Saturday, 30 November 2013

Week 9: Motivation

Hi guys!
Today I would like to introduce the courage and self-confidence topic.
Self-motivation and preparing oneself for an event/occasion etc.
Definition of motivation can be found anywhere on  the Internet : “Motivation is a psychological feature that arouses an organism to act towards a desired goal and elicits, controls, and sustains certain goal-directed behaviors. It can be considered a driving force; a psychological one that compels or reinforces an action toward a desired goal. For example, hunger is a motivation that elicits a desire to eat. Motivation is the purpose or psychological cause of an action.
Motivation has been shown to have roots in physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and social areas. Motivation may be rooted in a basic impulse to optimize well-being, minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure. It can also originate from specific physical needs such as eating, sleeping or resting, and sex.
Motivation is an inner drive to behave or act in a certain manner.  Once I  came across a sentence on a website , psychologytoday.com  : "It's the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day." These inner conditions such as wishes, desires, goals, activate to move in a particular direction in behavior.”
But how does the theory confronts with reality?
I found problems in motivating myself on many occasions. I lacked in perseverance on completing my tasks before deadline and suddenly it came to me like a shock - I had a problem, I realized that from my school when I started  getting bad marks because of not doing tasks or doing them wrong, in a hurry. I read a lot and talked with my friends  about how they motivated themselves. Then a solution was clear - no matter how many time I spent on thinking what I should do it didn't bring me closer to achieve my goals. Then I tried the simplest thing ever – I tried doing tasks on the same day or day after I received it. It was very hard at  the beginning but soon after I noticed that my marks got better.
Now I will tell you something about my friend.... It's a secret... I recently talked to my friend about motivation and how life goes by. This is what I heard from him: " I've wanted to start my driver's course since September last year when I came back from the States. But I am the type of a  person that needs time to process a lot of information and, more accurately, I need to find time and motivation to enroll. So I wanted to, but was too lazy to actually do the first step. :) However, I am the type of person that makes decision REALLY quickly when I must or am forced to. For example during my university years (I miss them!) when there was one (!) day left to apply for another major (spanish Philology) and no time to lose, I managed to get all the papers, take some necessary photographs of my horrible face, fill in all the paperwork and officially apply. If I had had more than a day (like maybe two weeks), I probably would not have done anything, and never would have enrolled! The same thing was with this driver's course. As I was saying, I wanted to but had no motivation. Then one of my work buddies (another English teacher) said she had just enrolled and was waiting for the first class. She asked me to join (as we spoke about the necessity of having a licence a  month before) and having NO TIME to make up my mind, I decided "what the hell! It's time!" and did it"
It gave me lots to think about.
 It's basically about the first step - and then I either get involved or not.
How is it with you guys?
Do you need to force yourselves to get somewhere?
Do you need someone to push you a bit?

Here is some video about motivation I found:


5 comments:

  1. I use the simpliest method of self-motivation that can be, I guess. I'm calling it "being a boss to myself" and it's based on making up deadlines in my head. "It's Monday. I have to end this project due Wednesday", I tell myself, even if it's not exactly true. It works best when it comes to doing projects for someone else, who didn't name the deadline date. Then I just write to this person saying "you will have it done on Friday" and it's mandatory - I know I would feel bad if I crossed the date line.

    Most of you probably know this, but the famous demotivational pictures on the Internet are a parody of popular way of motivationing, especially in american corporations. Motivational posters with a beautiful picture in black frame and a quote saying, for example, "always believe in yourself" are put on the office wall and serve to keep the employer happy and content. In the beginning, demotivational posters were just sad images with quotes like "you're a total looser", but in few years time it changed to "anything in the picture, any text possible" - just take a look here to see the pathetic evolution: http://www.demotivers.com/ :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. motivation is our power of life.
    I think that everybody had time when they needed some kick in the ass, to understand that you need to move on. First step in my case, was internal objection, less about what. So I was motivation for myself.
    I think sometimes the gool is hard to get, and we need someone else to help us. It can be anything, from some simple words to threats-style motivation.
    We like to be afraid of new things and than often some push from other person is necessary.
    Ways that motivation affects us is huge topic :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, I 'm making fast decisions, but sometimes it takes a long time. It depends on the risk. Sometimes, I do need a push, and so does my husband. And taht's why we push each other ;) so it does help a lot. Usually I'm thinking something for a long time, when there's a financial aspect. From all other things I can survive, but money will hit me and Daniel....

    ReplyDelete
  4. O had problems with motivation for a long time. Suddenly, they disappeared. I realized that best solution to motivate myself is to have so many tasks that I don't have any time to waste. It's much easier to manage time when there are no available breaks to include in that plan. This idea is connected to what you described, the less time to plan something the bigger chance to do it immediately - from scratch till the end and in the short time.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well, I suffer rather from lack of time than motivation. I am having crazy time in my life and what helps me getting things done is... easing off :) Really, that works for me. I was always overcommitted and when I stop celebrating some things, many of them starts working out in, so called, meantime. I used to be a perfectionist, now I prefer to handle big pictures.

    ReplyDelete