Final Posting, Theres power in the powder

Until taking this class, I never realized how many factors go into achieving our daily goals and how motivation plays such an important role in setting and then successfully achieving those goals we set. According to the book, motivation is the process by which a person is moved into action by having motives pushing the person into action towards a desired goal with incentives to pull the person towards their final goal. As an internal disposition individuals try to avoid negative incentives and welcome positive incentives and while the incentive value increase the motivation also increases. Inside of us we have both internal which refers to sources inside the person and external motivators which refers to the sources outside the person. Both biological and psychological variables play a very important role in motivation. Biological variables refer to a person’s brain and nervous system whereas psychological variables refer to a person’s mind. Biological and psychological variables also have been linked through reductionalism which is neural activity in the brain to explain the mind’s psychological processes. Motivation all goes back to the mental processes that create the choices and decisions we make in life to create our personal history created of personal experiences. It is a person’s personal history in combination with the evolutionary history, which is what all humans have in common as a result of evolution, which creates the drive for motivation in what we would like to do in life.

I always understood that for humans to function properly they need a balanced lifestyle with constant internal body conditions, otherwise known as homeostasis. An interesting factor of it though is the negative feedback system which the book states to be a self-correcting process that aims to reduce any kind of discrepancy between a desired state and an actual state of being. The best depiction of this statement was the one in the notes comparing it to an air conditioner that adjusts the temperature of the house to the desired setting. I find it to be very interesting that our bodies know exactly what we need and when we need it and our psychological drive to always want to restore our homeostasis. I would say that’s the biggest part I took from this class, which everything internally and externally goes back to motivation and trying to obtain that highest tier on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which is self actualization. However, most spend their lives somewhere in the middle of the pyramid, but always trying to remain or excel to a higher tier.

My personal favorite part of this course was the addictions section, mostly because almost everyone at least knows someone who is affected by or suffering some sort of addiction. I also found a lot of interest in it because I intend to enter the clinical counseling field of psychology and within clinical counseling I feel and believe that a lot of people suffering mental illness also may suffer some form of addiction through self medicating. My mother has a private practice out in Medford NJ, and she has directed me recently towards possibly obtaining my CADC for the reason that so many people dabble within alcohol, nicotine, perhaps hallucinogens stimulants and/or depressants and those people do not realize the substance abuse has a lot to do with their psychological stressors and their body and mind entirely. Another issue within addictions is how easily it is overlooked; many people do not recognize an addiction for what it really is; a disease. Any addict will tell you, no matter how long they have been sober, they are still an addict and again even after twenty years sober, once the substance is picked back up many have claimed it was as if they never missed a beat, which can be the scariest part.

The understanding of addictions is important to the Motivation course for various reasons. Addiction is the intense craving, seeking out, and usage of a particular drug. Genetics play a part into addiction because if say a parent suffers an addiction to alcohol; their offspring are similarly vulnerable to drug use and abuse. Personality has a role in drug addiction because of impulsiveness and the heightened sensitivity to drug effects and the lack of awareness to all the negative side effects and consequences directly linked to the drug use. Comorbidity refers to people who are stressed out and who are more likely to use drugs to ease their distress. It is after drug use becomes more persistence the behavior in itself becomes addictive and then. Now, what addictions have to do with motivation is that the psychological effects on the brain and mind of drug use and abuse can alter our decisions and can alter our goals in life. As opposed to fulfilling our set goals that we had created for ourself, set goals shift to whatever it takes to receive that high again. This is where addictions begins to ruin one’s life and the people surrounding them.

This is a song by yellowcard, its titled powder. This is a song I heard back in grade school at some time but whenever I think of addictions, or whenever I hear this song… well if you take a listen you’ll understand it too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAdRBwog7O0