If you are like me you get “great” ideas all the time. Sometimes they are big ideas, like how to clean up trash from the oceans and sometimes they are less ambitious like how to organize and simplify my life, or to do the laundry, today! Also, if you are like me, you get frustrated because you sometimes lack the motivation to bring those good ideas to completion. I found an extremely useful formula to help us understand what motivates us and why we act or don’t act. Here is the Motivation Equation and a brief description of each factor. Motivation = Value * Expectancy / Impulsivity * Delay Value.

To cause us to act, an idea must have compelling value. The higher we believe the value is, the more powerful our motivation to act will be.

Expectancy. We must believe we can achieve the goal. The more confident we are that we can achieve it, the more motivated we will be.

Impulsivity. This is the degree to which we get distracted by other things competing for our time. The more impulsive we are the LESS motivated we will be to complete any given goal.

Delay. The longer the expected delay between now and when we believe the goal can be accomplished, the LESS motivated we will be.

These concepts sound simple at first, and they are. But, they are also very very powerful. Note that the factors are based on OUR BELIEF about them and therein lies the key to hacking the formula to increase our motivation. To actually trick our psyche into increasing motivation. In our mind we Amplify the Value of our goal, Maintain Certainty that we can achieve it, Decrease Impulsiveness and Eliminate Delay. By doing those things, we will act with extreme motivation and nothing will hold you back from achieving your Big Y!