Motvational Frameworks

All of us know the conflicts that take place inside our heads. One part of us may desperately want to lose weight while another desperately wants to eat ice cream. This can lead to stressful circumstances where our we are constantly inhibiting ourselves from achieving our goals. How we consider our goals and the way we consciously consider motivation plays a large role in our ability to achieve what we want in life. This can be seen with the popular idea of the law of attraction. The law of attraction, put simply, embodies this idea that if we just think hard enough and visualize ourselves as what we want to be our consciousness will bend our reality to achieve those goals. This idea is certainly attractive, no pun intended, and I would not deny this entirely though I think that there are serious caveats to this that many people who accept this idea do not realize. The reality is that visualizing our goals is only part of achieving them and no matter how long one picture themselves to be a billionaire this cannot guarantee it will be so.

Motivation lays the groundwork for the steps we need to take to achieve our goals. How we motivate ourselves is largely induced by the emotions we feel when taking the steps necessary to achieve what we want in life. Visualizing who we want to be affects the emotions we attribute to our goals. This is an important part of actualizing what we want but we can't neglect how we frame our motivations as this is perhaps the most important part of success. Conscious awareness of the conceptual frameworks we use to achieve what we want is the foundation of all goals. Having a thorough understanding of the psychology underlying all of this will significantly help us become who we want to be without fixating on simple visual exercises, but instead embody a wide variety of techniques that can help in the pursuit of our stated goals. Using these ideas we create a more unified picture of who we are and less conflict takes place in our minds. An example, it is better to believe that you are a person who is health driven than to say "I won't eat ice cream" and visualizing yourself not eating ice cream will probably have the opposite effect. Telling yourself you won't do something creates the idea of a sort of punishment in order to achieve a goal, while telling yourself you are health driven paints a picture of yourself more in terms of reward. When considering many of your goals, like say dieting, it is better to frame it in terms of "I will" instead of "I won't." Next time you see yourself saying "I won't eat unhealthy" instead try and frame it in terms of "I will eat healthy." This leads to an association of positive emotions with healthy eating instead of the more negative emotions affiliated with not eating delicious, though unhealthy foods.

Jordan Peterson, a clinical psychologist from Canada offers some amazing insights into how motivation takes place in our minds that can be useful when trying to consider our goals and how to achieve them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UVp7mGRT-8