How To Improve Your Mojo

-

How To Improve Your Mojo

I have said in a previous post that there are seven things that go into mojo.
  • Motivation
  • Experience
  • Expertise
  • Support
  • Faith
  • Luck
  • Willingness to act
You can only do something about a few of them. For instance, you can change the first 4 or 5 in the list. In contrast, luck can’t be anticipated or forced. I discuss it in another post. Similarly, willingness to act is an inborn trait that can’t be forced either. Let’s concentrate on the rest. I’ll start with the easiest one to improve and work to the hardest.

mojo
Motivation. Usually, motivation is divided into internal and external motivation. You can’t willfully change your internal motivation just by wanting to. However, external motivation can sometimes convert into internal motivation. For example, let’s say you get up to meet a friend to workout in the morning. Suddenly, your friend is unavailable. But you find that you want to get up anyway. You have had a conversion of external motivation (the meeting) to internal motivation (your own desire). In a different post, I have explained how to add external motivators via 3 tricks, variety, friends, and rivals. After using these tricks to increase your external motivation, it may be converted to internal motivation. Either one can help you to increase your mojo.

experience
Experience. The next most easily addressed factor in your mojo is experience. It is often said said that you should just start whatever activity you want to improve in. This is because starting will increase your experience, which is one of the easiest ways to improve mojo. However, do not confuse getting more experience with getting expertise. It is possible to get a lot of experience and not increase expertise at all. To get expertise from experience, you have to actively think about what you are doing and learn from mistakes and successes. Evidence of this is the fact that many high performers have a lot of experience but don’t make good coaches. They can’t explain to anyone else what should be done. They just do. They aren’t used to thinking about what to do or putting it into words. Experts can almost always explain what is good and why another approach is wrong.

Expertise. The third way to increase mojo is to add to your expertise. I have already discussed gaining expertise by getting more experience. Being In the environment in which to gain experience affords you the opportunity to gain expertise also. However, you have to make the effort to gain expertise. Getting the experience alone is not enough. There are other ways, such as book learning, instruction, and watching. Any of these methods can be effective for some. Don’t discount these methods or those who gain expertise in these ways.

support
Support is another way, although not a very effective one, to get more mojo. In this case, to make gains, you have to improve your support team. For instance, a new coach, manager, or teacher may be necessary. If you need a better team, get one. You still have to follow the advice of your supporters to gain mojo, but sometimes, it is necessary.

Faith is the least likely avenue for improving mojo. It will likely require more trust in your training. This can be from a teacher, manager, coach, mentor or other person who instructs you. If you trust your training and have faith in it, it can help you to relax and perform well. If the training is good, your mojo can be too. If it can be improved by getting better instruction, do it and your mojo should improve too, albeit indirectly.
You can improve your mojo in these five ways. To summarize them:
  1. Get help if needed and
  2. Concentrate on what you are doing.

Good luck.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
Image
  Mojo Heroes And Antiheroes There are both heroes and antiheroes among people with high mojo. There is no law that says a person with high mojo has to be a nice person. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t. Let’s define anti-hero. Webster says an anti-hero is “a protagonist or notable figure who is conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities”. Examples of heroic qualities are strength, ability, achievement, courage, and nobility. The number of anti-heroes compared to heroes is greater in fiction than in real life. It is just more fun to write about or play the more complex characters typified by anti-heroes. It exploits the talents of the actors better. It also seems as if there are more anti-heroes today than in prior years. But all of the people I am about to mention had high mojo, whether hero or anti-hero. In an earlier post , I described the top 10 American people with high mojo. They were George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, Benjam...
Read more

10 Highest Mojo Colleges

-
Image
10 Highest Mojo Colleges Many sources make lists. Wikipedia is a source that does a good job of describing how a list is built. But I don't rely on it. Instead, I used endowment , acceptance rate , the US News rank , and my own judgement as my sources in making my list. sually, lists rank colleges for suitability for an individual or for best overall rank. However, mine ranks the colleges with the highest mojo, not the best academics, sports, campuses, etc. I included US News’ overall rank because a high placement on such a list is one indication (not the only one) of mojo. Another one that I use is endowment. If alumni have money ad want to give it to their alma mater, that indicates that the alma mater has mojo. Another indicator that I use is acceptance rate. If a lot more people apply to a college than are accepted, that is a further indication of mojo. Also note that the military academies are in a different group for purposes of evaluation, but I include a co...
Read more

How Mojo Works

-
Image
Figure 1. The components of mojo. What makes up mojo? Merriam Webster says: Mojo is :” a magic spell, hex, or charm, broadly : magical power // works his mojo on the tennis court //The team has lost its mojo.“ I’m not sure about the magic part of it, but mojo is something that a person or group has to varying degrees. You know it when you see it, even if you can’t define it. Another example of such a thing was cited by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart who famously said in his 1964 Order , he could not use words to describe pornography but " I know it when I see it ." When something is not well understood, it is indistinguishable from magic . Maybe this is why people are often said to have their “mojo workin’” even if magic is irrelevant. Parts of Mojo motivation expertise experience support luck faith willingness to act. This blog will focus on motivation because it is such a big part of mojo and is often a poorly under...
Read more