Finding Your External Motivations – Beginner Self Publishing Course from WriteZero

admin April 15, 2020 0 Comments

This post is part of the Beginner Self Publishing Course from Write Zero

This post is part of the ‘Why Do You Write’ Pillar. This is the First Pillar of the Beginner Self Publishing Course (there are 23 Pillars in all, each with 2 to 10 articles)

Please be sure to read the previous post -> Finding Your Internal Motivations

This post on ‘Finding Your External Motivations’ is in nine parts

  1. Part 1 – Preparation: Make sure to go over your Internal Motivations
  2. Part 2: Finding Your External Motivations
  3. Part 3: Separate Your Own External Motivations from Motivations other people have convinced you are your own
  4. Part 4: Cleaning up the List of Your External Motivations
  5. Part 5: Prioritizing Your External Motivations
  6. Part 6: The One Thing & Top 5 External Motivations
  7. Part 7: Setting Goals for Your External Motivations
  8. Part 8: The Critical Importance of Rewarding Yourself for Achieving Small and Big Victories
  9. Part 9: The Role of Internal Motivations and The Role of External Motivations
  10. Extra Credit: Read the Post on Why Do You Write? From the Beginner Book Marketing Guide from Review Zero
    1. This is optional. However, it will help you get Greater Clarity about your Motivations and will help you Prioritize them better

Part 1 – Make sure to go over your Internal Motivations

In the first post in this Pillar, Finding Your Internal Motivations, we discussed the importance of Internal Motivations and the importance of Knowing What to Write

Please be sure to read that post FIRST, before you read this post

Ideally you want

  1. To read the post on Finding Your Internal Motivations
  2. After reading that post
    1. Create a list of your Internal Motivations
    2. Clean up the list and prioritize it
  3. Think a bit about Why You Write

Have you done all that? Great!

Now we can start working on Your External Motivations list (this post)

Part 2 – Finding Your External Motivations

We all have our deep internal motivations which inspire us to write books and share them

Things such as – sharing a part of ourselves, sharing the wisdom we have acquired, inspiring others, helping others

These deep internal motivations are what will take you from Good to Great. They will drive you to Greatness

At the same time, we also have our External Motivations. These external motivations are what will give us the day to day energy and drive to write books. They are what will take you from ‘Not Worth Reading’ to Good

The Critical Importance of External Motivations

External Motivations are just as critical as Internal Motivations because

  1. External Motivations and Internal Motivations complement each other
    1. Internal Motivations appeal to our higher senses
    2. Internal Motivations appeal to the nobler part of our selves
    3. External Motivations appeal to our more basic senses
    4. External Motivations appeal to the more pragmatic part of ourselves
  2.  External Motivations provide the day to day drive and energy
    1. Deep internal motivations such as helping people are critical to help you through the marathon that is being an author
    2. External motivations such as making money and paying the bills are what will get you through the current day
  3. External Motivations provide the day to day resources
    1. You have to be pragmatic. External Motivations provide that pragmatism
    2. External Motivations will help you get the time and money and energy, so that you can focus on writing books

Finding Your External Motivations

Internal Motivations are hard to find as you have to do a lot of soul searching

External Motivations are much more straightforward to find. However, do make sure you capture as many of your external motivations as possible

One Important Note: Writing can be both a career and a hobby and can provide you a lot of things. So when writing your External Motivations write them ALL down. Do not create a restriction that ‘I will only write things I think I can get from writing’. Write down everything you want, without applying any filters. Afterwards, after you have understood the Books and Publishing market much better, you can remove the things that you cannot get from writing books

Go through this list to create a comprehensive list of your External Motivations

  1. What do you most want from life?
  2. What are the things that really motivate you?
  3. What are the things you are passionate about?
  4. What are the things you are very good at?
  5. What are the things you feel you have a deficiency in?
  6. What are the things you need, to be able to focus on writing?
  7. What things do you feel are stopping you from getting the most out of life?
  8. What things do you need for your day to day life?
  9. What are the things which will help you have a better life?
  10. What are the things which ensure you have the basic comforts of life?
  11. What are the things you need to have a rich life experience (which supplies material for your writing)?
  12. What People do you care about?
  13. What Places and Things do you care about?
  14. What Experiences do you want to have?
  15. What is on your Bucket List?

