What is motivation?
Motivation
is the urge in you to move towards personalised goals, the cause for your behavioural patterns, and the reason for your desires and needs. Motivation is the inner feelings that propels you forwards towards achieving what you desire and feel compelled to possess. This is the reason for growth, change, movement, excellence. It gives you the power and the stamina to go ahead inspite of opposition. Motivation is of two types. The first is extrinsic motivation. This is the force that pushes you in the pursuit of worldly luxuries. There is the second type which is intrinsic, that which is called “towards the pursuit of true happiness, the sense of accomplishment and the inner feeling of worthiness”. Many of the inventions and discoveries were as a result of this intrinsic motivation. When material things like wealth, praise, awards etc motivate a person it is called extrinsic.
Motivation is from within. It is the urge to try something new rather than not trying at all. Trying something new may not be easy. But you have to get past the initial lull and do something that pushes you further. For example if you decide that you have to be on the road to good health, start off with something that will help you get off the bed and put on your walking shoes. It might be the thought of a cup of hot tea you love to drink on your way back or it may be the person who is going to give you company. Make it as easy as possible to get moving. This is the first step towards getting motivated
The second important aspect to work on is scheduling. You program your mind to get up at a certain time, meet up with a friend at the end of the road at a certain time and then start walking.
The third and probably a very important one is grading the task and choosing the route with an optimum level of difficulty. If it is too easy it becomes boring and if it is too tough you get discouraged. So choose something that is just at the border. Push yourself up, little by little. A short walk an become a long walk, then a jog and then work up to running a marathon in a span of years. But take it little by little. As you move forward gauge your progress. You might see that you a losing a few grams of weight, then pounds and you fit into those lovely dresses which you just dreaded wearing.
There are days when you tend to get demotivated by the blocks to success. Things don’t go the way it is planned and the progress is not as visible as it should be. The force that propels is forward is no more palpable. There is sluggishness, stagnancy, depression and the loss of flair for life. How do you deal with this? First of all you have to try to pinpoint the reason for démotivation. If the reason is fear, then you have to go into that territory and break it slowly. If you have set your goals too high, re evaluate and reset your goals so that the process is pleasurable. If your goals are not clear, we have to write out our goals and try to reach them. The planning should include the time and volume. Then reevaluate the progress and set the next set of goals.
Demotivation could be due to loss of a loved one, loneliness, overwork and loss of sleep, loss of autonomy and overbearing nature of superiors. All these need the comfort of friends and family, in order to discuss frustrations threadbare. Workplace demotivation is a huge barrier to development. It is often caused either by stagnation or lack of space for growth and acquisition of skills. Another demotivating factor is lack of autonomy in work. The other end of the spectrum is when the employee is stressed out with improper remuneration and lack of basic amenities. Proper management skills in the workplace with focus on healthcare is a motivation for employees and lack of it can be demotivating.
Démotivation is part of life and everyone has personalised remedies to bounce back and start moving once again.