Motivation

By Sarah O'Driscoll (Counsellor)

What is motivation?  “Motivation” is derived from the word “motive” which means desires, needs, wants, or drives within an individual. It is a process of stimulating an individual to actions to accomplish their goal or goals. (Juneja, 2020) To set goals and accomplish tasks in life we need to be motivated to complete actions to achieve these goals and tasks.

So why is motivation so important? motivation increases the effort that we put in the more motivated we are the more effort we put in and in turn the more we get accomplished. Being motivated also boosts productivity once you are in the “flow” of an action or task it can be surprising how much you can accomplish all thanks to motivation. Motivation helps you get from A to B, along the path to achieving your hopes and dreams, without being motivated you are less likely to achieve these.

Motivation is the catalyst for change or setting a goal, it helps you to identify goals, prioritise your activities and actions, overcome setbacks that may arise and staying on track. (Souders, 2020)
 
So what can you do to increase motivation?
1.     Move your body. Go for a quick walk around create movement in your body, movement creates emotions of energy and alertness and increases motivation.
2.     Review your goals and purpose. One of the most common reasons we lack or loose motivation is because we loose the connection between the work and why we want to do the work, so a great way to re-engage motivation is to review your goals and purpose.
3.     Use mental images. A great way to boost motivation is to run through mental images in your mind of what the pay off will be if you complete the task and accomplish your goals, similarly you can run through what the consequences will be if you don’t complete the tasks.
4.     Create a small reward for yourself. A great way to create immediate motivation is to create small rewards for yourself, make a deal with yourself if you can get the work done you can have a reward like watch a movie etc
5.     Stimulate your environment. Create a stimulating environment for you to complete the work, this may be music, post it notes of affirmations or vision boards of your ultimate goals and purpose.
6.     Start with an easy task. A common reason why people fail to act is because they try to tackle everything at once and become overwhelmed and loose motivation, start by breaking your goals down in to smaller, more manageable tasks
7.     Create a to-do list and schedule tasks. A great way to promote motivation and prevent overwhelming feelings is to create a list of tasks to do and prioritise them, once you have these down in writing it makes it easier to keep on track and keep motivated.
8.     Dive straight in. Often the best way to combat to motivation is to dive straight in and do it, as the momentum builds so does the motivation. (Lim, 2020)
 
In conclusion we as human beings require motivation to take actions in all aspects of our lives to ultimately achieve self-actualisation, we need to practice daily for it to become a habit and keep that internal fire burning. As Zig Ziglar said “people often say that motivation doesn’t last well, neither does bathing that’s why we recommend it daily”.
 

References:
Juneja, P. (2020, July 12th). Motivation. Retrieved from Management Study Guide: https://www.managementstudyguide.com/what_is_motivation.htm
Lim, S. (2020, July 12th). Why motivation is important and 10 ways to get more of it. Retrieved from Stunning motivation the kick you need in life : https://stunningmotivation.com/why-motivation-is-important/
Souders, B. (2020, July 12th). What is motivation ? A psychologist explains. Retrieved from Positive Psychology: https://positivepsychology.com/what-is-motivation/