Keep, Kick, Or Cultivate

"Ideas without action aren’t ideas. They’re regrets."  - Jeff Haden, author The Motivation Myth

​So you've got ideas of what to do, maybe they're your ideas, your bosses ideas, or some other societal idea that you think you "should" follow through on.

Yet you're not following through.

Yesterday, we explored MOTIVATION, as part of our journey to read deeply together.

We spent some time talking about the need to celebrate small victories, so we could get that good dopamine release, which would then fuel the motivation, and lead back to another victory. And so the cycle continues.

We spent the majority of the time talking about alignment, more specifically integrity.

According to Dr. Julie Smith (the author of the book we are exploring), one way to nurture our motivation is to reconnect with our goals.

So, I lead the group through Vishen Lakhiani's Most Important Questions exercise.

If you know the exercise, it's not about traditional SMART goals and OKRs and KPIs. Instead, it's about the experiences, learning, and contribution we want to make in the world.

The end goals, rather than the means to get there.

After sharing their experiences in breakout rooms, we moved on to part 2.

I asked them to list their given activities in a week.

Next, I invited them to compare their standard weekly activities with what came up for them in the MIQs process.

Given any gaps between what they say they WANT TO DO with their life, and what they are ACTUALLY doing with their life, the last part was to think about what activities they wanted to KICK, what they wanted to KEEP, and what they wanted to CULTIVATE.

My hope is that as they make these shifts, they will see and feel more alignment, and thus more motivation.


There's nothing worse than engaging in an activity which you think is meaningless and serves no purpose.

Just ask my son, who was up at 6:45am finishing an assignment for school.
He's 7.

Do you have anything on your to-do list that you really don't see the point of?

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.

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