Motivation is one of the key thing that people seek everyday while trying to accomplish a particular task, if our day to day activties was a car, motivation might as well be the fuel, there are many misconcpetion about this term motivation and people might be like “Oh let get straight to the point that the Secret is Discipline”, however this is not your conventional Motivation vs Discipline post, this is actual the strategy i use to fuel my activities in my day to day life, let go. This post will be structured in the following way the Myth of Motivation, the Delusion of Discipline and the Secret to Motivation backed reseach studies, lastly conclusion.
Over the years prior to discovering this concept, i struggle with accomplishing what i set out to do in a day, although there were days of success and days of failure, then i thought to myself what was different between the days where i succedded to accomplishing my tasks for the day and days where i also failed, and i figured out it was my state of mind.
The Myth of Motivation
Well pretty much everyone view motivation as a deep feeling that just magically come upon one to get work done and thus no one really question the source, the basic misconception of motivation is that it is attributed to feeling, and thus one feeling can affect one productivity. However that got me thinking and asking the question, what is the source behind motivation and how dose the brain identify which state of mind is associated with motivation, understanding how the brain experiences motivation will help us discover how to harness that feeling at will.
The secret to how the brain Identify the state of mind that lead to the creation of the feeling of motivation is Dopamine, commonly referred to as the feel good hormone. This is the hormone that deal with the feeling of pleasure and satisfaction. A study conducted by Forbes magazine, brain imaging was used on groups of people given the labels “go-getters” and “slackers”. The study found that “the “go-getters” had higher levels of dopamine in the reward and motivation portions of the brain – the striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The “slackers,” on the other hand, had a higher level of dopamine in the area of the brain associated with emotion and risk – the anterior insula.” Hence the people who do more had higher level of motivation. The Question thus lie on, how do we harness such dopamine to our benefit?
The Delusion of Discipline
Im sure when we think of a disciplined person, we picture a deeply focused person doing their craft or doing so many thing and we say to ourselves, “i wish to be more discipline in what i do”, however have you pictured what other thing a descipline person does in their day to day life, well it nothing different between what you and me do in our day to day life. Discipline says “Do more despite your emotional state” while motivation work with the state of mind. Well no matter what the internet gurus says and that funny coming from me, we can not deny our state of mind while engaging in a task. Discipline is often confused with consistency, we often believe that the more discipline we are the more consistent we become, however it work vice verse, consistency build image of discipline, example think of the most disciplined person you know, an athlete, friend or family, what you actually think of is what they have consistently built over the years.
The Secret of Motivation
The simple secret to motivation lies in building momentum, that’s the simple key of motivation, you might be wondering what do i mean? well let me explain. We are trying to tap in to the productivity hormone called Dopamine, hence what better way to do that then accomplishing what you set out to accomplish, you feel good when you do what you set out to do in a particular day. But this is where people overlook the minor task they do inbetween before doing the major task they want to accomplish in that particular day. Thus building momentum we will utilize those minor task to our advantage to build our dopamine and sense of accomplisment.
I discovered this during my 4th year of university,we came into a new campus things were messy and unorganize in my day to day life, from lectures, to where i will buy food, to meeting up with friends, to various meeting and activity, and even time of when i would do the laundry and air my cloths to dry, all those minor things had to be done in a specific time. Wakingup late means that the line will be filled by the times you want to dry your cloths in hostel, buying food late well you will have to excercise patient in a packed cafeteria, i found myself scheduling the minor task in my day, down to the point of the class i was going to read and everytime i did those tasks and tik them off my planner, i felt the motivation to do more.
To paint a scenario, let use two person, James and kaitlyn. James set out a todo list for the day and that to do list just state, 1. clean the house, 2. read a book lastly, lastly 3. Blog about my business, while kaitlene, todo list is 1. wakeup and arrange my bed, 2. Bath and brush my teeth,3. do my devotion, 4. check up on that friend, 5. Read a book, 6. Blog about my business. Studies will show that the person more likely to accomplish their task for the day is kaitlene. (Dont Mind the todo list they will be detacted post on the proper ways to create a to do list stay tunned).
The Question now is why would kaitlyn have a higher chance of accomplishing all his task of the day? that the concept i call building momemtum, and the way i personally utilize this concept is adding the basic thing i do in my day to day life to my todo list, hence when i do those basic thing i fill a sense of accomplishment, building my dopamine toward the greater task which is Bloging about my business. for you it could reading most likely or creating content but just remember this simple saying “Dont forget to build momentum”.
In a study conducted by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, they focused on how the personal life of an employee influenced their work life, and they termed it the progress principle. They took a deep dive inside several companies, tracking the day-to-day events that moved the inner work lives of the employees. What they found, is that inner work life goes hand in hand with overall productivity of the company, they found out that people are more engage and creative in their work when they feel happy. Hence, they concluded that ‘progress loop’ is a secret weapon of high-performing companies, producing a powerful win-win for both managers and employees. Which focuses on consistent daily progress fueling a person work life.
This is in line with our term of building momentum, by accomplishing meaningful task in your day to day life,(the key is tricking your brain to think that your minor day to day task are meaningful by scheduling it), there will be a sense of accomplishment and progress, hence forth creating the endless loop of progress, that i term building your momentum.
Conclusion
Everything became a game changer for me when i read the book, “The myth of motivation” by Jeff Haden, it made me realize what i was doing all this years and the concept behind motivation and it help me build this concept of momentum officially giving it a name, which fell in line in the way i adapted the concept to my day to
day. Hence, one should not overlook the importance of one state of mind while trying to accomplish a task, motivation is one of the best key, producing a feeling of happiness and satisfaction, however this can only be harnessed when you build momentum by accomplishing your minor task, Note, these minor tasks are not compulsorily chores. They could be anything and they vary from person to person, that how we tap into motivation by cultivating that feeling of accomplishing those minor tasks. My challange to you is to personally try building your own momemtum in your day to day life, try this for a day or two, or a week at best and see yourself accomplishing more of the meaningful thing you want to do with your day to day life. Remember to be Positive,be patient and be Productive.
