It’s a common problem no matter where you are, and whether you’re gathering donations for your church or a charitable organization: you can really have a hard time motivating people to do good. Try as you might, you will always bump against people who do not think that going to a homeless shelter for a night of volunteering is not as worthwhile as going to the club.

No matter how hard you work at it, it can be hard to convince people to help you fold clothes or gather canned goods for the less fortunate, especially when they have jobs that they think are more important than any other earthly activity. And no matter what you do, there will be people who will criticize your work as being a band-aid to other problems that should be solved.

Despite all these criticisms and setbacks, you should be able to do the work that you want without worrying about what people think. Moreover, you should be able to bank on a willingness on your part to motivate people to do what they can to help your cause out. How do you motivate people to do good? Here are a few tips that you may want to take into consideration.

- When starting off your marketing blitz to get people to listen to you, keep in mind that you are not preaching to the choir, but neither are you trying to make devils listen to you. You will have a healthy mix of people who both want to help and who don’t really care. The key is to hit your note in the middle and not end up alienating any of them.

By being too solicitous and too pity-inducing, you end up irritating the people who don’t care yet. By being too appealing to people’s emotions, you may end up annoying the people who already do care and want to help out. Avoid being self-righteous or off handed. Remember, when you want to help people, you don’t want to show how helpful you already are.

- Avoid using negative language, such as, “Don’t go to the club tonight when you can help people!” You don’t want people to feel that they are doing something that they should substitute with something that you are endorsing. This could lead them into thinking that you are trying to change them, and whenever people feel that their feelings and perceptions are being attacked, they will go on the defensive.

- If you are working with a charitable organization, try to tie in your work with something enjoyable. Have a dance party or rent out the club for a party and charge for entrance. Promise that you will give proceeds from your earnings to a charitable organization or cause. Have people dress up in costumes, and then give prizes away for the best costume, and ask people to bring canned goods with them.

Find a way to tie in your cause to something that people could do and have fun with. You want to look human, too, and you want to get as many people as possible. Just be sure to stay within the bounds of decency and you will be fine.

- Lastly, surround yourself with reputable people. No one wants to donate a cause that is associated with gangsters, thieves, or anyone who doesn’t have a solid enough reputation. You want to have people around you that anyone can look up to and admire.

A lot of adages tell us that we cannot make people change. An old dog cannot learn new tricks, says one; a zebra cannot change its stripes, says another. But one adage does go, “There is nothing more permanent than change.” How can you reconcile the fact that you can still change no matter how old you are?

Does this mean that there are ways for people to mend their ways? Thankfully, there is hope for you to be able to change people and motivate them to do better. Here are a few tips that you can take into account when you would like to take on the monumental task of convincing someone to change.

- An adage goes, “Acceptance comes before change,” and this is something that is true no matter what the occasion or thing that you want changed. You cannot simply go smashing and hurtling and driving headlong into a person’s life, and act as the revolutionary whirlwind that will enact change. Change must go slowly, and if it goes too fast, you can expect reversion to occur quickly as well. When starting out a friendship, accept a person’s faults first. Make sure that you set the stage for that person to change because he or she wants to, not because you demanded it and that person simply feels it to be an obligation.

- Try some dolphin training. What do trainers do to motivate animals to do tricks? They reward animals for a job well done and ignore animals if they do something wrong. This actually works with people as well. You know the exhilaration when you get that raise after years of working hard, that medal after all your hard work in school, that baby after all your hours in painful labor. But you also know how painful it is to be ignored and shown indifference.

When you are pleased with someone’s actions, reward that person with a smile, a compliment, even a treat at a nearby ice cream parlor, if you are so inclined. But when that same person acts badly and you want that person to change, avoid a confrontation: ignore the person instead, and let that person vent until the dust settles and he or she feels that you are ignoring him or her. Repeat until you have the results that you want.

