Motivation, here we come!

Among the relative that surround me, I will share with you some thoughts around three of them as I am asking myself what seem to drive their actions at their present age. There was a time when I am not certain why I would position me at the center of the stage, thinking that my dear ones are acting in such or such manner mainly because of me. Now older, maybe more experienced in life if not wiser I come to think differently. My seventy two years old father still surprises me as much as my two daughters under the age of ten. I have lived my life quite close to my father, both from a geographical and an emotional point of view.  My father is a big traveler, but don't get me wrong, not the four star hotel explorer and cruise ship lover kind of traveler; but more of the backpack camper type, with a thirst for activities rarely others would conceive to do, as if he is constantly willing to challenge himself. Over the years, I always had the opportunity to get to better know my father. We were connected enough for me to better understand him one may think. Well, I am still searching for answers regarding his personality believe it or not.

Recently, I have started to ask myself questions around his motivation. I believe that it plays a big role in shaping our personality. If you want to know a person, try to understand what their motivation is. Day by day I incline more towards this possibility. It is not always possible to approach the person and ask: 'Hey, what is your motivation? Let me know because I want to know you better.' In fact, we may not always be in touch of our motivation. We may do things without knowing why we do them.

My daughters are at an age where they play the game of finding where their limits are. Once they have found it and they feel like it, they try to see if they can push their limit even further. Is their main objective to upset me? I come to that conclusion particularly when I am tired or already upset at something else (yes, I do feel those as well and I admit that I am far from being perfect). During my relaxed time, I come to another conclusion: that their personality is continuing to take deeper shape.

Well, what I do tell myself every day is that even if I cannot point exactly to what motivates those loved ones that surround me, I should continue to search for their motivation if I want to better understand them. Can I actually do that? Can I even do that to better know myself?

How relative is motivation to generations?

It is quite motivating to be able to come back to Blogher every single day, read interesting blogs and post my own. Thank you NaBloPoMo! As a mom with her younger one at home, it gets me going. Writing becomes once again my main motivation. I truly missed that over the years, 'too busy' (if you know what I mean) to teach, and 'too busy' to look after my husband and my two lovely daughters.

Motivation and Generations. Now, as I was watching the 'Scent of a woman' this morning, I could not stop thinking about the difference of age of the two main characters and their motivation in life in that movie. Three intriguing questions came to mind: 1) can we, as adult, meaningfully describe our motivation to one another?; 2) can we truly understand another person's motivation?; and 3) is it possible to grasp the motivation of our loved ones?

I will open these questions for debate. What are your thoughts?

Until my next blog.

Falling short of motivation!

As a graduate student, it was partly the title of Dr. in Philosophy that encouraged me to pursue my studies at the doctorate level. It is only later, many years later, that I realized that I was in the program for the wrong reasons. Not a single soul within the whole department tookany steps to guide me. Now, after two masters, three kids and fifteen years of teaching I am choosing to recounting that experience in writing. Has it been felt a failure before? Possible. No matter what I thought about it then, it is the now that matters as Helene Cixous among numerous feminists have pointed out : it is the now that matters. The past shapes us, the future will become. The now is what we are.

At first, the blame went to the supervisor of the program. Mind you, I still believe that she did not lead me efficiently. Then, I believed that the whole department was turning against me. Poor secretary who was always so caring. As matter of fact, I continued to maintain communication with her as I quickly accepted that it is not worth loosing friendship over what I later accepted to be little stuff. Unlike the role of the prof. that Robin Williams play in Good Will Hunting, my supervisor was far from being inspiring and motivating.

For a some time, she made be think that I got in the program by luck. I was sure that luck is not sufficient to get you in. Thanks to university's standards, good marks do not fall from sky. So, imagine that from a number of years, your motivation for why you get up and do what to do is scattered by an outsider. If you let your emotions guide you, the way I did, you will end up finding yourself out of track. No motivation, no goal, just your emotions. I found myself in a pool of if...and what if... to summarize uncertain of what to do next, no light at the end of the tunnel.

Call it a quality if you would like or even luck, I will call it a blessing. It is it is in my nature to be active. Imagine that, I was active, keeping my head and my mind busy with another Master's program, two part-time teaching jobs and some house chores as a newly wed, but no real motivation behind it all. In reality, I was mainly hiding behind all these tasks. Not admitting that all was blurry for me. No vision for the future, just a matter to look after daily tasks. It felt awful, worse than if I would have found myself naked right in the middle of the UK's newly wed royal couple. I was doing work, but work lackng quality. I was active, yet, quite hollow inside. Such devastating feelings continued until the time motivation gradually came back to me, helping me to feel better, making me realize that the events of the past had no reason to make me feel low. Isn't that the falls that help us to become a better walker or a better biker as we grow up? The student in me then was not able to see that. The teacher in me now helps me to realize what went on then. Sad that all that community of doctorate holders were unable to make me realize. So surely enough, time heals many things. What we do now can and will have consequences of what will happen after. Remaining active was a good thing, but refinding motivation, readjusting it to the reality of now, became definitely more recomforting, especially after that long moment of falling short of motivation.