Add all the things that you want from life to your External Motivations list

Please focus as much as possible on What YOU Want, and as little as possible on what other people have told you, you should want

Examples of External Motivations

We’ve included some examples. These are only Examples and only a few

Please create your own List of External Motivations. Each person has their own unique set of External Motivations. Please list as many of your External Motivations as you can

  1. What do you most want from life?
    1. Happiness
    2. Good Health
    3. Financial Security
    4. Security and Freedom from Vampires and other bloodsuckers
    5. A good family
    6. Kids to be happy and healthy
  2. What are the things that really motivate you?
    1. Freedom
    2. Nature
    3. Beauty
    4. Things that make me think and ponder the meaning of life
    5. Ensuring a good life for my kids
  3. What are the things you are passionate about?
    1. My work
    2. Art
    3. Good Books
    4. Good Food
    5. Traveling
    6. Fishing
  4. What are the things you are very good at?
    1. This can be things such as – your work, connecting with people, being a good friend, being a good wife/husband, writing books, writing poetry
    2. Being a Good Father
    3. Understanding People’s Motivations
    4. Seeing the good in people
    5. Avoiding annoying people
  5. What are the things you feel you have a deficiency in?
    1. Health – would like to have close to perfect health
    2. Finances – would like to have my mortgage paid off and no credit card debt
    3. Good Friends – only have 3 true friends, would like a couple more
  6. What are the things you need to be able to focus on your writing?
    1. Money
    2. Time
    3. Enough pen and paper, or a laptop that won’t keep crashing
    4. No distractions
    5. Family being more supportive
    6. Cutting out distractions like Netflix and HBO
  7. What things do you feel are stopping you from getting the most out of life?
    1. The Federal Reserve
    2. My Boss
    3. People who park in a handicapped spot and then jog into the mall
    4. My girlfriend’s 3 cats
      1. She had just one when we started dating
      2. Perhaps she was just brilliant and hid the other two until I asked her to move in
    5. My uncle who keeps kissing me on the lips at every family gathering
      1. You spent a year in Italy when you were 18
      2. Stop pretending you’re Italian
    6. People who leisurely stroll across the crosswalk, when half a dozen cars are waiting for them
  8. What are the things you need for your day to day life?
    1. Food
    2. Water
    3. A place to stay
    4. A computer
    5. Dark Chocolate
    6. Tiramisu
  9. What are the things which will help you have a better life?
    1. Money
    2. A house of my own
    3. A car that can accelerate from 0 to 60 in 7 seconds, without the tires coming off
    4. A better work table
  10. What are the things which will ensure you have the basic comforts of life?
    1. A steady income
    2. Being better with finances
  11. What things will ensure you have a rich life experience?
    1. Money to travel and take road trips
    2. Money to afford a decent hotel
    3. More time to travel
    4. The end of Coronavirus and social distancing
  12. Who are the People you care about?
    1. My family
    2. My parents
    3. My girlfriend
    4. My brother and sister
    5. My nephews
    6. My 3 true friends
  13. What Places and Things do you care about?
    1. My hometown
    2. My new city, which is beginning to feel like home
    3. My old computer
  14. What Experiences do you want to have
    1. Spend a year in Vancouver
    2. Go to watch the Bulls in Pampalona, and make sure to not run
    3. Having more kids
    4. Watching my kids grow older
      1. Preferably with an option to skip 13 to 18
    5. Going on a vacation with my parents
  15. What is on Your Bucket List?
    1. Travel to Florence
    2. Marry my Girlfriend
    3. Eat at Jiro Subayashi’s Restaurant
    4. Visit Seoul
    5. Visit Shanghai
    6. Spend a month in Victoria
    7. Go back to College for a summer

Have fun making your list. Then put in some effort and make sure you capture everything that is important to you – every single thing that motivates you or gets you excited

Part 3 – Separating Your Own External Motivations from Motivations other people have programmed into you

While you should focus throughout on Your Own External Motivations, and avoid other people’s motivations for you, as much as possible, your finished list will still have lots of things

  1. That you don’t really care about
  2. That are not YOUR dreams, they belong to someone else
  3. That will make no discernible improvement in your happiness or your general life

