Self-motivation is the force that encourages people to do things.
People can be motivated by many things both internal and external, such as an emotion to do something, liking for a person or someone who wants to earn money.
Usually, motivation results from certain factors. The ability to motivate yourself—self-motivation—is a vital skill.
Self-motivation encourages people to keep moving ahead even in the face of setbacks, to take up opportunities, and to show determination in achieving what they want to achieve.
What is Motivation?
Motivation is the thing that pushes people to achieve our goals, feel more energetic and improve the overall well-being of an individual.
Understanding and growing a person’s self-motivation can help in coping up with various spheres of life.
Motivation is an important part of personal skills that are important to the concept of emotional intelligence.
Daniel Goleman, the author of several seminal books on Emotional Intelligence, found few elements that makeup motivation:
- Introspecting one’s personality in the course of life: The craving to be better or to meet some particular benchmarks;
- Commitment to self and company’s objectives.
- The initiative, which he defined as ‘being fit to achieve certain objectives.’
- Optimism, the ability to keep moving ahead and not losing hope even in extreme darkness. buoyant is a term which describes this best.
To improve self-motivation, thus it is beneficial to have in-depth knowledge about each of these elements individually.
The Elements of Self-Motivation
1. Introspecting one’s personality in the course of life
You could think of introspecting one’s personality in terms of a strong desire to achieve something, or perhaps the growth of an individual’s personality.
However, it’s also beneficial to do deep research about it in terms of thoughts.
There are two types of mindset, fixed and growth.
- Those with a fixed mindset believe that talent is engraved and that they cannot change their mindset as it’s not in their control.
- Those with a growth mindset believe that the mindset can be improved through imbibing of certain new traits and continuous effort.
Research shows that those who believe that they can improve—that is, who have a growth mindset—are in a much better situation to succeed in certain areas of life than people with a fixed mindset.
A growth mindset plays a vital role for an individual to succeed in life.
2. Commitment to self and company’s objectives
There are certain instances, even if a good portion of it is not true or reliable, that setting benchmarks is essential for people’s emotions to be positive and to feel that there is something in life to achieve.
It certainly makes sense that ‘if you aim at nothing, it is easy to achieve it’, and that majority of individuals set their goals on something or the other object.
Having a clear understanding of one’s future and the clarity of reaching there is an essential thing to stay motivated.
3. Initiative
The initiative is the ability to scan certain objects and react to them on one’s own will.
It is very easy to feel shy and lose a chance for something that a person may be very good at.
But, the old quotes ‘look before you leap’ and ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ are very much right. It is also essential to ponder over things and ensure a rational decision for oneself.
Initiative can thus be thought as a mixture of courage and good risk management:
Risk management is important for the wise alternatives to consider, and they comprise of appropriate level of risk for you; and
Courage is necessary to overcome the resistance of doing and trying something new.
4. Optimism or Resilience
Optimism comprises of a person’s trait to concentrate at the pros or think positively. Resilience is the ability to ‘come back’ after a setback, or be calm and composed under the worst situations.
These terms are hugely the same but not entirely the same. Resilient people use their characteristics of thinking as a method of controlling their negative reactions to certain happenings.
Types of Motivators: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivators
In thinking about self-motivation, it is beneficial to have clarity of what encourages an individual to do a particular type of thing.
There are two main types of motivators: ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’.
Intrinsic
related to what an individual perceives he wants to achieve. Or to perform an action or task based on what we will be able to achieve on accomplishment of a task. Intrinsic motivators include joy, interests, self-target.
Extrinsic
related to what an individual perceives he has to achieve. Or to perform an action or task in order to get something in return including money, awards and recognition.
The same task may have more intrinsic motivators at certain times and more extrinsic motivators at others, and most tasks have a combination of the two types of motivation.
It’s easier to get out of bed in the morning, we are happier in our work, and happier in general.
Research shows that this is particularly important when we’re under stress. It’s much easier to cope with stress and long hours if we generally enjoy the work. Intrinsic motivators therefore play a big part in self-motivation for most of us.
Conclusion
A better understanding of the elements of motivation and specifically how they work in combination would be better. Self-motivation is tough as it comes from within. If you don’t keep a track of the most happening issues you can be a victim of the blame game.
In some cases, the individual can be dependent upon colleagues, relatives and friends but at the end one has to work on himself to achieve self-motivation.
By introspecting oneself and doing a good amount of research on oneself and keeping good track of recurring activities self- motivation can be achieved.
By getting a good amount of knowledge in early childhood about self-motivation and its benefits one can develop a good amount of self-motivation and stay motivated for the rest of life by developing it over the years.
These are the other soft skills one should work on:
