Motivation is a psychological thing.
You will learn along the way, have faith in yourself.
Dear Friends,
I hope you have been keeping well.
So last week, I talked quite a in detail about my work style, it was full of positive insights and hacks so to say. Reading it, one might conclude that I have everything sorted. Which is far from the truth.
Honestly, I have been in slag in the last few weeks, there have been some personal and family stuff happening, but keeping that aside, I have not been as enthusiastic and active about work as I usually am. And this is not a case of burnout or exhaustion, I feel like I just got wrapped in stuff and lost direction for a while. So I sat down a few days ago and started thinking about how to get over this slag.
And I realized that maybe I need to re-align my goals and renew my focus. So naturally, first I took cognizance of all the things that I am currently working on, where things are going right, and especially where they are going right. And then I took to the internet to read a bit and I stumbled upon a brilliant motivation chart, which has made my work so much easier since.
It is basically like a guide turned into a mind map. It helps you understand motivation as the product of:
Expectancy - the perceived odds of getting a reward and whether we expect success or failure.
Value - the pleasantness of doing a task and the size of its reward.
Impulsiveness - the tendency to get distracted or lose focus on a task.
Delay - the time between the present and the task's reward of completion.
And in order to reach an optimum level of motivation, you need to increase expectancy and value and decrease impulsiveness and delay. And there are many practical ways of doing this like finding flow, creating a dash of events to be completed, eliminating temptations, creating competition, rewarding yourself more often, scheduling time for leisure, detecting reasons for procrastination and so much more.
In fact, motivation is a very psychological thing. The science of motivation is really interesting. According to this article by Forbes, there are 3 primary resistances that hinder your level of motivation.
In the first “I have to” type of resistance you are obliged to do things and therefore you just don’t feel like doing it. A prime example can be college assignments or project deadlines. You can get over this by reminding yourself that you have chosen to be here, to work on this. And that even if this particular piece of work doesn’t excite you, in the larger scheme of things this actually brings you closer to your vision.
The second “I don’t feel right about this” type of resistance- you are doubtful of what you are doing, you start doubting your capabilities. This happens with me when I have to pitch a great idea presentation to my team or launch a new initiative, I often get cold feet. In some ways, I think it is good. If you are doubting yourself, it means you are growing, discomfort pushes you towards greater innovation. Just don’t let your doubts get the better of you.
But you might also feel this way when you are actually going off track and your intuition kicks in. At that point, take a step back, reflect on your work once again, get some headspace, and then realign your goals.
Third, the “I can’t do this” type of resistance - the fear of failure. All of us are well aware of that nerve-wracking feeling when you just want to give up because there’s no way you can do it. But believe me, you can. Yes, you might “fail”, you might not be as good as you want to be but real failure lies in not trying at all. You will learn along the way, have faith in yourself.
What I was Reading this week?
I always feel so happy when I stumble across random pieces of creative work.
Human trials for the first HIV vaccine are all set to begin this week.
We do need an Oscar for this Tiktok. Please watch it, you will thank me later.
Thank you so much for reading till the end. Do let me know if you have any suggestions for things I should talk about ahead.
You can reach out to me directly on my Instagram @pawan_rochwani.
Also, if you liked this newsletter please consider sharing it in your close circles! See you in the next one.