Motivation is defined as an internal or external driving force which influences the thoughts, feelings and emotions of an organism and prompts the organism to act in manners which it believes will benefit it.
Staying highly motivated is a constant struggle all of us face everyday. Our intrinsic drives are constantly beaten by negative thoughts, negative feelings and anxiety related to the future, our jobs and our tasks at hand. Most of us face these “negative mind talks”. Highly successful people are those who have the ability to “suppress” the negative thoughts and keep moving forward. Many people think that this is a simple solution. It sounds simple but it is not simple.
To be successful we need to understand our lack of motivation. Our thoughts are driven by our emotions i.e. our feelings. If we can nurture our positive feelings we will be able to become more positive. This can be done by neutralizing the negative thoughts and focussing of the positive ones. This will enable us to focus on the tasks at hand. Completing tasks is a positive reinforcer. Getting tasks done will motivate us further. The jest of this paragraph is that we can pull ourselves out of a depression by achieving success by doing tasks.
Most of us lose our drive and motivation because we lack the confidence, the focus or the direction. Doing tasks gives us the confidence, helps us focus and gives us a direction to move forward.
Boosting our Self Confidence
The major reason reduced motivation is the lack of confidence. This usually happens to ordinary individuals like me and you because we are focussing on what we are not able to do or what has not been done instead of what we can do and what we can achieve. This negative thinking starts a negative downward cycle and it continues to spiral downward. The negative thoughts on negatives like past failure, bad actions and personal weakness must be broken. The negative thought make us look for excuses for our failures etc. I feel I have said enough about the downward spiral.
To be successful we need to turn things round. The only way to get out of this negative thinking pattern (low level of motivation) is to focus on the positives we have achieved. We need to be able to set aside time and energy to focus on all the positives in one's lives. Most of us have more positives than negatives. We will do well to make a list of all our strengths, our successes, our achievements and our current advantages over our “rivals” By doing this activity conscientiously we will feel competent and we will realize how competent and successful we already are. This will motivate us and rejuvenate our confidence. It will get us motivated (charge up) to build on our successful track record.
It sounds strange that repeating our successes which we already know can lead to an “improved mind set” but this technique has been successfully used by motivators and successful people. The human mind distorts reality to confirm what it wants to believe. The more negatively we think the more examples our mind will dig up to confirm that belief. When we honestly believe that we deserve success then our mind will generate ways to achieve it. So the optimal way to be successful is to honestly desire to create value for the rest of the world.
Boosting our Critical Focus
Many of us lose our motivation because we lack focus on what we need to do or want to do. We the end up focussing on what we do not want rather than on what we want. This happens because we normally think in terms of fear e.g. I' afraid of heights instead of the positives e.g. I'm able to run a mile in ten minutes. The difficulty of this negative mind talk is that the negative is not actionable i.e. it does not provide the energy to do tasks. The negative thinking drains our motivation.
Picture: Patient on Iron lungs too can find ways to boost his critical focus
When we are preoccupied with fears and fear based thinking then the first step is to change the focus of that thinking. This is best done by having a well defined goal. Defining a goal allows us to “plan and act” on a series of actions which will eventually change the “negative thinking”. The plan of action need not be one which is very difficult to achieve. It could be as simple as doing a course in archaeology or art. The principal is to move from a “negative state” to a “positive state” by focusing our mind on a positive goal instead of an unknown fear of failing. This allows the brain to work effectively. It immediately and unambiguously starts to devise plans which will make us successful. The worrying about “possible failure” comes to an end, and we begin the first steps to motivate ourselves to take the right actions. When we know what we want we become motivated into achieving it.
Strengthening our Sense of Direction
The last and most important task in the self motivational puzzle is strengthening and maintaining our sense of direction. We need to maintain our focus on an ultimate but achievable goal. This goal will give us the direction, energy and strategy to achieve it. An example of this would be a person who wants to be an author but spends lots of time on writing about becoming an author as opposed to start writing what he wants to write.
The final stage in finding directions and activities which lead to success include identifying activities that pay off and those that do not. In order to be a successful author, for example, the person should make a list of activities which he needs to do in order of “pay offs”. Then arrange the order of that list based on probable results. Finally arrange the list in an order that leads to big “pay offs”. The final list for an aspiring author may look like this:
- Write material for publication
- Do research
- Do networking with other authors
- Do networking with publishers
- Communicate with others who have similar interests
- Read the works of other but similar authors
Many of us are not able to reach our full potential because we are suffering from undiagnosed depression. To learn more about recognising and depression and overcoming depression please read Depression: How to Recognise It From Physical Signs and Symptoms.
This article is for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional consultation and should not be used as such.
