Get Roller Coaster Insurance – Or Uncover Your Motivation

Have you ever gotten lost within your plan? You become so focused that you feel as if you’re on a runaway roller coaster car headed straight for a professional plateau as its final destination. Here's the opportunity to get off! How? Check-in on what motivates and leads you. (Now yes, there is the narrative that God is ultimately the one in control, but for the sake of this discussion let's agree that we are given free will and have control of our choices and where we apply our God-given talents.)

I believe that clearly identifying your motivation is critical to creating your preferred future. And, in my experience, asking yourself these two questions is the easiest way to uncover your motivation:

1. Where do you ultimately want to go, and

2. What’s the underlying reason you want to be there?

Before we move further, let me just get this thought out of the way. I hear some of you saying, “arriving at your preferred future is all about having the right plan.” In actuality, I think the plan of action and its implementation should only come after clearly (and firmly) answering these first two questions. Here’s why: I don't know a single plan that has actually gone “according to plan.”

"No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one".

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

This says to me that while planning is critical, there has to be something that centers you when you are forced to make that inevitable pivot. Success takes leaders and troops who, guided by a motivational vision, work and alter a plan as they go along. So, focused planning begins with understanding our motivation.

Let’s revisit my earlier analogy here to bring the point home. A fulfilling outcome – one that keeps us from flying off the rails – requires we’re first clear on where we were going and why it matters that we get there. In my next post, we’ll unpack motivation to build a steady framework that will not just launch your success but sustain it!

In the meantime, here’s your homework: take some time to write down the answers to the two questions above. I mean it. Take. Some. Time. Be specific, go into detail and really dig deep. It may take you a little while, but that’s ok. Consider it roller coaster insurance.