Motivation

Motivation

Have you ever wondered about the wheel that drives our life, our actions? What is it "made of"?

Due to our personal reasons, we chose to do or not do certain things. Human actions are determined by internal and external causes and motivation is the one that represents the internal cause that leads to our behavior. Thus, motivation represents the psychical structure that orientates, sets off and energetically sustains our behavior.

Motivation is a structural ensemble of our motives. However, not every cause is a motive!

It is very hard to distinguish between motives, yet here is a list of the basic things that determine most of our actions and we face those most often: hunger and thirst, fear and entering the defensive mode, frustration, stress, conflicts, attachment, erotic motivation, self-accomplishment motivation and so on.

Let’s see a brief explanation on each of these motives as shown below:

Fear
When it comes to fear, we have two kinds of fear: temporary and permanent.
Temporary fear appears in certain situations and is normal and present in every person’s life. Permanent fear turns into a state of perpetual insecurity (anxiety), which can develop into a pathological state, neurotic fear. It can turn into inhibition (decrease in intellectual capability, even if attention and vigilance grow).

Stress

Stress can be caused by deadlines or tasks that we very well know we can not accomplish in due time. If not avoided as much as possible, putting ourselves in stressful situations can have devastating effects.

Frustration

Frustration is linked to the psychical state of one that has been deprived of a legit satisfaction or has been misled and been disappointed. The consequences are the rising on inner tension and a series of specific reactions. Generally, it is produced by the existence of certain obstacles, barriers. Individuals may have very different reactions depending on the existent barriers: eliminating the barrier, avoiding the barrier or searching for some compensation.

Conflicts

Conflicts appear when two tendencies of the same intensity are born simultaneously but become incompatible motivations that cannot be accomplished at the same time.

Attachment
Attachment is the ensemble of bonds between individuals.

Erotic motivation

Erotic motivation has biological as well as social bases. Man’s erotic conduit is very much influenced by society, by the conception existent about the role and interests of men and women. Erotic motivation is tightly glued to the feeling of love, a very complex feeling in our modern society.

Self accomplishment

Self accomplishment motivation manifests itself when an individual knows that his actions will be appreciated through a performance standard. It is an energizing factor, stimulated by the presence of other persons. This means permanently comparing yourself to others and sometimes desiring to dominate. This depends on the level of motivation, as well as the probability of success.

Success

Success depends a great deal on the motivation of an individual! Rewards motivate, praises motivate! We need to be appreciated in order to do a certain activity. Satisfaction appears only when we are content with the activity that we are conducting.

A non-motivated individual is a walking disaster. Most of us sleep our life away and it’s not always our fault. If there is nothing surrounding us that can motivate us then we have no interest whatsoever in taking up a certain activity. Let’s face it: we work so we can be appreciated for who we are and also for sustaining our physical existence. If the rewards fail to come, we are not motivated and consequently, we give up. Our mistake is that we often quit too soon out of fear of embarrassment, or laziness or well, there can be a million of other reasons!

It’s a tragedy to be one of the persons that are not motivated by anything. A fact that we know for certain-as all the cemeteries show- is that we’ve only got one chance to live here on Earth. Of course being born just to die, offers no motivation whatsoever if you look at it in perspective. I believe in life after death and that motivates me but this is another subject to seriously consider.

So, coming back on Earth, why not make the most of our human existence? Let’s be the ones that reward ourselves and in the process, guide and motivate other people so they can find their motivation and live a fruitful life.

They say ‘Winners never quit and quitters never win’ and throughout time, this saying has proved itself to be relevant in all situations. We were not meant to be quitters, but winners! We most certainly should start acting like it!

By Claudia Miclaus
Published: 4/18/2007