LIE NO. 6

ONLY YOU CAN MOTIVATE YOURSELF

For a long time it was said that only you can motivate yourself— motivation from outside the self was pointless: Punishments do not work because people learn to endure or avoid them. Rewards are also useless because people get used to them. However, motivation expert and professional sports coach Steffen Kirchner is convinced that outside forces can incentivize people, and this extrinsic motivation can even drive people to their peak performance. That said, Kirchner adds that it’s important to pay attention to three things: Extrinsic motivators must be 1) rare 2) surprising and 3) personality based. “Motivation reflects people’s emotional fingerprint,” says Kirchner. The better you know a given personality, the more you can stir it up and induce behavioral changes. If motivation is tailored to personality, it will work from the outside. Guaranteed.