Emotion and motivation plays an important role in success

Emotion and motivation go together hand in hand. Indeed, emotions play an important part in our lives, and even more so in self improvement. Often times, successful people are those who know how to take control of their emotions and use it to their benefit.

The best sportsmen and women are able to stay calm in the heat of the competition. And whenever they meet setbacks, they usually come right back immediately with a crushing performance and winning streak.

According to Napolean Hill in his book ‘Think and Grow Rich’, when emotion and desire are used together , it creates a very powerful manifesting energy. Emotion and motivation energizes your desire and gives it power and momentum. With emotion and motivation, your true power of intent will shine through.

When used wisely, your emotion and motivation can be a powerful force which helps you achieve great things. With most people living their lives being controlled by emotions, I guess it’s quite obvious that emotions are more than just ‘fleeting feelings’.

Many times the actions that we choose to take or not take are due to our emotions. We choose our actions based on what emotion we want to experience, and what emotions we want to avoid.

For example, when you were a kid, what determined whether you’d put up your hand to answer the teacher’s question? It depends on what you want more. To get the pleasure & recognition from answering the question correctly, or to avoid the embarrassment of answering wrongly?

Or you have an idea to improve your company’s performance. If your idea is accepted, you’ll get recognition & praise, however on the other hand, it might be rejected. If you can’t handle the hurt and rejection, that idea is just gonna stay in your head forever. If you want to take control of your life, you’ve got to master the skill of controlling emotions.

Are you emotionally empty?

How many emotions do you feel daily? Do you get excited? Happy? Passionate? Confident? Cheerful? Energetic? Do you get those emotional highs frequently? Do you experience a variety of emotions daily? Or do you only experience a few. Compare what you experience on a weekly basis against the full list of human emotions that we're capable of experiencing. That will give you an idea of what you’re missing.

If you realize that you only experience a limited number of emotions, and it’s intensity is quite weak, you might be a little emotionally shut off. There’s nothing wrong with that. Everyone has their own personality, and there are many people who naturally do not show much emotion.

However, having said that, more often than not people are emotionally shut off because they unconsciously learned to do so. They form habits which encourage this emotional void, and it’s from modeling the people around them, from trying to be ‘polite’ & have ‘good manners’, from having to act as a ‘serious’ adult.

I’m not advocating that we should all go back to the innocence of acting like children. But as a society, I think we can tone down on the ‘seriousness’ of our lifestyles. Be more balanced. We must always remember that we are humans not robots, and that life is too short to be serious all the time.

With people avoiding emotions because they cannot handle it, and our society seemingly encouraging us to not show much emotion, it’s little wonder that so many of us are emotionally empty. It’s tough, but you would want to avoid being in that category. I’ve said it before that emotion and motivation goes together. Your emotions give your life juice and color.

Good news….

The good news is we can learn how to handle our emotions. We can learn the ways of dealing with negative emotions. So no matter what happens, instead of focusing on the perceived negativity of these emotions, we learn to understand what its’ messages are and take the necessary action. We won’t allow the negative emotions traumatize us anymore.

It is the same for panic attacks, which are very intense emotions of fear and paranioa. With the proper appraoch and knowledge, we can learn how to stop panic attacks.

Once you have learned how to deal with negative emotions, you’ll welcome emotions rather than avoid them. You will start to experience emotions more intensely. To accelerate yourself to success, you would want to cultivate a habit of consistently experiencing a set of positive emotions.

Top success coach Tony Robbins identified 10 power emotions that we should cultivate daily in his wonderful book Awaken the Giant Within. The 10 power emotions are ;

1. Love & Warmth

2. Appreciation & gratitude

3. Curiosity – then you can grow and learn through life

4. Excitement & passion

5. Determination

6. Flexibility

7. Confidence – through the power of faith

8. Cheerfulness – there is a big difference in being happy inside, and showing it outside. It enhances self esteem, makes life more fun, make others happier

9. Vitality – if you don’t take care of your body, it’s hard to take care of your emotions

10. Contribution

90% of the actions we take are the result of our habits. Often times, we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. Knowing what emotions we should cultivate is not enough, we must make it a point to make it a part of our lives. A new lifestyle.

Start with one emotion per week. Start from the top of the list. For the next 7 days, try to experience as much love and warmth in whatever you do. Write ‘love & warmth’ in on a piece of paper & bring it everywhere you go. Associate the emotion with something that you use daily, like your watch, spectacles, hands etc so that whenever you see your watch, you’ll be reminded to experience love and warmth.

Keep in mind that you do not need a spectacular thing to happen before you can experience love & warmth. Things that are common doesn’t mean it is not valuable. You can experience love & warmth from simple actions like talking with your partner, hanging out with friends, walking in the park, observing the laughter around you…. It’s everywhere. It’s just that we forgot to notice and appreciate it.

Final thoughts…..

Emotion and motivation brings such rich texture and color to our lives. Living a life void of emotions is like only being half alive. If you’re serious about success and happiness, you will need to show up 100%. And that means it’s time other half of you, your emotions, show up.

I’ll finish off with this, if you find it hard to cultivate good emotions because you feel you’re constantly getting distracted by work / stuff / life…… I have one advice for you : That’s not an excuse!

As achievers we make things happen, we don’t wait for breaks. You go make whatever your situation is have love, appreciation, excitement etc…. No matter how bleak, there’s always a way. The first few days will be tough, but once you start to gain momentum, you’ll snowball your way to an exciting, colorful life. This is how emotion and motivation can change your life.

Good luck!

---

More resource on emotions

What are emotions - Understand what are emotions. Know more about this thing that has such power and control over our lives and the decisions we make

Return from Emotion and Motivation to Self Improvement Mentor Homepage