Over the past six months, I've spent lots of time talking to advisors, both individually and in groups.

A key conclusion: Never have so many advisors struggled to maintain even the most basic level of activity and show up in the morning with a modicum of enthusiasm.

Yes, some advisors are stepping up to the challenge and ramping up activity and communication with existing and prospective clients - but they're the minority. More typical are those advisors who struggle to do much more than show up at the office. And even when in the office, some advisors confess there are days when they fight to make more than four or five calls.

As a result, in some cases, a different approach is required to stay motivated.

If you find yourself among those fighting to stay motivated, you might want to consider a recent New York Times article on a three step approach to competitive dieting that is paying results, particularly among guys. While this article focuses on dieting, the principals can be applied more broadly to any difficult task.

Step One:

In the intial stage of this competition, you and one or more colleagues each set weekly goals. For example, it could be to have three face to face client meetings and six phone formal appointments to review portfolios with clients each week. And you might toss at least one face to face or phone conversation with a prospect into the mix for good measure.

Step Two:

Next you agree on how long the competition will last - a reasonable length might be anywhere from six to twelve weeks - and set a time for a "weekly weigh-in", where each week's results are reported and recorded.

One group of Toronto investment bankers who embarked on a 13 week weight loss competition last fall raised the ante by having the weekly tally posted on their firm's intranet. (To make things fair, success was measured by the percent of weight lost rather than absolute pounds.)

Step Three:

In the final step, you agree to the stakes.

There are lots of different ways to reward the winners and punish the losers in this kind of competition. Each participant could put $100 into a pot, with anyone failing to meet their objectives over the competition forfeiting their contribution; the proceeds could either be shared by those achieving their goal or fund a party at the end for everyone who participated.

You could have a winner take all structure, where whoever has the most meetings and makes the most calls walks away with the proceeds. Alternatively, you could set a weekly penalty of $20 for anyone who falls short of their goals, so that even if someone falls behind after a couple of weeks, they have an incentive to keep trying.

Or you could go the anti-charity" route described in the New York Times article, where losers have to write a cheque to an organization completely at odds with their values. (Depending on your political point of view, for example, the losers might have to write a cheque to the Conservative Party, the Liberals, the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois - as I write this, I can imagine bemused party officials from the Bloc wondering what's prompted a flood of new contributions from English Canada.)

As an aside, if you don't entirely trust other advisors in your office when it comes to self reporting meetings and activity level, you could always keep score by commission levels or new accounts opened.

Remember, desperate times call for desperate measures. If everything you've tried to stay motivated has failed, consider giving old fashioned competitive spirit, greed and humiliation a try. See if you can enlist some of your colleagues to join you - to paraphrase Karl Marx, by uniting in a friendly competition, you have nothing to lose but your sense of drift and lack of direction.

For those who want to read more, the full article is below:

HEALTH / FITNESS & NUTRITION | February 05, 2009

Fitness: Dieting? Put Your Money Where Your Fat Is

By PAMELA WEILER GRAYSON

Internet sites that facilitate diet betting have seen an increase in use, and recent studies have supported the idea that such wagers work for many people who couldn't seem to shed pounds any other way.