When you think of motivation, what comes to mind? Energetic cheerleading? Specific people? Goals? Dreams? A rousing speech? What about routines and structure?

We often think of the former – of the dreams, goals, the prize we will ‘win’. However, we rarely think of the daily routines or structures that also motivate us. The 5 minutes of meditation we do while drinking our morning coffee or having our shower. Or the routine of reading bedtime stories with our kids. Or writing for 30 minutes every morning, going for a run everyday, and so on.

Motivation needs to be both inspirational and practical to be effective. This is true for us as individuals and for organisational change. Too often we try to avoid the hard work, the daily practice and wonder why our inspirational visions fail to bring about change. The opposite is also true. Daily routines religiously kept without vision and inspiration quickly turns into drudgery.

We need both prongs, not just one.

Photo by Markus Winkler