What’s Motivating You?

You're tuned into Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Justin Lester is an average guy who refuses to let Mondays control him. Justin is a husband, dad, pastor, student, and Jesus follower. He's done a lot, he's learned a lot, and he wants to see you at your best. Let's win Mondays. Hey, Justin, what's up today?

Hey, everyone, it's Justin here. Welcome to Made for Mondays simple podcast that's geared towards encouraging you to push you on your Monday. So let's jump into it today. As I was sitting here thinking about this week, the statement that came to my head and the statement that came to my heart was the question I had to ask myself of what's motivating me this week. What are your core motivations? It's not a deep question, but. But here's where that came from. I was sitting outside in my house. I was sitting under a pergola. I was listening to just the normalcy of early morning movement. The birds were chirping, insects were going all around and flying, trying to find places to sit and do all the things that insects do. You heard the honking of horns, people running up and down the street, the music playing out of windows. The sun is getting into the place where the sun's going to be. The shadows of the sun are hitting everything around it. It's just the normalcy and the beauty of nature in the morning. And as I was sitting there thinking, I had to ask myself, what's. What's driving you today? What's going to make you, Justin, complete what you're starting? Because you have emails to send people to talk to, zoom meetings to have people to teach people to engage with, people to counsel. There's things I needed to do today, and what's going to motivate me to look back on the end of this day and say, this day wasn't wasted. What are your core motivations? And as I sat there and began to think about what was motivating me, Money, obviously, always is something that's there. But when I move money off the table, and I want to challenge you to move money off the table, I'm not saying don't work to make sure you get paid. I'm not saying don't make money. But I am saying if money is your core motivation, money becomes the root of evil. And so I want to challenge you to move money off as your core motivation. Money obviously is a thing to be motivated by, but it's not your core motivation. And as I sat there, I sat there and said, yes, My family is a core motivation. The people I'm engaging with is a core motivation. The future is a core motivation. And for me, it came down to answering three questions. And I want to give those three questions over to you as you go into this week to check your motivations. Number one, the question I had to ask myself was, number one, who am I becoming? Who am I becoming? With. With. With nobody and pushing anything around me without anything being added. Who am I on the trajectory of becoming? What with the language that I have, with the people that I know, with the things that I'm reading, who am I inevitably be going to become? Said this before, and I'll say it again on this podcast, that we are the five people who have access to our ears. We are the five people in our circle. Your circle determines your direction. Your direction determines the page pace that you're going in. Who are you becoming? Are you really becoming the father of the mother that you believe that you're becoming? Are you really becoming the leader you believe you're coming? What are the last five books tell you about who you're becoming? What are your last two or three podcasts you listen to tell you about the person you're becoming? What are the last five text messages you sent tell you about the person you're becoming? Don't mar the divine artistry at work within you because you're afraid of confronting who you're becoming. Who are you becoming? What have you engaged? What are you eating? Are you becoming the person that loses weight based upon what you eat? Are you becoming the person that leads your family based upon the ways that you texted your family recently? Who are you becoming? And that motivation becomes something, when you name it, that you're able to go through the day knowing that I'm going to become the person I'm going to become or I'm going to change that trajectory today. That means there's something I can engage with, something I need to engage with, something I need to send, something I don't need to send, a risk I need to take. Communication I need to send. Can I tell you what was so freeing for me when I began to name who I'm becoming? What I realized for me there was a lot of gray area in my communication. And so I decided to check the ways I communicate to become very frank, not to be afraid to send certain emails, not to be afraid to have certain conversations, not to be afraid to call certain people, not to do certain things via email that I needed to do on the phone or in person because I decided that the person I was becoming was not the person I needed to be, but the person I knew I desired to become was the person I needed to be. So I made decisions based upon that because that was my core motivation. Number one, who am I becoming? Number two, what do you think of yourself? What do you think of yourself? So if you're motivated by who you're becoming, Number two, you're also motivated by the language that you say to yourself. You know, my wife and I often joke about what's the purpose of cheerleaders? Nothing against cheerleaders. We always wondered at collegiate and professional sports games, what was the purpose of cheerleaders? Cheerleaders are getting dressed up. They're doing all these poses and backflips and movements around the building. They have all these statements that they have prepared to make sure that everybody is cheering throughout the totality of a game. What's the point of cheerleaders? And finally, I realize as I get older, without having people around you and people that are pushing you and cheering you, the importance of cheerleaders. Cheerleaders, vocalize what you're really thinking, but you often don't say to yourself, consider the motivation you've given to somebody else, the push you've given to somebody else, the encouragement you've given to somebody else. Here's what I've learned in my life. Often the things that we pour onto others are the things we really wish someone would say to us. And you have the language within you. What do you really think about you? I want you to name that positively and negatively. I want you to name what you think about you. What do you really think about your skill set, your talents? What do you really think about who you're connected to and what you're saying and how you show up in the spaces? What do you really think about what you wear, about what you drive, about where you live? When we're not honest with ourselves, we're lying to ourselves. So I want you to be honest about how you think about you and be motivated either to keep that definition and strengthen it or to move it. So who are you becoming? What do you think about you and what does your future look like? What does your future look like? The place you're in right now, Is it the place you wish to be or want to be in the next five years? And for some of you, the answer to that is yes. And I want to acknowledge that. I want to have empathy with that. And I want you to think that you always have to change things for Some of you, all the changes that you've made have led you to this moment. You are happy, you are in the space you want to be and you simply want to maintain it. And we'll talk about maintaining in the next couple of weeks. Is the place you're in right now the place you want to be in the next five years? What does the future look like for you? And for some of you, like I said, the answer to that is maintenance. For some of you, the answer to that is no. I want to be out of the space I'm in. I want to move the space I'm in. I want to change the relationships I'm in. I want to engage differently in the world. So for some of you, it's the same. For some of you, it's different. So be motivated by your answer. If your answer to that question about what does your future look like is I want the exact same, then great. Then be in a posture of maintenance and sustainability. What are the weak areas that need to be solidified in your life? What are the areas that are strong that you need to give better language to or stronger language to or communicate the language about so you can hold on to the sustainability in your home, on your job, and your relationships? For those of you who wish to change, you guys hear me say this all the time, what's stopping you? Often our biggest enemy are the ones that are sitting in front of us when we look in the mirror, that we're the ones telling ourselves we have to keep emailing or engaging or doing certain things that we know are against who we really are. What does your future look like and be motivated by that five year image, that 10 year image, if you came to you, that the you that's 10 years from now were to come to the you today, were to open the door, come into your house and sit down at your table, how would they engage with you? What are they wearing? What are they doing? And maybe they're exactly who you are today and that's great. And maybe they're completely different. What are they telling you they're reading? What is, what is you 10 years from now telling you today that they need to read, that they need to talk to, that they need to remove, they need to engage in that they need to eat that they need to stop eating, that they need to make sure they eat. Be motivated by who you're becoming, by what you think about you and what your future looks like. And I guarantee when motivations become something that are deeper than just getting through the day then sending some emails, then getting on Facebook, then moving some things out the way, then cooking breakfast and cooking dinner and picking up the children. When you're motivated by something that's deeper than you, you come alive. I want you to live this week. I want you to live this month. I want you to live today. You were made for this. Now let's go win Monday. Let's say our affirmation and go on about our day. So you repeat after me, say, I am me. I can be me, and no one will stop me from being me. You're made for this. Now go win the day. God bless you.

This has been Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Be sure to follow Justin online at mrjlester and online at www.jlester.com. see you next week. Go win. You were made for this.