MOTIVATION
 by Christine Hargan, BSc (Hons) Psychology, based in Spain
 www.whatsholdingyouback.biz 


I think we all have times when we are lacking in motivation, although most therapists will be able to help you to achieve your targets, whatever they are…but the only person that can really help is you. So how well do you know yourself? If you have times when you are really struggling to keep motivated what you really need to think about is why?

I like to take a structural approach to resolving issues as I believe that most of us follow patterns in our lives and if we can recognise the patterns our issues resolve themselves. It always helps if you avoid getting bogged down with detail so an approach I like to take is to brain storm I would take a large piece of paper and on one side note down times and situations when I felt really motivated, and on the other side times and situations when I didn’t. Things to consider are:
 
  • Personality type - Are you a ‘driven person, or are you happy rambling through life, or perhaps somewhere in between ?’
  • Do you need help to get you fired up?
  • What feeds your desire to achieve?
  • Think about times of the day, what were you doing immediately before....
  • Were you tired?
  • Had you recently eaten?
  • Undertaken exercise?
  • Do you need a deadline to work toward?
  • What really motivated you - create a mind map. Once you have found a structure that works for you, stick to it.

Other things that may help…. There are lots of psychological theories that explain how are needs are met and that helps fire motivation. I’ve summarised probably the best known that make sense of why... some things motivate better than others?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains basic human needs. There are 5 levels:-

1. The most basic level is survival so it includes breathing, sleeping, eating/drinking excreting, reproduction. If those needs are met you move onto
2. Safety that includes both physical and psychological your own and your family’s body/health, resources/ do you have enough money coming in employment, and property. If needs on the lower two levels are threatened you are likely to feel stressed and threatened.
3. Love and belonging that includes family, friendship and emotional bonds
4. Esteem, the need to feel appreciated, to have confidence in your own abilities, to respect others and to be respected and to achieve. To have targets or ambitions. Its this level that most employers aim for at annual appraisals you wont get your pay rise unless you meet…
5. The highest level is self-actualisation that means having your own standards and living up to them, problem solving appreciating differences, being non judgmental, accepting facts for what they are and people for who they are being creative and appreciating what you’ve achieved.

In my view the lack of motivation means that one (or more) of your level of needs has not been met. The next stage is to meet your need and to move on.

We talked about how not having our needs met can lead to poor motivation. To summarise: the five levels of need are:
1. survival
2. physical and psychological safety
3. Love and belonging including friendship and emotional relationships
4. Esteem, feeling respected and appreciated and having confidence in your own abilities to achieve, and have targets or ambitions
5. Self actualisation, this means having your own standards and beliefs and living up to them. If you haven’t got to at least stage three, you are likely to feel stressed and threatened and may become ill.

If you find yourself lacking in motivation there are a number of things you could think about. Are you feeling threatened in terms of security – for example do you have enough money coming in? Is your relationship stable? Do you have health worries? Emotional issues very often cause physical ailments, headaches, depression, inability to concentrate and aches and pains as well as asthma and panic attacks.

The most common areas where people have issues, however is within the area of esteem. If you work, hard but simply never feel appreciated. The answer is simple…… communicate in order to have your needs met, other people around you simply need to understand what your needs are. It is important to ask others to fulfil them, whilst negotiating to ensure that you reciprocate.. It is important to own your own feelings and not blame them on others, if you use the I for example I feel unloved/unsettled because…means that you are taking responsibility for your own feelings and if you use phrases such as ‘you make me feel’, ‘you never’ etc will put the other party on guard because, they may feel that they are being blamed or threatened.

Other ways to rev up your motivation include: internal alignment. When our beliefs, attitudes and values, support each other and other people confirm this we’re usually happy with life and have achievable targets. Whereas if there’s evidence to the opposite generally people become de-motivated and unhappy, because we don’t see the point and although we may try harder in the short term. If we continue trying too hard we set up a negative cycle and become de-motivated.

People have a real need to conform with social norms. When there is conflict between behaviour that is expected by others, and our natural behaviour pattern, the threat of social exclusion often sways us towards our own beliefs even though it may cause significant inner conflict, without noticing and we may make excuses such as:
  • Denial - 'I didn't see that coming.'
     
  • Excuses - 'It was going to fall anyway.'
     
  • Admitting mistakes - 'No-one’s perfect.'
     
  • Persuasion -'I'm good, really, aren't I?'

For example : If you make a promise, you’ll feel guilty if you don’t keep it.
Everyone is inconsistent in some areas. If you do feel you have to fit in with other people, think about, potentially more serious, internal conflicts that you will be opening up.


Christine Hargan, BSc (Hons) Psychology; Specialises in and treats the causes and effects of emotional disorders, confidence and addiction based issues with hypnotherapy, NLP and psychotherapy.