Motivation

In network marketing, it is crucial to understand motivation. Since your are in business for yourself, you absolutely must be able to motivate yourself to work. That is not something that is automatic in most people. We are not trained in school on how to do that. It is a skill that must be, and can be acquired. You also must be able to motivate other people. Motivate them to take action -- to meet with you, to try your products, to consider the opportunity, to become distributors, to motivate themselves, and to themselves motivate others. Whew! That's a lot of motivation.

There are two types of motivation. Internal and external. External motivation is what you get when you go to an opportunity meeting, a national conference, a Saturday morning training. It's what you get when you listen to a tape from you upline or watch a training video. External motivation is important. It can get you off your rear, give you a kick in the pants, and get you fired up. You can go to a motivational seminar and come away ready to conquer the world. But external motivation does not last. As good as it feels, it always goes away with time. That is why it is important in network marketing to stay plugged into the system. Attend the weekly opportunity meetings and trainings, listen to the conference calls, call the opportunity line, watch the videos, take advantage of regional and national events. These things will give you a continuing stream of external motivation. But even with all these aids, external motivation is simply not sustainable. It is good. It has its place. But it is not enough.

The real key to motivating yourself for the long haul is internal motivation. If you have a REASON to do the business, you'll find a WAY to do it. You need to figure out why you are in this business and you need to constantly remind yourself of it. Written goals are very important. But you must discover not only your goals in life, but your purpose in life as well. When you can grasp all this and spell it out precisely and continually keep it in your thoughts, then you will experience powerful internal motivation that will get you through any obstacles you may come across.

Internal motivation can only come from you. You cannot expect your upline to give it to you. You cannot get it from a tape or a book or a seminar. It is something you yourself create and maintain. External motivation will start to fade as soon as you are removed from it. Internal motivation will continue as long as you care to maintain it.