“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.”
To be motivated means to be moved to or have a change in an action or behavior. Every action is motivated from some source, which may be internal (biological/psychological),external (incentives/goals), intrinsic (driven by external sources) , or extrinsic (motivation is gained during the activity). The discovery of motivators originated from many different philosophers and psychologists. Herbert Spencer believed that people indulged in a behavior or action to pursue pleasure or avoid pain, which he called hedonism. Edward Lee Thorndike hypothesized that as a person pursues pleasure, their tension decreases, which is known as the pleasure principal. Sigmeund Freud believed that, under the law of effect, behavior is strengthened with the effects of satisfying consequences, and the behavior is weakend with dissatisfying consequences. Charles Darwin contributed his theory of evolution as a possible means of why motivations change over time.
Throughout the semester, we learned how motivation applied to various parts of everyone’s lives. People choose their mates based on the mate value, or in other words, how much a person is compatible to mate. With fear a major motivator and to keep safe and avoid danger, we prepare and condition ourselves for the possibility of unsafe events. The motivation for the food we enjoy is determined by evolutionary and personal history. All types of drug, alcohol, and psychologically based addictions have psychological and biological motivational features, such as cravings and built up tolerance. Hunger and thirst is motivated by homeostasis, the need for the body to maintain equilibrium. To reach any goal a person may have set for themselves can come from incentives or from other people.
My favorite part of the course was learning about goal motivation. Everyone always sets goals in their lives and I have always wondered what makes us set the goals that we do. Goals that we set are determined by many different factors, including: aspiration (a person’s desire), affect (value of the activity), self-efficacy (how much a person believes in oneself), specificity (how specific the goal is that is set), utility (how useful the activity is), subjective probability (how likely the person thinks the goal will occur), weight (the goal’s degree of influence), and how committed a person is to the goal.
My goal is to become a Licensed Professional Counselor. Within that goal, there are many sub-goals, and many sub-goals within those. I need to get my bachelor’s, then master’s, then take the exam, then do my contact hours, then get licensed. It is a long process, but I think that I will be able to accomplish it because of the sub-goals in between the long goal. Since I graduated high school with high grades, I feel that I can get high grades now in college, and in graduate school in the future. My goal is very specific: I want to get my license as an LPC. The specificity of my goal makes it easier to work for, rather than just stating that I want to be successful. The likelihood of me obtaining my LPC license is high, so that motivates me as well. I am very committed and just focus on one sub-goal at a time.
I agree that if you do not have the motivation to do something, then you will never succeed in life. We must continue to set goals for ourselves throughout our life that we want to achieve. If you don't reach the goals you have set for yourself, you can always set new ones and try to reach those. It doesn't necessarily mean failure. If we have the motivation and desire to do certain things, we can put our mind to it and succeed in life.
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