One of the ways to tell if a blog is catching on is the number of requests for guest posts it gets. Lately I’ve been getting a lot of requests from folks who are interested in providing a guest post for this career success blog. That pleases me. Keep those requests coming folks. I appreciate them.
Today I have a guest post by Dr. Steve Levinson, inventor of a great little device called the MotivAider that can help you build positive habits that will lead to your life and career success. Positive habits are important to your career success. Tweet 90 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Habits are like muscles. The more you use them, the stronger they get.” Anything that can help you build positive habits is helpful to your career success in the long run.
Here’s what Steve has to say about the MotiveAider. Check it out…
The MotivAider is a remarkably simple electronic device that’s designed to enable people of all ages to change their own behavior and habits quickly, easily and privately.
The MotivAider grew out of my discovery that there’s a fundamental flaw in the design of the normal human mind that causes us to waste much of the intelligence, motivation, effort and hope that we invest in self-improvement.
As a clinical psychologist, I was struck by how ironic it is that while we can do such a great job of figuring out what we should do to achieve a highly desired goal, we often do a really lousy job of staying focused on actually doing – consistently – what we’ve decided we must do to be successful.
The problem, I realized, is that the mind contains some leftover primitive wiring that nearly guarantees that we’ll get distracted. And without a mechanism to dependably keep our attention focused on our good intentions, our intentions are bound to get lost in the shuffle and go to waste.
So I set out to create a solution – a way to make up for the attention-focusing mechanism that the mind is missing. I eventually came up with the MotivAider – a device that virtually guarantees that you’ll stay focused on making virtually any behavioral change you’ve decided to make.
The MotivAider looks like a pager and weighs less than three ounces. You simply clip it on your belt or waistband or carry it in a pocket. It uses a silent, pulsing vibration signal to repeatedly capture your attention and focus it on making whatever change you’ve decided to make.
By taking advantage of the mind’s capacity for associating a desired meaning with a neutral signal, the MotivAider is able to communicate with its user in a way that’s as private as a thought.
Here’s how the MotivAider works:
First, you create a brief personal message — a word, phrase or image — that reminds and motivates you to change the behavior you’ve decided to change. (For example, years ago, after reading about how cheetahs survive by always running as fast as they can even though they catch their prey only one out of ten times they try, I used the message “Cheetah” to remind me to always invest fully in the chase despite the odds against succeeding.)
Next, you associate t your personal message to the MotivAider’s vibration so that whenever you feel the vibration, you’ll automatically think your message. (Whenever I felt the MotivAider vibrate, I thought “Cheetah.”)
Finally, you set the MotivAider to send you private signals — and therefore your message — as often as necessary to keep you focused and on track to make the desired change. (Every ten minutes all day long, I was reminded to give it my all.)
By automatically sending a steady stream of private reminders flowing through your mind, the MotivAider keeps your attention riveted on making the desired change until the change becomes a habit. (Although it was a departure from how I had been before, being cheetah-like eventually became second nature for me. To this day, if I decide a goal is worth pursuing, I give it everything I’ve got.)
Yes, the MotivAider is a simple device based on a simple idea. But it’s helped thousands of people in 42 countries become more effective and successful simply by keeping them focused on making desired changes.
I think what Steve has to say makes sense and is some great advice for building positive habits that lead to life and career success. I’m going to get a MotivAider and try it out. I’ll let you know how it goes. But for now, I think it is a great piece of technology that has the potential to put you on the path to career success and help you stay there.
If you’ve used the MotivAider please share your experiences in a comment. As always, thanks for reading.
Bud
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