Designed for anyone of any age or ability, the six-stage model can be divided into Core elements (Purpose, Picture, Plan) and Maximisers (Psyche, People, Persuaders). The Core elements are essential to the model and must be satisfied before you can address the Maximisers. The Maximers are optional, but if implemented, can drastically increase the chances of you overcoming the challenge laid before you.
Core
Maximisers
From losing weight, to running a marathon, the 6-P hierarchy can be applied to any challenge in fitness and in life. So if you’re looking to push yourself and achieve something epic, follow this model, build your deep inner resilience, and overcome anything.
Intrinsic Motivation
The purpose is the most important factor of the 6-P model. Sitting at the bottom, it provides a strong foundation on which the whole pyramid is built. The stronger your purpose, the stronger your drive to overcome the obstacle and complete the challenge.
You have to ask yourself, why are you undertaking the challenge? What's it's meaning and purpose? You’re going to put yourself through immense amounts of pain and suffering in order to overcome this challenge, so your motivation has to be at its highest, and the biggest influence on internal motivation is meaning and purpose.
The most driven individuals often find deep motivation from working towards a cause larger than themselves(1)(2)(3). Working towards a greater objective can provide activation in energy. These individuals work harder, longer, achieve more and with higher levels of satisfaction(4). Having purpose inspires people to act, not because they are swayed, but because they are inspired(3).
The purpose can be anything you like, as long as it aligns with your inner feelings. When your actions are aligned with your feelings, rather than analysis and thinking, you are much more likely to willingly endure the suffering of the task in hand(5).
You’re not doing this to lose two stone or run a marathon. That’s a result, not a purpose. Ask yourself, how will this result impact yours or other people’s lives for the better. Will it improve your physical and mental health? Will it help you feel better about what you see when you look in the mirror? Will it enable you to be a better parent or partner? Will it help people less fortunate than you? Will it prove your doubters wrong? Whatever your reason, it has to carry deep personal meaning as you’re going to be calling on your purpose to help get you through the toughest of times, and ultimately achieve greatness.
Long-term Direction
On top of your purpose, you must have a crystal clear picture of what you are trying to achieve. Your picture represents your long term goal, and like your purpose, the more awe-inspiring the better. Dare to think big. The sheer magnitude of the task in hand should intimidate and excite you equal measure. Examples could be to ‘get in the most incredible shape of your life’, or ‘to push your body to its limits to discover what you’re truly made of’, or it could simply be to ‘run a marathon’. Whatever your picture, it has to be specific and measurable. You must be able to tell when you have reached your goal. What exactly does your end goal look like? How much will you weigh? What will your body fat percentage be? What fitness challenges will you complete? What time will you aim to complete them in? By setting specific and clear measures you create objectives to complete in order to achieve your goal.
Finally, give yourself a specific deadline in which to achieve your goal. Having a time limit will create urgency and actually help motivate you and kick your arse into action.
Short-term Movement
The final part of the Core P’s is your Plan. Your Plan represents short-term achievable actions and wins that keep you moving towards your ultimate Picture.
Breakdown exactly how you are going to work towards achieving your Picture within your designated time frame. What actions and objectives do you need to achieve or undertake in order to take the next step towards your Picture? Like your Picture, make sure you set out specific, measurable, achievable goals with a specific timeframe in which to complete them. The more you carefully plan and structure your plan, the more it will inspire confidence. A well-thought-out plan can also take out the fear of undertaking the challenge in the first place.
It’s of utmost importance that your Plan’s actions and objectives realistic and achievable. If your targets are set too high and you keep failing, you increase your chances of quitting. As you move through your plan picking up the short-term wins, the more your self-confidence will grow and the chance of you seeing out your plan to the end will increase drastically.
Once you have your Core P’s in place, you are able to go forth and start working towards your goal. However, the Maximisers represent the added extras you can add to your strategy in which to significantly increase your chances of challenge success.
Mindset
Mental toughness plays a big part in enabling you to endure and overcome. Although there are many mental strategies in which you could employ, here are our three favourite mindsets to help you reach your goal.