Part 3 is about distilling your External Motivations List and cutting out everything that you do not care about

One easy way to do this is

  1. Give each item on your External Motivations List a score between 0 and 10
    1. 0 – I don’t care at all about this, but other people care a lot
    2. 10 – I care a lot about this, whether or not other people care about it
  2. Cut out everything that is a 5 or lower
  3. Keep the rest
    1. Move all the 8s, 9s, 10s to the top of the list
    2. Move all the 6s and 7s to the bottom of the list

This step is very important. Often we spend a lifetime living someone else’s dream, only to discover that personally we do not care about it at all

When it comes to writing books and what you want from writing, make sure your External Motivations are things that you actually care about

Part 4: Cleaning Up the List of Your External Motivations

After you’ve separated out other people’s motivations from your list of External Motivations, it’s very important to clean up your list

  1. Eliminate things that are completely unrelated to books, or shift them on to a separate list
    1. Keep the things that writing books might give you indirectly
    2. Example of what to remove: Going to a gym and getting into great physical shape
    3. Example of what to keep: Start earning enough from my writing career to buy and set up a home gym
  2. Keep everything that gets a 8 to 10 in terms of you caring about it (please see the previous section)
  3. Remove some of the things that get only a 6 or 7 rating (in terms of you caring about them)
  4. Remove everything that gets a 5 or less rating (in terms of you caring about them)
  5. Everything that is Impossible or Next to Impossible, move it to a separate ‘Stretch Goals’ list
    1. Do not delete these
    2. Move them to a ‘Stretch Goals’ list
    3. After you’ve achieved the more realistic goals, you should take a look at this ‘Stretch Goals’ list
      1. You will find that some of these ‘Impossible’ goals would have become attainable
  6. Remove things that seem like you’re doing them to make someone else happy (unless it’s your wife/husband)
  7. Remove things that do not have any very tangible long term benefit

Cleaning up your Motivations list is critical as next you will be prioritizing them

Part 5: Prioritizing Your External Motivations

The main aim is to prioritize Your External Motivations List into

  1. The One Thing – The single most important External Motivation, which makes everything else easy and approachable
    1. Credit to The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan
  2. Top 5 External Motivations
    1. The 5 most important External Motivations you have
    2. These should include The One Thing (and it should be at #1 in this list of five)
    3. These should be the ones, such that – if you get these 5, you’d be perfectly happy and content
    4. These should be sustainable and self supporting
      1. Getting these 5 should make you ‘whole’ and self sufficient
    5. They should be pragmatic
      1. Internal Motivations list – where you can put all the idealistic and ethereal stuff
      2. External Motivations list – pragmatic and down to Earth practical stuff
  3. Additional Motivations (only important ones)
    1. List down all the important External Motivations here
    2. List everything that is Very Important or Important
  4. [Optional section] Even More Motivations
    1. If there are some extra motivations you want to add, which don’t make the earlier sections, you can add them here
    2. Ideally, you want to have only
      1. The One Thing
      2. Top 5 Motivations
      3. Additional Motivations (only important ones)
    3. However, it is OK if you have some additional motivations that are must haves. Just add them to the ‘Even More Motivations’ list
  5. To the extent possible – Have everything prioritized

It’s all about ranking and prioritizing your External Motivations. Make sure you spend the time to prioritize properly

Part 6: The One Thing & Top 5 Motivations

The One Thing – What is the Single Most Important External Motivation?

The One Thing is a very powerful concept, elucidated in a book called The One Thing

  • What is The One Thing
  • such that the doing of it
  • makes everything else
  • easy and/or unnecessary

If you can figure out your #1 External Motivation

A motivation that becomes your The One Thing

A motivation that makes everything else easy and/or unnecessary

Then it makes your life very smooth and uncomplicated. It also makes you super productive and happier

Always make sure that you Identify your The One Thing

Top 5 Motivations

The One Thing is about making your life very smooth

The Top 5 Motivations are about making your life complete

Top 5 Motivations = The 5 motivations that will make your life very complete and fulfilled

If you had these 5 motivations, that would be enough for your life to be happy and complete

