Motivation

[LadyShea]

So I am trying to be a Mom and all, and attempting to get Kiddo to think about his goals and desires, in order to manage his time and prevent undue stress and frustration. OMG is that sentence shit to parse?

Anyway, long story short, because many things come easy to him, he sort of sticks to those and eschews things that are more difficult and require more effort. Though he wants to do well at them too...he just wants the knowledge or skills to get downloaded while he sleeps or something. He even goes to a lot of trouble to justify watching TV rather than work on whatever. Tonight it was TV rather than studying for the spelling bee. Even though he really wants to do well in the spelling bee, he was trying to tell me he doesn't really care. But, if he does poorly he will be upset, might even cry...that will absolutely happen. He cares deeply.

Well here's the issue...I am totally that guy too. Lots of things come easy, and I quite often look like a rockstar because I tend to stick to those things and hand off the stuff that is difficult or requires effort (unless the reward is really something I want badly enough to sweat for, then I will do the hard work). But, I do expect to do well anyway! I get upset when I fuck up even though I know I could have done better with a bit more effort.

Hubby is the opposite. He will practice stuff and try to do better, and even get a bit single minded, until he masters it, or at least feels content with his level of competency.

So where does motivation come from? Why am I not motivated to become a better cook even though I want to be a better cook? Why is Kiddo not motivated to study his spelling list even though he wants to win the bee? How can we find it...can we find it?

[erimir]

If only I knew the answer to that question.

[Dingfod]

Ditto.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Hubby is the opposite. He will practice stuff and try to do better, and even get a bit single minded, until he masters it, or at least feels content with his level of competency.

I practice stuff until I feel a comfortable level of mastery ... but only stuff I already feel a strong motivation for. Then mastery is the reward. Actually, learning stuff is a reward in itself. So, perhaps not that "opposite", just doing different things with existing motivation.

If I can pretty much cope with something to a bare minimum level and get away with it (but not get as good a result in the exam as I could) then ... no motivation.

[Hermit]

You can easily acquire untold amounts of motivation with this one shocking trick. (Gaps will be filled when the author can be bothered cadging enough clickme ads to kick his motivation into gear.)

[viscousmemories]

Sadly, I'm that guy too. Apparently I hate learning more than I love knowing, or else I'd speak multiple languages, play multiple instruments, etc. I'm inclined to believe the problem is not a lack of motivation in general, but a more specific lack of motivation to go deep on any one of my interests at the expense of going broad. I guess I find it more satisfying to know a little about a lot of things than a lot about a few things.

[curses]

What's a motivation? I've been told it comes from routine but I don't know if I believe that. Not much motivates me, never has. I've done the stuff that comes easy and can't be bothered with the rest.

[Janet]

Another unmotivated one here. When I'm interested in something, like the vampire myths, I will study it until there is nothing left to learn. Other stuff, like drawing, I took one class and when I got to the end of it and I was able to draw, I decided it wasn't the skill I lacked but the patience to work at it so I dropped it. I do think that being good at things can be a curse. I can pretty much be at least competent at almost anything I try, so why work at it? Except cooking, I'm always working to perfect that for some reason.

[ceptimus]

Everyone is very motivated at some things. The problem is that you don't get to choose what motivates you or at what time.

So if you feel very motivated to, lets say, sit and watch TV while eating lots of ice cream, then you should go do that and congratulate yourself on the dedicated way you are at working towards fulfilling your current aspirations.

[Ensign Steve]

I read this thing this time, and I tried to find it again, really, but I can't. Anyway it says that if you need to find motivation to do a thing, you're working against yourself because now you have two things to do. The original thing plus finding the motivation to do it. It said just don't worry about whether you're motivated, just do the thing, it's less work. It's probably just semantic trickery, but it worked for me getting thru school. It's like eating your veggies, you don't have to like it, you do it cuz you know it's good for you.

[lisarea]

It would be pretty weird for anyone to choose studying over consuming some kind of entertainment media that is specifically designed to be appealing, but especially a kid. All that says about him is that he has a functioning reward center in his brain.

But like that one guy up there says, you're not always going to be motivated. The most effective way I've ever managed to do tedious or unpleasant tasks is by not giving myself the option not to. Just cutting out distractions and deciding I'm Not Allowed to do anything else until I've completed something or spent x amount of time working on it or whatever. So the motivation is pretty much just getting it over with and not having it nagging at me anymore.

Not that I ever actually do anything these-a days. I finished all the boring things already, and now I only do what I want.

[erimir]

I feel like there may be some connection between a lack of motivation to do productive things and spending time at

[Dingfod]

Correlation does not equal causation.

[livius drusus]

Routine is the best weapon I've found to combat my inherent listlessness. How do I establish the routine in the first place, you ask, without the prime mover of motivation? Uhh... Yeah, good question. I suppose the desire to do something -- pursue a historical inquiry, say, or make something tasty and interesting to eat -- converts into a first step (almost always reading) with relatively minor effort, and then that propels the eventual action (writing a blog post, cooking dinner). Since I want to do those things pretty much every day, it eventually becomes a routine.

[JoeP]

Routine rarely works for me

[Dingfod]

I think I need to establish a routine.

Naw, that'll never work.

[viscousmemories]

I have what's known as RATMism re: routine, in that a voice in my head screams "fuck you I won't do what you tell me!" whenever a healthy habit begins to form.

[LadyShea]

Yeah a routine is in place wrt work, school, Kiddo and his assorted whatnots, laundry, dinner...all borings and necessaries are allotted appropriate time and energy. Things I actually enjoy are inserted where time and money allow. It's the other things like going beyond "not starving" I can't be fucked to deal with.

As for Kiddo, he is a bundle of rules and routine. He can't seem to find the desire to do something new or unfamiliar

[AspenMama]

With my older kids, I remember spelling being a particularly difficult and boring task when they were little. It often involved rote memorization for a Friday test and most of the words were barely remembered the next week. Math was so boring for my older daughter that she dragged out her homework, did the problems backward and upside-down and acted like she didn't know something that she clearly did just to be social and do anything but the boring task at hand.

It took several years of hard work with each of my older kids to get them to get themselves into a routine and to understand the importance of homework no matter their interest level for a certain necessary class. It paid off. My eldest was accepted into the engineering program as a computer science major at a good university here and my next is well on her way this year in high school taking all sorts of advanced courses and loving it. For me, what worked was a combination of being very strict with homework while attempting to be creative and spontaneous at the same time. Homework sometimes is much better worked on at the ice cream shop or the park. Learning spelling doesn't seem as bad while walking through the Science or Art Museum.

Just don't look in their rooms. I never did get them to keep those clean! And, personally, I think my own lack of motivation to do stuff I think and say I want to do stems from being tired and stressed.