Motivation is Like Love: Coping When Your Passion Fades

We’ve all experienced it: that surge of powerful motivation at the start of a project.  We’re on top of the world and feel unstoppable.

Yet somehow, after a few weeks, that motivation high has gone. New blogs, new year’s resolutions to diet and workout routines can soon become burdens as we lose our enthusiasm for them.

From the time we embark on a new project until we are deeply entrenched in following through with it long term, we go through a few different changes and emotional highs and lows: fluctuations that aren’t so different than what we experience elsewhere in our lives.

Read on as we consider these parallels, and then, using lessons from our emotional lives, discuss strategies for coping when our enthusiasm for a project fades.

Writing Down Your Goals – The Harvard Written Goal Study. Fact or Fiction?

Various authors and speakers encourage writing down concrete goals, and use as evidence a study conducted on students in the 1979 Harvard MBA program. They point to the results of that study (where the 3 percent of written goal setters earned 10 times as much as the other 97 percent of the class combined) as proof and inspiration for students and readers.

The study has been quoted in seminars and books by Zig Ziglar, Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy and many other motivational and personal development speakers – but is the study true, or an urban legend? Find out in this feature report.

Why 3% of Harvard MBAs Make Ten Times as Much as the Other 97% Combined

The Harvard MBA program is extremely competitive, and Students who make it past the application process are typically standouts, and already fairly successful by most traditional definitions – they have an undergraduate degree, typically three to five years of work experience and were considered suitable for acceptance into the Harvard Business School.

The average Harvard MBA graduate starts at $115K with a $20K signing bonus.  Nonetheless, some graduates of the Harvard MBA program end up being MUCH more successful than the other in the long run.  What is their secret?

Famous Failures – Michael Jordan, Abraham Lincoln and J.K. Rowling

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
– Michael Jordan

A collection of inspirational videos showcasing the failures of Michael Jordan, Abraham Lincoln, JK Rowling and others, and how they bounced back to become the successes they are today. A wonderful collection of stories tied together with a common theme of personal achievement.