Our environment is made up of different groups. These groups are to your environment, as cells are to your body? they may be replaced by new cells but will still have the same function and they all work together to form a whole. When we spend time with our friends, our colleagues, our family, or our loved ones, we experience different parts of our environment. Their impressions, beliefs and the way they act and react will impact our beliefs and actions.

When we take control of the many environments we work, live and play in, our world changes and we attract more success, better relationships, greater health and a more fulfilled life. We become the force of influence and not only create more for ourselves, but more for those around us.

There are 3 key steps to take control

1. Creating a Motivation Map

Awareness of what drives each environment is essential before any change can happen. Each area of our work can give us motivation or take it away. Every work environment interacts with the others and influences our working routine.

Imagine the motivation map of our "world of work" is made of 5 different areas:

Meeting Land In the north of meeting land, all the positive emotions and the motivation we get during meetings drives us to excel. But in the south of meeting land, stand the cliffs of death were we would rather jump off than attend another meeting. This is where meetings take away from our emotional needs.

The Solo Caves Solo caves where we get the most out of working alone, yet below that is the bottomless pit, where working alone as its downfall.

Team Mountain Where we find the best in ourselves through the teams we work in, to the far east however, we find the Mountain of Fire, where working with teams, burns up our motivation. The Directive Interaction Forest Where we find incentive in giving and/or getting direction but below that lye the swamps of darkness, where giving and/or getting direction is like falling in to quick sand and the more you move, the further down you get pulled.

The social jungle Where socializing with colleagues meet our needs and drive us to be better at work yet beside the lush jungles leys the dessert of despair where social/political aspects of our work environment dry up any motivation we may have to excel

By knowing where and why your emotional needs are most fulfilled and where they are not, you can more confidently confront the obstacles that prevent you from venturing into those areas that seem to suck dry any desire to excel.

For example: If you really enjoy the interaction and coming up with creative ideas within a team, but at the same time, you also feel that the same team members take too much control and they stifle the suggestions, without listening to them completely. Thus your entire team interaction may become jaded. You may have mixed feelings about your team experience. It depends on which one is stronger, the fulfillment you get from interaction & innovation or the dissatisfaction from people putting you down. You will likely see the entire experience as the reflection of the stronger force. By mapping your motivation you are actually able to separate those areas. By Mapping, we see beyond the situation and understand the elements of the situation, the emotions we are getting or not getting.

Perhaps the emotions you get from the interaction and the creativity may be a sense of connection with your team mates, a sense of achievement for coming up with the ideas, and even feelings of importance & contribution because of your input to the team. So what you are actually getting from interaction and the creativity are these specific emotions and that's why you're motivated.

When people don't listen to your ideas or put them down, the opposite happens, it literally takes the feelings of achievement, connection, importance and contribution away you and that why you are unmotivated.

So it's not about the interaction and innovation or the way people put you down, but about the emotions you get or get taken away.

When you look at your overall map, your actions, motivations, and how and why you act and react to others becomes very clear. You will be constantly reminded of where you are and what makes you productive. You will be more able to deal with the people and situations that de-motivate you. Your awareness that it's not what others "do" that matters, but what emotional needs you loose that causes dissatisfaction, gives you the power to inspire a new perspective, the power to change the situations that influence you.

But the key is to share your map with your colleagues and get them to share theirs with you. This will set the foundation to influence your environment and help to keep each other get greater fulfillment and productivity at work.

More on Part 2