- Be patient. Change does not happen overnight. If you want a person to change quickly, you are treading into uncertain waters. And if that person does change quickly, you are bound to be heartbroken on two fronts: first, that person could easily be changed and swayed to do anything, and you are stuck with a pushover; and second, that person could quickly revert to old times and hurt you again. You need to muster up a lot of courage and patience to have to deal with such people.

- Be gentle. You may be tempted to get mad at a friend for hurting you over and over, and you may be tempted to shout and throw a tantrum. You will only add fire to a flame, and you can risk getting yourself hurt without having any significant changes happening. Try talking calmly to your friend, and then leave it at that.

- Don’t be afraid to walk away. Sometimes, leaving a person to find himself or herself can be a powerful way to make a person actually change for the better.

There are many people who are bound to follow, but only one person meant to be a leader. The problem, however, is that some people think that they cannot be leaders because leaders become so by destiny. True, many leaders have the same bubbling, charismatic, go-getter personalities – but some people who were once humble, shy, and quiet have become great leaders, too. It’s all a matter of knowing what people want and knowing how to motivate people. The last part, however, can be the most difficult job that you will need to take on as a leader.

Motivating people is certainly not easy, given that a person’s ability to be motivated is correlated with a person’s personality. When you start working with a group of people, there will be as many different quirks, personalities, and idiosyncrasies as there are people in that group, and you may need to juggle many different duties. In striving to please every single person, you may end up pleasing no one. So how can you work with diverse personalities and still be able to motivate people? Here are a few tips that you can use.

- Avoid trying to show everyone that you’re meeting their individual needs. Although this may appear counterintuitive, by appearing to be a rabid people pleaser, you can end up looking like an idiot who can survive only on the approval of others. Have you ever been annoyed when you saw someone trying to stoop down to the level of everybody else? Then think what you would look like if you were a leader and you had to do that – and everyone had to see it.

- Keep this in mind: you cannot please everybody. This is related to the previous statement, and it should also help you understand this one: no matter how hard you try, you can never make something turn out the way you want it, and you can never get a perfect end product.

This also means that you need to keep on plodding on: do not dwell on your mistakes, and learn from them instead. You cannot move forward without letting go of the past, so instead of wasting your time thinking and mulling over what you did wrong on that report, or what you said wrong during that meeting, or what you could have done right during your day, just keep on moving along.

- Don’t be afraid to show some anger and emotion. You’re human. You can’t smile all the time (and look ridiculous), be happy all the time (and look even more ridiculous), or laugh all the time (and look insane). If you’re mad at your team, be firm; but don’t be afraid to show them that they’ve done something wrong and you’re disappointed in their work. Be true to yourself and you can see that your team will be true to you – just don’t overdo it.

- Prepare rewards for your team members. Don’t stop at simple key chains or shirts, as though you were acting as a mouthpiece for a company or corporation. Promise a treat at a nearby restaurant if you all make a quota or get the job done. This way, you can all celebrate together, and you effectively show your team that this is a job for all of you, not just for them working under your orders.

A change in your career can bring about a shift in emotions. It could be exciting or scary, unexpected or planned. If you aren’t prepared and don’t know what to expect, a career change can even disrupt your personal goals. But as things evolve in your professional life, how do you keep motivated? Here are ways you can keep focused on your job and still find sufficient motivation to handle a career shift.

Know what is expected of you.

A career shift can sometimes mean a change in career direction. What is your new job all about? How did it happen? Was it because of a promotion or a move? What kind of things have you done to arrive at your current level? Furthermore, with your new responsibilities, what kind of performance is expected from you? It will be easier to remain motivated if you know exactly what it is you’re supposed to do.

Set new goals.

Don’t be afraid to make a few changes in your goals. Certain changes in your career sometimes call for a reassessment of your objectives. Identify the things that you need to achieve with this career shift to understand how to keep your motivation. You might be surprised at how outdated some of your goals are. With a career shift, you will have an opportunity to keep them fresh and exciting – another great reason to remain motivated.

