For action we need conviction AND motivation

First of all I wanted to excuse myself from not posting on Friday, it was labor day here and got involved in some home fixing action, and forgot to post. My apologies.

But, more importantly is that I recently learned this from my course and I think its great info!

I was reading about mental strategies and how one makes decisions, and we all need at least two strategies, the "convince" strategy and the "motivate" strategy.

When we make decisions, we use both internal and external information, and once processed we must be "convinced" that one option is better than the other, and yet we may still not take any action. What happened!? We were convinced and did nothing?

It turns out, conviction has little to do with taking action, conviction just means we made up our minds on one of many options, what we need now is the "motivate" strategy...

What the "motivate" strategy does, is that it analyzes the effects a decision will have on our own well-being, thus if we find compelling enough arguments in out analysis, then we are prompted to act. Motivation is the drive, the desire, but we must be convinced it is the right choice.

If you try to act only on motivation, you'll be disappointed. Why? you might really want to do something about your situation, but if you are not convinced that the series of actions you thought about are the correct ones, you'll be looking for better options.

Let's say you want to lose some weight (Motivation), but the proposed diet does not convince you. You are very unlikely to use that diet.
Let's say you find a great diet program, with awesome benefits, but you just don't really want to lose any weight. Then the program is not going to happen either.

My challenge for today is this, if you are motivated to do something to radically change your life, then find a convincing method and start doing it, TAKE ACTION. And if you are already convinced of a way, then think about your life after the fix and GET MOTIVATED!

Have a nice day!!

Federico Ruiz