Life will always get in the way. Always. There will always be a reason, an obstacle or excuses as to why you can’t get after your goal that day. Submitting to too many inconveniences can lead to you losing momentum, dropping consistency and ultimately failing. You have to get in the mindset that working towards your goal is non-negotiable. Sure, when things pop-up, as they inevitably will, you can work them into your day, but under non-circumstances are you to neglect your pre-set duties to work towards your goal. Once you accept that it doesn’t matter what happens, all of a sudden the obstacles no longer matter and you end up building a habit of hard work and dedication.
It’s also worth noting that if you find life is continuingly getting in your way and you’re missing many of your commitments, it might be worth reviewing your plan. The goals you set in your plan must be achievable, which may mean easing-up on some of your targets.
Where motivators can encourage us to move forward purposely, fear can actively hold us back. There are four fears that hold most of us back then it comes to being creative: fear of the unknown, fear of being judged, fear of the first step, and fear of losing control(6). These fears exist internally within each individual and can differ from person to person depending on their perspective. Although research, planning and setting achievable targets can help you overcome many of these fears, at some point you just have to adopt the mindset of “f*** it”. It’s only once you release yourself from the shackles of fear that you will be truly free to attack your goal. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Things are not going to go smoothly. You will encounter setbacks, loses and failures all the way. However, as William Shakespeare said; “nothing is either good or bad, only thinking makes it so”. What Willy meant was that nothing is inherently good or bad, it is your perspective and outlook on the issue that determines your summary. You must teach yourself to reframe failures as learning experiences. Where a failure may make you question continuing, if you reframe it as a lesson, it will motivate you to try again and keep going. Think about what you can learn from the failure to enable yourself to be better next time? How can you use the setback to your advantage in other areas of your game plan? Once you learn this technique, you will understand that ‘win or lose’ does not exist. There is only ‘win or learn’.
Support
Whether it’s a training partner, a club or society, your family or friends or even an online community, having a system of support around you has been proven to significantly increase your chances of success(7). They can help push you to your limits, motivate through the hard times and inspire you to reach further.
Be sure you join Rokman The Runs. Our online network provides an excellent system of support and inspiration to help you seize the day and smash your goals.
Extrinsic motivation
Persuaders are external forces which can provide valuable, yet short-term, boosters to your motivation along your journey.
Many people use financial or material rewards to motivate them through their task. However, when you are motivated by ‘what’ you are doing and ‘what’ you can get, your purpose/intrinsic motivation becomes diluted. Adding rewards to tasks that you already find intrinsic motivation can actually turn an interesting task into a bore or play into work(2). Once you are no longer intrinsically motivated your performance will diminish. Rewards end up producing less of the motivation you are actually trying to encourage.
We, therefore, recommend utilising emotive and evidence-based messages to extrinsically motivate yourself(5). Find inspiration in emotional messages that push or support your purpose and picture. Build confidence through evidence-based messaging, like success stories, information or tried and tested systems.
Rokman exists as a Persuader to your epic achievement goals. Our mission is to provide information, systems and products that inspire a deep inner resilience within you (hence this 6-P model). We want to motivate you to push your body, to toughen your mind and overcome anything, as we truly believe that everyone has the potential to accomplish challenges of epic proportions, in life and fitness.
We would wish you good luck on taking on your challenge, but if you utilise the 6-P's, you won't need it!
Amabile, T., (2011). The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins To Ignite Joy, Engagement, And Creativity At Work. Harvard Business Review Press.
Pink, D. (2009) Drive, the Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. Riverhead Books. A member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. New York
Simon., S., (2009). Start with why: how great leaders inspire everyone to take action. Portfolio.
Cohen-Meitar, R., Carmeli, A., & Waldman, D., A., (2009) Linking Meaningfulness in the Workplace to Employee Creativity: The Intervening Role of Organizational
Kotter, J., 1999. What leaders really do. United States of America: Harvard Business Review Press.
Kelley, D. & Kelley, T. (2012) Reclaim Your Creative Confidence. 2012 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.
