How can you rebuild the motivation of a person?

Illustration of a man walking up on a chart

My two cents

There is a simple rating exercise used in Motivational Interviewing that I also use:

Ask people to rate how important something is for them and then ask them why that number isn't lower.

The exercise goes like this: you ask a person on a scale from one to ten how important this change, action, or decision is to them. One means it's unimportant, and ten means this is one of the most important things in life. Then, people share their number and explain why they picked that number.

The number a person picks is not so much important. What is important is the follow-up question. If, for example, the person said "It's a 4" you can ask:

Can you explain why you haven't chosen a 2 or a 1?

Here, the person will reveal all the elements that make this change or idea really important to them and why it's already important to them.

By doing that, this person will hear herself express why she is motivated by that idea. And studies show that hearing yourself say that you are motivated is, strangely enough, something that builds motivation.

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