Are you a thinker, a planner or a doer?

When tackling motivation problems the solution can come from knowing a bit more about your skills and natural focus in any task. By this, I mean identifying which stages of tasks you naturally excel at and which you tend to fall down at. These stages can be boiled down into 3 distinct sections; Thinking, Planning and Doing. So, let’s take a look at what these involve:

Thinking

Thinkers excel at exploring the initial ideas. They spend time brainstorming and examining all of the possibilities. Thinkers are often creative, reflective types with good imaginations. They tend to be positive people who don’t rule out options easily, preferring to explore them sufficiently before making any judgements.

Planning

Planners are strategists. They take pleasure in figuring out how best to execute a particular idea. Whilst planners may also have a creative streak, this is paired with a strong instinct for logical thought. Planners are rationalists who enjoy dissecting a problem.

Doing

Doers are the masters of action. Utterly practical and non-nonsense, doers value results and take responsibility for getting them. Paradoxically, doers are not necessarily highly motivated people. They may find that they lack focus in areas that really matter to them because of the level of fore-thought required.

Have a look at the definitions above and think about where you fit in. You will probably find that you have one strong tendency, one average and one low. Once you have identified these, use your observations to help break the cycle of poor motivation. Simply being aware of these stages and which ones are harder for you will help overcome them.

When you have a task to complete, stop and consider the different phases. Relish the parts you find easy and take the time to appreciate the fact that you have those skills. For the rest, just being able to identify what you need to do at each stage is enough. Don’t torture yourself – just because it doesn’t come naturally doesn’t mean you have to struggle through or worse, give up.