What motivates you to participate in different activities in your life? Is your motivation different for activities such as school, hobbies, family obligations, spending time with friends, etc? How might you explain any differences you experience?
My motivation does shift depending on what I am trying to accomplish. For example, when it comes to school, my motivation was initially the challenge. Eventually my motivation for school was interest and personal growth. My motivation for hobbies and spending time with friends is to save time for myself and relax and have fun. My motivation for my familial obligations is that doing what is best for the family should be the priority. So I am motivated to keep the family together and always being supportive. Overall, my biggest motivators in life are to ensure stability and have a happy life!
That's a great summary of motivation! I think a lot of the time motivation boils down to the desire to have a stable and happy life. Do you find that your motivation is typically highest at the beginning or at the end of a task?
Your statement only further brings to light how motivation can ebb and flow depending on the various situations and perspectives of what it means to be motivated to achieve something. While you still have an overall motivational push (i.e.ensuring stability and being happy) there are parts of your life where one motivational tool might not work for another (going to school as part of a challenge, which wouldn't necessarily work for you and family obligations) but all of the motivations, move in sync to one another for you to be the person you are today. Interesting concept of parallelism that I've never really thought of before. Thanks for sharing!
Marlene, I feel like this post pretty much covers it all. The varying degrees of motivation are intersting to hear depending on the events going on. I was wondering if you thought that when "boiled down" that a lot of these motivations can stem from 1 or 2 real deep motivations, such as "to be happy"?
Motivation for me takes a deep interest in what I am doing, and whether or not it's going to benefit me intellectually, physically, spiritually. I definitely gauge the importance of different activities based on where I see them fitting within a holistic view of myself and also if they can transfer to other aspects of my self. For example, I played volleyball throughout my life because I knew it would give me physical exercise. I also knew, that it would help me practice good sportsmanship which can also lead to doing well in team work and collaboration for other non-sports related things. I didn't think it would help me academically, actually I think it could've ended up ruining my academics because I'd be too busy practicing volleyball, to study. I had to weight out the odds of that, and realistically think about what would benefit me more: the chance of gaining leadership skills/team skills throughout the sport, or the slight chance of me not doing homework (which I didn't think was as likely anyway). With that decision, I was even more motivated to do better at the sport. With other things like hanging out with friends, I'm motivated to socialize with them because I appreciate when we all come together and gain new perspectives on different topics. I'm motivated to learn from them and share what I know; I think then, that motivation for me as a general theme is the opportunity to give and receive knowledge (whether that be through sports or friends or hobbies) because it helps support my overall goal of bettering myself personally.
do you still play volleyball today? is winning ever a motivation for you or is it only the exercise and team mentality kinds of things that have motivated you.
I think being motivated to do things that will lead to self improvement is really important. Did your motivation change over time with volleyball? For example, were you less motivated in the beginning and became more motivated as you realized the benefits you could obtain from it?
My motivation varies based on what I am trying to accomplish, or on what interests me. I am motivated to do well in school because I enjoy it, and I believe that education is one of the greatest keys to success. However, I'm not terribly motivated to learn calculus, because the subject does not seem interesting to me and I do not need to know it for my future career. Overall, I would say that I am motivated to do things when I know I will benefit from them somehow, or when they can be useful to me later on.
How do you know if something is going to end up being useless or useful to you in the future? Are you set on a specific path that doesn't allow much room for straying from it? Such as, calculus not being feasible for teaching French? How do you distinguish between these two terms and do you personally have to benefit from the thing you're learning about or doing for it to be a strong enough motivator, or could the potential knowledge gained be beneficial to others (that you can teach) and is that even important to you?
I did not mention this in my post, but I can kind of relate to this. I am more motivated to do something when I know that it will benefit me later on either in the immediate future or in the long run. In the example of school, I've taken lots of classes that were motivated by intrest alone, but now it seems that the closer I get, the more I am motivated by "is this going to get me closer to my goal".
Rachel, I know that you play some instruments. Because being able to play instruments may not have any immediate benefit other than for personal enjoyment, what was your initial motivation for learning that?
Motivation for me is certainly different depending on what it is that I am doing. I can say that the reasons for my motivations have changed considerably throughout my life. It was once that my motivation would be pretty much whatever I fancied, and just about whatever was on my mind at the moment. I had motivation to work to be able to support that lifestyle that I was living and not really much else. In growing up my interests became more specific and in turn the motivation was different in that I was now interested in the challenge of knowledge and experience. As time has passed I've done my best to blend these two together (not always successfully). My main motivation in my life now pretty much encompasses my entire life and that is my family. Everything I do now, I have them in my heart. My motivation only shifts when I do small things for myself to relax, unwind and even still doing this I feel is motivated by my desire to better myself to be a better husband and father.
