How to Motivate a Person to Change Their Behavior?

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How to Motivate a Person to Change Their Behavior?
Attempting to change behavior of a person based solely on information will not work.
- Many doctors try this but fail to get their patients to make life-style changes (heart attack as example) solely on the facts and probability of death. The unmotivated patient dies of avoidable disease related to life-style choices.
- Alternatively, a doctor could stress and focus on positive alternatives to improve health and life expectancy, gaining the interest and cooperation of the patient.
Showing the patient the path to success versus focusing on the consequences will have a higher probability of behavioral change that lasts.

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		Steven Loh China
	3 Pain is a Major Change Motivator One of the greatest motivators of change that normally result in mass revolution is pain caused by scarcity. Whether the scarcity of food, (a hungry man is an angry man), a scarcity of freedom (where man are created for) and a scarcity of knowledge (dryness of the soul). The course of history show that it is hard to effect change when people are living in peace, where a status quo has set in. Basically, change must start with a real heartfelt need of moving away from the current situation. The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart.

		Eddy Tukamushaba, Uganda
	3 Uncertainty is also a Motivator for Changing Behavior I seem to agree with Steven Loh. The argument he advances is right now sweeping across most African countries and currently in my own country. When people are faced with uncertainity, they tend to think in terms of how they can change the situation. Necessity is the mother of all innovations.

		Teo Kok Jaan
	1 Multiple Motivators May be Needed I agree with the argument by Eddy and Steven. However, most of the time, changing or revolution is subject to the external environment factors such as culture. Then people require a lot of issues, causes or motivations before they take the step to change their behavior.

		Mahajan s n, India
	2 Changing Attitude is Hard Generally the common person does not change immediately, due to his cultural background, social binding/pressure and customs. If they get a wise & honest leader people can be changed. But on the other hand, this change may be only at the surface. We can not assure if / when their original attitude will come back. For example, religion conversion. People may get converted, but they never forget their original attitude.

		Maria Dioneda, Philippines
	2 Education is a Change Motivator I would like to add the importance of education in changing people's minds and behavior. Education allows us as human beings to go through a socialization process, cultural moulding and development of our world views. Education is a lifetime process. I am sure all cultures have its positive values that need to be reinforced.

		Bantwal Prabhu Teacher, India
	1 3 Change Motivators Change motivation depends and works on three basic inputs: - Genetics, - Environment, and - Education. Today education seems to have the highest impact on the change motivator and hence poor countries where change is difficult should concentrate more on education to bring out reforms to improve the quality of life in the future.

		franco scolari Manager, Italy
	1 Positive Thinking Generates Positive Outcomes If a hungry man is an angry man it is also true that a man is lucky when he thinks to have luck! To pay attention to positive facts of the life, big or small generates trust, positive attitude more luck. From my personal experience this is also applicable to personal health and aging.

		Ranjeet Kumar Mishra Student (MBA), India
	2 Use Values to Motivate Behavior Change While motivation is an attempt to change a person's thinking or behavior, it means nothing if the person to which it is aimed has no interest in it. Human volition (will) can help, but is also a big challenge, when you apply it... Values are what we have to understand, but a human tendency is to have multidirectional intentions for the outcome which changes according to the behaviourial changes seen...

		bishara dabit Teacher, Israel
	2 Suffering, Motivation, Volition and Love to Sacrifice Suffering is the source of change, motivation is the ignition for change, strong volition and love to sacrifice for others is complementary to offset (compensate) the change.

		Javier Elenes Business Consultant, Mexico
	0 Leadership and MOTIVACTION The leader's task is to inspire motivaction in the followers (motives to action), pulling (vs the manager pushing way) the people to a the mission because the followers perceive that the leader "wants my well being", "looks like he (the leader) he is able / capable", and what he says (the mission) is worth / valuable challenge to pursue (because it allows me to grow). Developing values to support the mission is needed too (i.e. if the competitive strategy is based on being different and better than the competitors on service, the value of punctuality shall be embedded in the organization culture through "predication by example" of the leader. A final note: the leader's acid test is to build a team that wants, can, and achieves the above with behavior and skills /abilities.