Hi  ,

It’s another Monday morning, and you can expect to see a lot of “aspire to maguire” content out there already. From emails to Twitter posts and Whatsapp statuses, it seems everyone has a cute, short message aimed at motivating you.

But is it motivation you really need?

I don’t think so.

If you are an average young Nigerian that’s not from a rich home or is not a ‘delegate’, SAPA is already a great motivator. 

In my opinion, you don’t need motivation, you need CLARITY. 

CLARITY, in this sense, means knowing what you should be doing, why you need to do it, and how to do it effectively. 

For many of us, the problem is that we know what we want (e.g a remote job paying at least $1000 per month), but we do not have clarity on what exactly needs to be done to get there. 

If your goal is to go from Ibadan to Lagos, motivation is just like me coming to your house every day to say “Guy, you must go to Lagos o, Lagos is such an amazing place”. 

Motivation is only useful if you hadn't made up your mind to make a decision, or you get tired along the way. 

In fact, effective and successful people don’t need motivation. They get up and do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, regardless of what they feel like. 

So, here’s my advice. 

• Get a piece of paper and write down your goal. E.g Get a remote job that pays $1000 within the next 3-6 months
• Write down all the steps you need to take to achieve this goal e.g Learn a high-income skill, build a rock-solid LinkedIn profile, etc. 
• Create a plan to achieve all those steps. 
• Write down the reason you want to achieve that goal.

 , many people fail to achieve their goals because they lose track of WHY they wanted to achieve the goal in the first place. 

"Aspire to perspire" posts on social media rarely does anything to help. What will keep you going when the going gets tough, is the reason you started.

Do you want to move into a new apartment? Get married? Build a house for your parents?

Put that image at the front of your mind, so whenever you work on your goal, you are reminded WHY you need to push through, even though it’s hard.

The main reason that many people, and maybe even you, are frustrated with the lack of progress towards achieving their goals, is that they do not know the exact things to do to get the results they want.

They lack Clarity. 

But, the solution to gaining clarity, is to ask better questions. 

Do you remember my last mail? Where I talked about the Question-Activity Matrix, and asking better questions? 

Go back to read the mail here and apply it to your proposed goal. Ask enough questions till you know what exact steps are needed to achieve your goals.

Then get started. 

I’m rooting for you!

Your friend, 

Favour.

P.S I haven’t gotten up to 10 yeses on my last mail, so I haven’t started writing the article on how to use the Question-Activity Matrix to become better. If you would like to see that article, drop a YES on the TFP community group here.

P.P.S Planning is already underway for the free webinar on getting remote jobs, and if you’re interested in attending the webinar, please fill out this form so I know that you are interested.

If you have any questions, you can reach us by email at favour@thefavourphronesis or send us a DM via WhatsApp