Once you have these new set of goals, you’ll have a clearer picture of your direction. You will also see that there are new experiences to be had. As you achieve each of these new goals one by one, you’ll find even more satisfaction in your new career.

Learn from your past experience.

Your past work would already have trained you on how to handle the demands of your new job. Try to compare your past job with the current one. You can easily keep your motivation regarding your career shift once you realize that your new job is offering you a different set of experiences. Perhaps you will be working with a new team or handling tasks you’ve never tried before or will be allowed to try things reserved only for a specific level of management. Just imagine the kind of possibilities that have opened up for you.

Be grateful for the new learning.

One thing that will get you motivated about career shifts is that they help enhance your knowledge and skill base. A change in career direction is a surefire way to get out of a boring job or one that seems to be going nowhere. Keep your motivation and learn as much as you can. Take advantage of the new opportunity being given you.

Look at it from the point of view of a new learner. In fact, most career shifts will probably require you to take on new training – something that could benefit your new resume and for expanding your network of contacts.

Consider your career shift as a step towards improving yourself and your career.

A career shift can keep your motivation going for the simple reason that it is an opportunity to advance in your career. A shift in your job means you aren’t stuck in static phase and that there is actually a chance for you to move forward – perhaps in the same field or perhaps in a totally different direction.

The important thing is you keep moving and learning as you go.

There will always be times in your life when you have to perform tasks that you deem unpleasant for one reason or another – working with a co-worker you don’t like, going to work on Mondays, taking the garbage out, driving to meet the in-laws at the airport, having dinner with the spouse’s friends… Doing these things just siphons whatever motivation you have inside you and makes you feel sad, tired, sorry, even annoyed. But did you know that there are also things inside you that actually make it difficult to feel excited and enthusiastic? Get to learn the factors that make you hard to motivate:

Your mindset
Your mindset is a major factor that can make you hard to motivate. This is because it can severely limit your understanding of the world and all experiences in general. Your mindset can sometimes be composed of growth-inhibiting beliefs, prejudices, biases and standards.

If, for example, you believe that nothing good can come out of your staff, you’ll fail to see that there is a clerk there that actually has management potential. If you refuse to believe that you can actually write for a famous magazine because you’re a person from a small town, you’ll miss out on an opportunity to expose your talent and reap its rewards.

Your comfort zone
We all have certain limitations in our minds. These limits are things we decide on based on our own personal beliefs, ethics and standards. Within these limits, we feel comfortable in and can pretty much do as we like.

Once we approach the outer edges, we begin to feel discomfort, shyness, embarrassment or annoyance. We do not wish to go further because we do not like what we don’t know or haven’t experienced. Because we have a fear of the unknown, we’d rather stay within our comfort zones because we feel safe there.

The problem here is that a narrow comfort zone can be a major factor that makes you hard to motivate. Each time you are presented with a new idea or experience, you check to see if it fits into your comfort zone. If it doesn’t, then you simply refuse, no questions asked. This is unfortunate because many of these ideas and experiences can be good for you. But you’ll probably never know because you don’t have the motivation to try them.

Your past experience
Did you get burned by the stove? That’s probably why you hate to cook. Did your former bosses fail to show appreciation for your hard work? That’s probably one reason why you don’t feel motivated about your job.

Your background – personal, social and professional experiences – has a lot to do with how you decide things in your life. They can also be factors that make you hard to motivate. If these experiences are negative, they tend to make you more hesitant and unsure of yourself because they affect your self-esteem and confidence.

If, for example, you’ve only been met with rejection or ridicule in your life, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine if you don’t feel a strong need to excel or to improve yourself. You’ll probably be thinking – ‘So what? Nothing I ever did was good anyway. Why would things change now?’

Unless you consciously make an effort to identify these past experiences and then refuse to let them rule your life, you will always be hard to motivate.