The secret to staying motivated

Hint: You can't do it alone

Note: The link for the first Support Sunday meeting this Sunday, October 13, 2024 at 3pm PST is below (paid subscribers).

Edited video transcript:

Do you want to know a secret about how to get motivated and to stay motivated?

This short video is going to tell you one great way how.

As a writer who wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was over 50 years old, I spent decades reading books, attending workshops, getting coaching, getting evaluations, going to therapy, going to doctors, all trying to find out a way that I could take positive, consistent action over time.

And one of the things that helped me to write and publish 20 books before I was diagnosed and treated for ADHD is the same thing that helped people with addictions, mental illness, and even terminal illness cope with the difficulties they face.

What is this secret?

The power of peer support…

The beauty of a support group is that it puts structure in place and establishes community and accountability and positive social pressure in order for you to continuously reach for your goal.

One of the greatest things about a support group is it gives you an opportunity to share both your triumphs and your setbacks in a supportive, structured setting. Now, you can get support very similar to this, out of things like business mastermind groups and cohorts and, uh, boot camps and online communities.

The catch is, a lot of those mastermind groups are expensive, or they have very specific rules, or they're so large that not everybody gets to share. And bootcamps and cohorts are for short periods of time in order to get you jump started.

What's great about a support group is that it is continuous support that is built into your life.

In addition, it's more than just text on a screen or one person talking. Ideally, you choose a support group that allows each person time to speak about what they're going through, and they have the opportunity to ask and get feedback from other members of the group. Now,

if you google support groups, the catch is you'll likely just find support groups for mental illness or addiction or therapy. But very rarely do you see support groups that are specifically catered to people who are striving for self improvement.

So what can you do? Here are two solutions. The first one is free and wonderful, and it is to start your own.

Starting and running your own support group can seem daunting, but it is way easier if you have these three things in place before your first meeting. The first thing is a written format. The second is a set of rules for your group, and the third is a timer.

Let's break it down…

The format is simply a plan. It's a written itinerary of what will happen during your meeting. You follow this format every time.

An example of a basic format goes something like this: You open up reading the mission statement for the group. It could be a one or two line sentence that just defines the focus of your group.

Second, you would read the rules of what can and can't be discussed. This allows every member to be reminded of what it is they can and can't say, and new members will also know what topics to avoid.

After that, you can open up the group for a presentation from a guest or one of the members.

The presentation could be five or ten minutes relevant to a topic that's been a discussion. Or you can just move directly into a point of time where everybody gets to share. This is where the timer comes in. The biggest mistake I see in support groups is that there are no timers and no structure in place to ensure that everyone gets an opportunity to benefit from the support of the group.

Oftentimes people with more reserved personalities have a tendency to not jump in and get their fair share of time. And whereas other people are very comfortable speaking at length about their needs or what they want, and as a result, people can get their feelings hurt and membership starts to wane.

So by having a timer in a specified amount of time that every single person gets, it allows that every person can participate and keeps all of your membership returning for more and more meetings.

Now, membership is the tricky thing…

… when running your own support group, it's difficult to get people to keep coming back. One of the easiest ways to do that is to charge a very small fee.

When people are invested, they are more likely to come back.

Also, advertising on meetup.com, posting to relevant forums or groups, and offering friends an opportunity to join your group and hosting your meaning online via Zoom can also make it more convenient for people to attend more regularly. Regularly. Now, if you're looking for a support group and you don't want to run your own, what's another alternative.

You can join mine. The Art of Strategic Motivation does indeed have a support group for paid members.

You can get the link to register below.