Hey pals! Do you have problems to motivate other pals, I mean your employees, coworkers, students? If so, we’re in the same boat. Believe me, I’ve been struggling with this for ages. I’ve been working with people for more than twenty years and sometimes it’s really hard to give them a motivational kick! However, I’ve come up with this nifty PAL plan for ya’ll.
It’s called PAL.
What do these letters stand for?
P for Positivity
Positivity opens our hearts, minds. And what’s more, it makes us more receptive and creative. According to professor Barbara Friedrickson who’s been conducting research on positivity, we see a bigger picture when we’re in good mood.
For managers it’s an incentive to work out warm climate at work by recognizing employee achievements, believing in them, keeping positive mood.
Have you heard about the Pygmalion effect? According to this experiment it turned out that high expectations lead to higher performance.
All students in one American elementary school had to take a fake IQ test at the beginning of the school year. The real score wasn’t shown to the teachers. However, the teachers weren’t aware of that. Instead, they were told that some specific students did unbelievably well and they’re about to become successful with such a high score. The teachers knew their names. Subconsciously, unintentionally the teachers kept encouraging and focusing on those students much more compared to the rest of their schoolmates/peers. As a result, at the end of the school year, the kids took the same fake IQ test and the favored group actually did so much better. This led to the conclusion that teachers expectations can affect their achievement.
I can feel the sparks in my students’ eyes when I tell them I believe in them and look forward to their improvement. This adds them wings. Don’t we all crave belief in us?
A for Asking questions
It’s so vital to keep asking people about literally everything. I often ask my trainees or students: How do you feel about this material? Can you see any improvement? Do you want to keep doing it? And we often go over the whole process and I respond to their doubts or remarks.
Asking equals caring to me. It means showing my attention to them so that they can feel taken care of and not abandoned in the process of learning. Don’t we all crave attention?
L for Love language
Acknowledging people is fundamental. We all crave appreciation, recognition. Stephen Covey, author of the bestselling The 7 Habits of effective people said: “ Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival, to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated”.
However we all use different love languages, that is languages of appreciation. According to dr Chapman there are five different love languages – that is languages of appreciation: So some people may need words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, quality time or physical touch. It’s so important to speak other people’s language. I’m gonna talk about it more in further videos.
So don’t we all crave appreciation?
If we use all these the key points we should be able to shift people demotivation to motivation 🙂
Bear in mind: Positivity, asking, love languages We all crave and need these three wicked elements in order to shift people’s demotivation to motivation.
And now some language bonuses for non-native English speakers:
pal = friend, buddy;
We’re in the same boat = We’re in the same situation;
I’ve been struggling with = I’ve been trying very hard (mind you: I’ve used the Present Perfect Continuous tense as it started some time ago and it hasn’t really finished yet 😉 );
nifty = smart;
ya’ll = you+all (my American friends from the south used this contraction a lot);
an incentive = a stimulus;
remarks = comments;
to crave = to want something badly, to want something very much;
wicked = cool, awesome (it’s more popular in American English);
in order to = to (e.g. We motivate other people in order to (=to) help them with better results.);
Bear in mind! = Remember!.