Page 47 - Social Media Marketing

Motivating Yourself with Goals and Rewards 25

and may even destroy your confidence. Share only with those who
believe in you and are willing to help you achieve success or who
at least will not stand in the way of it.

Create a Goal/Reward Collage

Earlier in my career, my wife and I created goal collages. We would
cut out pictures of things we wanted from magazines. If we wanted
a new car, we would paste photos of our dream cars from magazine
ads onto a sheet of cardboard to create our collage. If we wanted
to take a vacation, we would team up with our children to cut
out pictures that reflected just how much fun we would have as a
family on that vacation. Whatever we wanted to work hard for, we
recreated in our goal!reward collage, which became our inspiration
and measuring stick for achieving our goal.

In the office, I tried to implement a similar approach to goal set-
ting. My assistant, Lois, went down to the local newspaper, bought
huge rolls of blank newspaper stock, cut them into six-foot sheets,
and hung them around the office. Everyone in the office was in-
structed to create their own goal!reward collage. Mine wrapped
around the island of offices on the first floor. Several others re-
mained blank.

To encourage everyone in the office to complete their collage,
I offered a $1,000 bonus. Each person who completed a collage
would be given an extra $1,000 just for doing a little cut and paste.
I could not believe that I had to stoop to bribery to motivate my
team, but I believed so strongly in goal!reward collages, that I felt
the investment was worth every penny. As with most attempts at
motivating people, however, the exercise benefited only those who
saw the value in it.

Evolution of My Goal/Reward Collage

As I was presenting Lois with additional items to paste up on
my collage, she stopped me and said, "Ralph, these aren't really