Motivation & Achievement

By Charlie Wardle

Challenge yourself to a better life. This book is a practical guide to help you become more motivated and achieve greater success through the challenges you face in life or the new ones you decide to take on. Motivation is key to challenging yourself, overcoming barriers and being successful in life and the more you achieve, the more fulfilling and happier your life will be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlie Wardle
• Release date: May 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9780993559488

Charlie Wardle

Hi there, I am Charlie Wardle, 41 years old, living in Milton Keynes, England! Since 2008, I have spent my life either organising, managing and leading groups on hikes, climbs and outdoor adventures or researching, writing books, talking, doing presentations, delivering workshops and courses, offering advice and supporting people on a wide range of Health & Wellbeing topics.These topics include stress, anxiety, depression, confidence, motivation, exercise, sleep, weight loss, healthy eating, addictions, financial issues, relationships, achievement, success and happiness. I have delivered hundreds of talks, workshops and courses to over 5,000 people, written 7 books that have been published and over 90,000 have been downloaded and I have advised hundreds of people personally and confidentially on a one-to-one basis. I am not a qualified doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist but I am confident I can really help people through my experience, knowledge and understanding gained over many years and I have thousands of testimonials to support this. Prior to the change of career in 2008, I held a number of Senior Finance roles with major companies. I am an ACA Qualified Chartered Accountant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, have an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and also qualified with the Chartered Institute of Marketing. I love the outdoors and especially mountains but I also love understanding about people and helping them overcome challenges they may face and improving their lives in whatever way that might be. Anyone can enjoy the outdoor trips, adventures and challenges and anyone can benefit from the health and wellbeing books, programs or the personal coaching and advice I offer. Please feel free to contact me on: [e-mail]

Book preview

A word from the Mountain Coach...

Hello, my name is Charlie Wardle, also known as ‘The Mountain Coach’ and since 2008 I have focused on my two main passions which are Outdoor Adventures and Health & Wellbeing.

Before that I had built a successful career in finance, qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC, obtained an MBA from a top ranked Business School and, and my last role in a ‘proper job’ I was the Finance Director of a large global publishing company at the age of 33.

Since 2008, I have carried out extensive research into many areas of health and wellbeing including stress, depression, anxiety, confidence, motivation, exercise and nutrition. I have delivered hundreds of talks, workshops and courses over the last few years on these topics and I’ve used the insight and knowledge gained, combined with my own experiences, meeting and talking to hundreds of people to help people improve their lives.

I love to provide the opportunities for people to improve their physical and mental health and to become happier as a result. Those opportunities include a series of health and wellbeing books to read, a range of courses and workshops to attend and numerous physical activities, trips and challenges to participate in.

Both personally and through the company, I have taking part and completed many physical challenges including climbing and hiking up hundreds of mountains in the UK and overseas, running many marathons including a ‘30 marathons in 30 days’ challenge and also setting an official world record for the longest distance covered 3-legged in 12 hours!

All the best and enjoy reading!

The Mountain Coach

Introduction

‘If you head towards your goal with courage and determination, all the powers of the universe will come to your aid’ – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The objective of this book is essentially to make you happier! There are many things that can make us happy and of course, many things that can make us unhappy; however, we are generally happier when we are successful and achieve things. Achievement can be very powerful for a wide range of reasons yet our capacity to succeed is far higher than what most people actually achieve. Therefore, this implies we would be happier if we were to close that gap between capability and reality of achievement and thus achieve more in our lives. But how?

Well, once again, there are many factors, but most achievements wouldn’t be achievements unless we perceived them to be a challenge in some way. Therefore, we need to look at challenges in more detail. What is a challenge? How do we achieve and succeed in those aspirations? What challenges would I like to do and what am I capable of doing?

So, how do we actually achieve and succeed in those objectives? A key ingredient is motivation. How do we motivate ourselves to do what is necessary to achieve and succeed in the challenges we set ourselves? What is motivation? Why is it so hard to motivate ourselves at times and how can we improve our levels of motivation and desire to achieve?

If we were better at motivation and understood the huge benefits of achievement it is likely we would set ourselves more challenges and then succeed more and thus become happier! So this book tries to help us in those three key areas: motivation, challenges and achievement.

Table 1Swim

PART 1 MOTIVATION

‘If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you will find an excuse.’

What is motivation?

The formal dictionary definition of ‘motivation’ is ‘a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way’.

The psychological definition of ‘motivation’ is ‘the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-orientated behaviours. It involves the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that activate behaviour.’

I have also asked a number of people for their own definition of motivation; here is a selection of the responses:

Motivation is an inner feeling that produces the incentive to undertake an activity or action. It is usually a strong feeling that provokes a reaction into doing/completing something that you might not otherwise do.

Motivation is having the desire to take action, do something and whether it is something you are happy or even excited about doing.

Motivation is the desire and ‘will’ to do something and get things done. To achieve a goal, no matter how small.

Motivation is having the willpower and energy to do something positive. It is what causes us to act on the goals we want to achieve and to get the end results.

Motivation is something that provides somebody with the inclination to do something.

Motivation is having a purpose to achieve and achieve well. It is gaining respect from others and self-worth for yourself. It’s a reason to get up in the morning.

Motivation is the will and confidence to complete any task and encompassing the reasons for doing something.

I believe there are four key components of motivation, as follows:

The starting point – there has to be an initial starting point for your motivation, perhaps a goal or challenge you have thought of, or someone else has planted an idea that sparks an interest. From this initial point there comes the activation of the idea and you start to plan and prepare until you actually commit to that particular goal. The motivation is usually quite high in the initial stages with a burst of optimism and enthusiasm.

Endurance – this is how long you can maintain the effort, and your level of persistence. It will require endurance and stamina to keep motivated so that you can achieve the goal. Are you able to keep going, overcome any hurdles or setbacks and persist with your efforts?

Intensity of effort – then there is how committed you really are to the goal, how much effort and hard work you will dedicate to the challenge and how much you want it. Are you prepared to give it your best, to focus, to make sacrifices and to keep motivating yourself so that the goal is achieved?

The end goal – finally there is the reward and sense of achievement you get from completing the goal and challenge. By focusing on the end result and reminding yourself of the reasons for the challenge and the benefits of achieving your goals you will be better placed to maintain your motivation.

All four components are important in order to be successful. If any one of them is missing or neglected then you are more likely to struggle with your motivation and therefore less likely to achieve your goals.

Motivation

What do you want to be motivated for?

You have bought this book for a reason – so there must be things you want to do and achieve or be more motivated to do. Perhaps it is to achieve a physical challenge or maybe to lose weight and get fitter. Or it could be to be more effective and achieve more at work or you just want to get more out of life and do more things. Spend a few minutes thinking about what you want to achieve, why you want to be motivated and what challenges and goals you want to set for yourself.

Write these thoughts down here:

Table

What stops you being motivated?

There are many possible factors that contribute towards a lack of motivation or which can stop you being motivated altogether. Below are examples that people have given of factors that can stop you being motivated. Have a read through and be honest with yourself by identifying those that you can relate to. Once you become more aware of the factors that cause the motivational issues then the better position you will be in to address them and look at ways to overcome them. The examples given are not exhaustive, so you may think of others not mentioned, and many of them may not apply to you, but have a read through and make sure you are honest about those that do apply.

But before you do read on please take some time to list your own examples of what stops