I look forward to come back in my next blog and continue to think about motivation. Maybe this time, I will provide other examples drawn from the life of  my loved ones.

Until next time,

Motivation: from emotion to action 2

I believe that few realities are written on stone and motivation is not one of them. Of course, just like a car can get low in gas we can occasionally run out of fuel and seem to have no other choice than to disconnect with our motivation. In the extreme case, our vision may become blurry preventing us to see the horizon and leaving us only to loose our motivation from sight. In rare cases, we may get disconnected for ever but most often the possibilities to get disconnected temporarily may occur. Particularly since our priorities in our daily life may change, we may need to readjust ourselves to meet these changes. In such moments, it appears that we may become more vulnerable and in our defense rely on such reasons, to not say excuses, as "I am too tired", "I am too busy", "I do not feel right" or even, "it depresses me"; or just like it happened to me last night, I "did not get the time to get to it". We can not control everything, but staying focused is generally a useful strategy to cope with events during rough times. As matter of fact, motivation can actually do that. Give us the boost to remain focused. Feel in control. Be in control.

Please stay tuned as a life experience will illustrate that in my next blog. 

Motivation: from emotion to action 1

I argue that we are driven to do what we do because of our motivation. Under the most difficult times, you may go on with the task you are undertaking because you have the motivation to do so. Various emotions such as tiredness or sadness may be easily forgotten since it is motivation that encourages us to take the necessary steps to be active and accomplish our tasks. To my knowledge, a lack of motivation can leave us to feel too busy, too tired or too lazy to get going. Possessing motivation can refuel us, equipping us with the necessary energy to go on.

And to be continued...

Motivation

According to Psychology Today:

Motivation is literally the desire to do things. It's the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day. It's the crucial element in setting and attaining goals—and research shows you can influence your own levels of motivation and self-control. So figure out what you want, power through the pain period, and start being who you want to be.

It would not be realistic for me to expect my under 10 daughter to tell me: 'well, mom, the motivation behind my action is that...'. I doubt that even my own dad, who is now more than seventy years old, would be able to explain to clearly explain the motives behind his actions, as the word desire comes easier in mind. Don't you find that it appears easier to relate actions to emotions: 'you are making me upset', 'you pushed me into doing this', 'I was feeling sad, that is why I did that', etc. Do not hesitate to let me know if you have never heard such sentences. We all need to express our emotions, however I believe that we should distinguish between how we feel and what we do. I am not a big believer in: 'I desire to do that, that is why I did it'. Such conceptualization  is not a satisfactory explanation to me.


According to Dictionnary.com:

Desire a longing or craving, as for something that brings satisfaction or enjoyment: a desire for fame.

The concept of 'desire' deals merely with emotions and I believe that focusing on only that is walking on fine ice.  Emotions are important. We need to express them. I am a true believer of that. What we do can be related to our emotions; however, I argue that we need to look beyond our emotions if we want to understand the reasons behind our actions. Having just a desire to do something is not enough for us to go ahead and do it. Desire may give us the urge to act upon whatever it is we have in our mind, but it will not necessarily give us all the needed strength to actually act. Desire creates the craving. Having a craving is one thing, taking the necessary steps to appease our craving is different. Thus, I focus on MOTIVATION.

As previously indicated, in my upcoming blogs I will look at the reasons behind why it is we do what we do. Do not hesitate to write me your comments during this process, as healthy dialogues can only lead to healthy development of the mind.

Until next time.

But why did you do that?

Have you ever found your young child to do things, surprising you with their creativity, and then up to you to find out about why it is they did what they did, especially if their actions were wrong? Thanks to my 71/2 daughter, I often get 'these' kind of surprises. At first, I used to get upset, thinking that the basis of her actions were directly tied to my emotions. Let's play the game of making mommy upset did I used to think. I now agree with you, too simplistic for a mom who supposedly has some experience to be a mom. It took me some time to realize that I should rethink my logic. Her desire to make me upset may have occasionally triggered her actions but not every single time. Of course, I have tried to ask her the question of WHY did you do that? However, even as an adult we may have difficulty to answer to a WHY question. There is so much that we can expect of a child. She barely had an answer to offer to explain why.

How is it that she ends up doing what it is that she is doing? Out of desire? It is possible. I did it because I WANTED TO, because I LIKED doing it. Out of desire may be a valid reason, but I believe it is not the only one. One should look at the MOTIVE behind the action. What motivated you to do that may be a better question to ask ourselves.

And this is the topic I would like to further expand in my few upcoming blogs. Please stay tuned...