My motivation does shift depending on what I am trying to accomplish. For example, when it comes to school, my motivation was initially the challenge. Eventually my motivation for school was interest and personal growth. My motivation for hobbies and spending time with friends is to save time for myself and relax and have fun. My motivation for my familial obligations is that doing what is best for the family should be the priority. So I am motivated to keep the family together and always being supportive. Overall, my biggest motivators in life are to ensure stability and have a happy life!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great summary of motivation! I think a lot of the time motivation boils down to the desire to have a stable and happy life. Do you find that your motivation is typically highest at the beginning or at the end of a task?
DeleteYour statement only further brings to light how motivation can ebb and flow depending on the various situations and perspectives of what it means to be motivated to achieve something. While you still have an overall motivational push (i.e.ensuring stability and being happy) there are parts of your life where one motivational tool might not work for another (going to school as part of a challenge, which wouldn't necessarily work for you and family obligations) but all of the motivations, move in sync to one another for you to be the person you are today. Interesting concept of parallelism that I've never really thought of before. Thanks for sharing!
DeleteMarlene, I feel like this post pretty much covers it all. The varying degrees of motivation are intersting to hear depending on the events going on. I was wondering if you thought that when "boiled down" that a lot of these motivations can stem from 1 or 2 real deep motivations, such as "to be happy"?
DeleteMotivation for me takes a deep interest in what I am doing, and whether or not it's going to benefit me intellectually, physically, spiritually. I definitely gauge the importance of different activities based on where I see them fitting within a holistic view of myself and also if they can transfer to other aspects of my self. For example, I played volleyball throughout my life because I knew it would give me physical exercise. I also knew, that it would help me practice good sportsmanship which can also lead to doing well in team work and collaboration for other non-sports related things. I didn't think it would help me academically, actually I think it could've ended up ruining my academics because I'd be too busy practicing volleyball, to study. I had to weight out the odds of that, and realistically think about what would benefit me more: the chance of gaining leadership skills/team skills throughout the sport, or the slight chance of me not doing homework (which I didn't think was as likely anyway). With that decision, I was even more motivated to do better at the sport.
ReplyDeleteWith other things like hanging out with friends, I'm motivated to socialize with them because I appreciate when we all come together and gain new perspectives on different topics. I'm motivated to learn from them and share what I know; I think then, that motivation for me as a general theme is the opportunity to give and receive knowledge (whether that be through sports or friends or hobbies) because it helps support my overall goal of bettering myself personally.
do you still play volleyball today? is winning ever a motivation for you or is it only the exercise and team mentality kinds of things that have motivated you.
ReplyDeleteI think being motivated to do things that will lead to self improvement is really important. Did your motivation change over time with volleyball? For example, were you less motivated in the beginning and became more motivated as you realized the benefits you could obtain from it?
DeleteMy motivation varies based on what I am trying to accomplish, or on what interests me. I am motivated to do well in school because I enjoy it, and I believe that education is one of the greatest keys to success. However, I'm not terribly motivated to learn calculus, because the subject does not seem interesting to me and I do not need to know it for my future career. Overall, I would say that I am motivated to do things when I know I will benefit from them somehow, or when they can be useful to me later on.
ReplyDeleteHow do you know if something is going to end up being useless or useful to you in the future? Are you set on a specific path that doesn't allow much room for straying from it? Such as, calculus not being feasible for teaching French? How do you distinguish between these two terms and do you personally have to benefit from the thing you're learning about or doing for it to be a strong enough motivator, or could the potential knowledge gained be beneficial to others (that you can teach) and is that even important to you?
DeleteI did not mention this in my post, but I can kind of relate to this. I am more motivated to do something when I know that it will benefit me later on either in the immediate future or in the long run. In the example of school, I've taken lots of classes that were motivated by intrest alone, but now it seems that the closer I get, the more I am motivated by "is this going to get me closer to my goal".
DeleteRachel, I know that you play some instruments. Because being able to play instruments may not have any immediate benefit other than for personal enjoyment, what was your initial motivation for learning that?
ReplyDeleteMotivation for me is certainly different depending on what it is that I am doing. I can say that the reasons for my motivations have changed considerably throughout my life. It was once that my motivation would be pretty much whatever I fancied, and just about whatever was on my mind at the moment. I had motivation to work to be able to support that lifestyle that I was living and not really much else. In growing up my interests became more specific and in turn the motivation was different in that I was now interested in the challenge of knowledge and experience. As time has passed I've done my best to blend these two together (not always successfully). My main motivation in my life now pretty much encompasses my entire life and that is my family. Everything I do now, I have them in my heart. My motivation only shifts when I do small things for myself to relax, unwind and even still doing this I feel is motivated by my desire to better myself to be a better husband and father.
ReplyDelete