From your List of External Motivations

  1. First, figure out your The One Thing
    1. The single most important External Motivation
  2. After that figure out the 5 most important motivations (including The One Thing) such that
    1. These 5 External Motivations cover all the critical aspects of your life
    2. These 5 External Motivations are self sufficient and make you self reliant
    3. These 5 External Motivations are enough

If you can accurately assess your 5 Most Important Motivations

  1. Your Life becomes extremely easy

The Priority Order

Above all else, focus on your The One Thing. 80% of your time should go towards achieving this most important External Motivation (Your The One Thing)

In your remaining 20% time, focus on the remaining 4 External Motivations that make up your Top 5 External Motivations

What about all your other External Motivations?

Ideally, just forget about them until you achieve your Top 5 External Motivations

Part 7: Setting Goals for Your External Motivations

After you have your list cleaned up, prioritized, and ready for action

After you have identified your The One Thing and also your Top 5 External Motivations

Create SMART Goals for each of these External Motivations

  1. S for Specific – Your Goals should be as specific as possible. Have clarity and specificity
  2. M for Measurable – Your Goals should be things that can be measured
    1. Additionally, you must measure them regularly. Ideally, every day. At the minimum, once a week
  3. A for Attainable – Your Goals should be things that can be achieved. They should not be impossible things
  4. R for Realistic & Relevant – Your Goals should be realistic. They should be things you can achieve given your time and resource constraints
    1. Your Goals should be Relevant. They should be things relevant to your External Motivations
  5. T for Time Bound – Your Goals should have a timeline and a deadline
    1. Always be very specific about ‘By When’ you want your goals achieved
    2. Whenever possible, add 3 month, 1 Year, and 3 Year Targets and Deadlines

If, in the process of creating your SMART Goals for your Top 5 External Motivations, you find that one or more are not really your Top 5 Motivations, replace them

If, in the process, you find that your The One Thing is better replaced by another External Motivation, then do so

Please be sure to pick an External Motivation as The One Thing which makes everything else easy and guaranteed

Example of SMART Goals and The One Thing and Top 5 Motivations

Here is an example (just an example, please create your own list)

  1. The One Thing – Financially Secure via making a good amount of money from books and able to devote all my time and energy to writing books
    1. SMART Goal for The One Thing – Have 5 or more books, each making $1,000 or more net take-home profits a month, for a total of $5,000 take-home profits each month, by Dec 31st, 2025
      1. Specific – Yes, it is very specific. It clearly lays out – the number of books, what earnings each book is making, that it’s profits and not revenues, by when to achieve the goal
      2. Measurable – Yes, as number of books can be measured. Yes, as money each book is making can be measured. Yes, as amount of net take-home profits can be measured
      3. Attainable – Yes, as $1,000 a month net profits from a book is a very attainable goal. Yes, as having 5 or more such books is also very attainable
      4. Realistic – Yes, as even for a brand new author, hitting this level of earnings from books is doable
      5. Time Bound – Yes, as we have a clear deadline of Dec 31st, 2025
  2. Top 5 External Motivations and SMART Goals for Each
    1. [The One Thing] Financially Secure via making a good amount of money from books and able to devote all my time and energy to writing books
      1. SMART GOAL – Have 5 or more books, each making $1,000 or more net take-home profits a month, for a total of $5,000 take-home profits each month, by Dec 31st, 2025
    2. Producing lots of good quality books each year, and a significant portion of them becoming money makers
      1. SMART GOAL – Be in flow writing books, producing 3 to 5 high quality books each year, with 30% or more becoming stable hits and making $1,000 or more net take-home profits a month, within one year after launch, and staying that way for at least 10 years
    3. Able to devote myself to writing as a full time job
      1. SMART GOAL – Have the option of quitting my day job by Dec 31st, 2025, by having $5,000 or more monthly profits from my books by Dec 31st, 2025, and also having reduced my debts and improved my investments to have me in a much stronger financial situation by Dec 31st, 2023
        1. Quit my day job by Dec 31st, 2026 or earlier
    4. Have Financial Security for My Family and Myself
      1. SMART GOAL – Have grown take home profits to $7,000+ a month by Dec 31st, 2026, have $100,000 savings in the bank by Dec 31st, 2026, and have mortgage 50% paid off by Dec 31st, 2026
    5. Be writing what I want to write, with reasonable concessions to making money
      1. SMART GOAL – Be writing 3 to 5 high quality books each year, with at least 1 completely focused on what I want to write, and making sure that for that one book I don’t let any considerations other than writing what is in my heart come into play

