participants as well as a visual cue such as one of the aliens from Toy Story.
Therefore, the best way to make motivators work for you is to expose yourself to them often. You can use cues to help prompt you to keep your motivation in mind and thus to follow through. However, these cues also need to stand out to you.
For instance, use loud, vivid images that you can’t ignore, or employ other senses and include sounds, textures, and scents. Include a picture on your desk of your child to remind you to keep working toward your dream for a better financial future for your family—but make the picture frame smell of your child’s shampoo or your spouse’s perfume or cologne. To emphasize, we aren’t just talking about visual aids of putting Post-its everywhere—the cues we can use can be spread across our five senses in imaginative and creative ways.
However, be sure to move and change these cues around every few days so that you do not become too accustomed to them and start to ignore them as part of the background noise of your life.
Finally, you can also write your motivators down every few days with different phrasing. Again, be sure to change them up to avoid getting too used to them. The act of creating the cue each repeatedly helps to keep the motivation firm and fresh in your mind.
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