Where does motivation come from?

 

What are the origins of motivation or the lack thereof?

These are tricky questions to answer, because of course there are so many components, but there are a few central elements.

In its most basic form, motivation is a reaction to our environment. To change from one state to another. If you're hungry you are motivated to change your situation. This type of basic action has with it however some limitations and problems.

1. It tends to be only reactionary. Focusing on the immediate situation and not necessarily good in the long run.
   
   
2. If we don't pay attention to these reactionary impulses they can become habits which may not have our best interest at heart.
   
   
3. By definition therefore, they involve little thinking or awareness. They may get you out of the way of the oncoming truck, but they don't help you deal with why you decided to walk out into the middle-of-the-road in the first place.

What you want is motivation combined with thought. The best way to start exploring that part of the topic is: The next time you are motivated to do anything especially if it's on the spur of the moment, consider what is happening in your environment. By doing that you can understand the drivers of your actions and that will help you avoid impulsive actions and at the same time answer the age-old question of "How do I stay motivated?".

The other aspect to consider about getting the best out of motivation is "Are you trying to get motivated about a activity that you are not interested in?" 

 Many people fall into that little trap especially when their undertaking a physical or mental tasks which they promised to do. It is quite it difficult thing to get excited about something you're not excited about in the first place. So stop hitting yourself over the head. Focus instead, if you are caught in a situation like this, on what it'll feel like to get that finally done. That frequently frees up a lot of mental resources because you are now addressing the situation honestly. Again this will also help you to increase your awareness of what does motivate you.

When I was in my 20s for some unfathomable reason there was a big push in the disability community for everyone to learn computerized accounting. It became almost like a mantra. I remember sitting face-to-face with an Apple II and the green phosphor screen looking at "Lotus 1-2-3" and thinking "yuck!". Fortunately in those relatively early days of computing you had to know a fair bit just to get the thing to run. So I found myself doing the work I had to do but also wondering how the heck does the spreadsheet work?  All of a sudden the spreadsheet became interesting and I was motivated to use it. Not because it was the spreadsheet but because I had inadvertently began my journey down programming. It's kind of mind blowing to think that because of something so dull a major component of my future career took off.

So it really does pay to pay attention to the details of your motivation or lack thereof. Once you do that you will answer the ultimate question of "How do I stay motivated?" better than you could ever imagine. The experience you gain by paying attention to the details of motivation instead of being just reactionary are immense. Often they will give you different avenues to go down. From there who knows what adventures await.

So stay motivated by understanding your motivations and when necessary if they are telling you to do something else pay attention to that. I have found that there is a lot more detail to life and the personality of each of us then we give ourselves credit for. :-)

Take care Patrick