By far the two most important elements are

  1. Measurable – You must be able to measure progress and you must be able to measure when the goal is achieved
    1. What Gets Measured Gets Managed
  2. Timebound – There must be a timeline and a deadline/target date

Setting SMART Goals greatly increases the chances you will achieve your Goals

Part 8: The Critical Importance of Rewarding Yourself for Your Small & Large Victories

Focus on Achieving the Smart Goals that are linked to Your Top 5 External Motivations – Reward yourself whenever you take a significant step closer to them

Create a positive reinforcement cycle by rewarding yourself for every victory (small or large)

  1. Reward yourself only for victories – things that are your achievements and bring you closer to your goals
  2. Do not reward yourself with negative rewards, which are counterproductive to your goals
    1. Reward for finishing a chapter of a book, should not be – take a week off from writing
    2. Reward for paying off one credit card and reducing total debt, should not be – take a shopping trip and add that debt right back
  3. Large Victories should have Large Rewards
  4. Choose Meaningful Rewards
    1. A packet of cookies for finishing a book is not the right kind of award
    2. Have a nice dinner, or take a road trip, or do something you really, really love
  5. [Optional] Punish yourself for Bad Behavior
    1. 20 push ups if you don’t write X,000 words each day
      1. Please be mindful of your health situation and adjust the punishment accordingly
    2. You will be surprised how quickly things improve if you set up a punishment you really, really hate

Reward Good Behavior and Punish Bad Behavior

Reward yourself for Victories

Rewards create a positive reinforcement cycle. They really accelerate the rate at which you achieve your goals

Part 9: The Role of Internal Motivations and The Role of External Motivations

Let’s revisit what we had written earlier

  1. External Motivations and Internal Motivations complement each other
    1. Internal Motivations appeal to our higher senses
    2. Internal Motivations appeal to the nobler part of our selves
    3. External Motivations appeal to our more basic senses
    4. External Motivations appeal to the more pragmatic part of ourselves

Internal Motivations are really critical. They are the things that will bring you happiness and joy in the long term. The things that will sustain you through the hard times

External Motivations are the things that will keep you going day to day. They provide the every day energy and drive you need

External Motivations have another very critical role

  1. External Motivations are what give you the resources to actually keep writing
    1. External Motivations related to making money and financial security will give you the money and resources to keep writing
    2. External Motivations related to selling books and getting in front of readers will give you the motivation to do marketing and actually sell your books
    3. External Motivations related to getting reviews and becoming a bestseller and winning awards will give you the impetus to write better and polish your books more

External Motivations are the pragmatic, practical part of your Motivations. They keep you in the writing profession, with the resources to keep being a writer

Extra Credit

  1. Please Read the Post on Why Do You Write? From the Beginner Book Marketing Guide from Review Zero

Perhaps the key things to consider from that linked post are

  1. How to create a list of your Motivations (The First Step of that post)
  2. How to cleanup your list of Motivations
  3. Shifting Impossible Motivations and Next to Impossible Motivations to a ‘Stretch Goals’ list
  4. The Example list of Motivations & Desires (just an example, and helpful nonetheless)

Critical Points to Keep in Mind

There are two critical points

  1. The One Thing – By far the most important part of creating a prioritized list of Your External Motivations is to come up with The One Thing
    1. The One External Motivation which makes everything else possible and easy
  2. Enabler External Motivations – There are some External Motivations that enable other External Motivations
    1. Whenever possible put these into your Top 5 External Motivations list
    2. Whenever possible prioritize these higher than stand alone External Motivations

Closing Thoughts on External Motivations

Just as it is unhealthy to not have some Deep Internal Motivations (leaving a legacy, creating beautiful work, connecting with people, etc)

It is very impractical to not have strong External Motivations (making money, freeing up your time, having financial security, creating a career, etc)

External Motivations are the pragmatic, practical aspect of your hopes and dreams. They are the wings that allow you to fly

 

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