literacy: The ability to read and write. The condition or quality of being knowledgeable in a particular subject or field.
Motivational Literacy: The ability to read and write emotions (in yourself or others). The condition or quality of being knowledgeable about how emotions work, and how to work them.
Motivational Literacy is an objective way of achieving better-quality decisions and communications. It helps you understand and escape emotional patterns that don’t serve you:
- Freedom from dependencies and patterns of smoking, drinking, anxiety, sadness, guilt, resentment, anger, etc.
- Escaping cycles of conflict with friends, coworkers, employees, customers, or loved-ones.
Motivational Literacy helps create and optimize patterns of effectiveness and fulfillment, both personal and with others:
- Becoming more consistent and effective with work, creativity, exercise, and other self-care. Having more curiosity, excitement, adventure, and contribution in your life.
- Having stronger communications and cooperation with friends, employees, coworkers, and customers – and deeper commitment and affection with loved-ones. Achieving strong consistent motivation for yourself, and leadership with others.
Motivational Literacy helps improve clarity about relationships – the ones we want to let go – and those we want to invest more deeply in.
We can’t see it, but we’re all trapped inside
these strange repeating loops. – Morpheus
Our thoughts and emotions are always in motion – racing through repeating patterns, the deep processing in our brains constantly evaluating experiences, endlessly making predictions, preparing us for action, and evaluating again.
They adjust our heart rate and respiration, our blood flow, temperature, hormone levels, and more.
They shift our psychology, tuning our attention and data-processing to alter our very perception of reality.
They do this automatically, and mostly invisibly.
We only notice consciously when shifts are abrupt (surprise, humor, startle), or especially intense (frustration, fear, anger, grief, awe, joy, achievement, fulfillment, ecstasy).
And, we don’t usually notice until after the intensity passes, and they’re almost gone.
We don’t realize …
the ones we hate … and the ones we love … are only the visible parts of a repeating emotional loop – like the tops of icebergs we only notice after hitting them.
But, how to control the invisible?
You have to make the invisible visible …
Over 20 years ago, we took-on that challenge by cataloging unconscious emotional patterns of hypnosis clients – patterns that gave them problems – and patterns of the happiest parts of their lives.
We followed-up with survey-based research with thousands of others to learn “which emotion comes next” – after any emotion you can name.
With a pack of sticky notes and some colored string, we built a map that covered the entire floor of our dojo. And, the first “map of the human emotional landscape” took shape, revealing human emotions’ relationships to each other, and their places within our motivational universe.
This map of our emotional labyrinth reveals invisible patterns, especially the intersections where we unconsciously change course – for better and for worse.
For instance, after a person enters frustration
their next emotion will probably be anger:
How true is this for you?
And, what would you like to do instead?
HINT: Humans exit frustration differently during parts of life that trouble us than we do during activities we find fulfilling. And, we can bring that navigation from the bright side of life to lighten our darker spaces.
With Motivational Literacy, we can exit problem patterns earlier, or avoid entering them. And, we can navigate more certainly to patterns of motivation, performance, and happiness.
- What’s the habit or pattern you’re most tired of – or even ashamed of repeating?
- What’s the thing you’re most struggling to start or to be consistent with?
- Motivation? Diet? Exercise? Study?
- What’s the communication with your child, spouse, or employee that just doesn’t seem to work?
- What is the invisible part that’s preventing you from doing what you really want?
- What does the iceberg of your challenge look like below the “waterline” of conscious awareness?