I was with a client the other day and we had a very frank discussion about his own motivation. He is a work alcoholic, is very successful if success is measured in financial terms and despite all this, he told me he wasn’t totally happy!

When we spoke some more about this, it became obvious that his entire image of himself and personal success is tied up with his business identity. The harder he works the more successful he views himself and he feeds off the reinforcement that others give him when they tell him how hard he works. But outside of work, he has very little going for himself by way of interests or hobbies despite being wealthy enough to do practically anything he wants to do.

I explained that the true definition of success comes from within (yea, I know I can sound like a spiritualist when I say that) and that only when he makes time for himself outside of the business to enjoy doing things just for him, will he be truly happy. Typically in this situation, I ask clients to do two things (as I have seen this situation quite a lot over the years):

1. Create your Motivation file: Get 3 images of what success looks like for you, don’t settle for an image until you are able to feel the emotions that the images create for you. You really have to feel like you are there already experiencing the sensations that the image creates in your mind, it must resonate.

2. Creat a Joy List. This is not a Bucket list! it’s a list of things that you want to do that you know you will enjoy doing. everything from small things to the big things, don’t hold back! One of the reasons I love doing my list is you get the pleasure of writing it down and looking forward to it, the pleasure of doing it and the memories afterwards that reinforce your commitment to put more down on the list!

Here is a graphic for personal and business success: