Motivation; The Hero and The Villain

The final prospect to understand about motivation is that it doesn’t only encourage you to do something, but may encourage to not do something as well. It can help you overcome fears and blocks, while also being the foundation to other areas in life.

Motivation helps you thrive off of the kick it has to offer, but sometimes that kick isn’t forward; it’s backward. It isn’t always a bad things to take a step back. Sometimes, your motivation ensures you’re firm on staying away from dangerous and harmful things.

Motivating yourself to do something

When you motivate yourself to do something, it’s something you yearn for. You’re willing to try and accomplish what you thrive for. Motivation pushes you towards what you want to do.

Motivating yourself to do something means that you run towards a goal and your motivation push you in order to get there. What you want is good for you, and you get it for your own benefit.

It may seem confusing to see the line between motivation towards and against an act or behaviour, so let’s explore it in further depth. There’s an act of motivation where you’re being pushed towards something, and then the act of being pulled or pushed away from another.

Motivating yourself to do something could be learning a new language. You do have something to gain from this and therefore you endure towards it. You want to learn and develop a new skill so you drive yourself to the finish line. Once you have the new skill, you have it for the rest of your life.

Motivating yourself away from something means you pull yourself from it, away from an act or behavior. If you commonly get angry or agitated and seek to control it, you’re going to motivate to get away from the emotion of anger. Trying to make anger one of your last resorts rather than first means you’re pulling out of that regular habit of yours.

Once you get accustomed to using other primary emotions, then forever you want to try and direct yourself away from the anger you wield. In this case, you’re running away from your behaviors or actions, rather than approaching them.

This is the difference between motivation pushing you and pulling you away. Sometimes, it’s better to run away or leave something rather than embrace its improper nature. Motivation can help you do both push and pull, and in your best intentions.

Motivating yourself to not do something

Before divulging into this theory, it’s first vital to understand that de-motivation and motivation working against an action are different. At times it may seem like the same description and definition, but motivating yourself is indefinitely not the same thing as de-motivating yourself.

De-motivating yourself towards something means that there’s no willingness towards performing that specific or even any act at all. When you’re de-motivated, you wish to do something but your emotions and thoughts convince you that you can’t do it, no matter how much you hunger for it.

• it means you willingly avoid it with pursuit…

When your motivation stands against an act or behavior, it means you willingly avoid it with pursuit. You don’t want to do something because it stands against what you believe and so your motivation assists you in dodging the bullet.

So when you compare the two hand in hand, de-motivation rids you of any willingness to act while motivating yourself against something allows your willingness to act contrary to this action. Motivation still pushes you to do what you want in this case, only it’s pushing you away.

De-motivation would be applied in a case where you want to do or have something, but you feel unaccomplished or capable of doing or getting it. Take smoking as an easy-to-understand example. When someone wishes to stop smoking, there are two ways they could go about it.

One would be that they feel incapable of giving it up. Although they know that there’s a way to fight it, they don’t feel proficient enough to make it to the end and surrender and cave in. This is de-motivation. No matter how much you try, your own self works against you making you slouch and lack the drive to pursue your ambition.

A different road to go down would be making it all the way to the end, where you can finally stop smoking. This is the strength of your motivation pushing you away from smoking, making sure you never do that again once you have stopped. Motivation against something is still motivation only this time the push you get is to pull you out of a bad situation or place.

Motivating yourself to stay away from bad people or away from dangerous areas are all examples of motivation pulling you out instead of pushing you in. Why do you think we avoid our fears so well? It’s because we’re motivated to.

The Importance of Pros and Cons

When making any decision, it’s always in better nature that you consider all of the pros and cons that may follow any action. There’s always another side to the story and to make sure no one gets hurt from your choice, considering the bigger picture is key to making wiser choices.

Something you may consider to be fun and well for you may affect others around you. If you feel as though you prefer going out every night rather than staying at home, think of both sides to the story. There’s your story and what you gain from it, then what others gain or lose from it.
For you it means you get to go out and have fun with friends. Maybe enjoy the outdoors or go to a club that is all fun and games. For your side of the story, these would be pros.

• you all get to enjoy time together…

The friends you go out with are also having a great time with you, making every night a blast. For their side of the story this would also be a pro. To wrap it up, you all get to enjoy time together which makes everything even better.

Then there are the people at home. They aren’t enjoying the fun and games, instead staying home at night. They could be upset that you aren’t there, they could feel left out or even worried about where you go every night. For them this would be a con.

This should also affect you as a con since the people in your home are a part of your responsibility. If they’re worried about you that means you’re creating a rift between you and your home. If you consider all of these together before making a choice, you can make an educated decision better and faster, rather than irrationally acting on instinct.

• Try including as many people…

The best move to make here is create coordinated plans that everyone can agree on. Try including as many people so that these nights don’t make anyone feel excluded or make it up to those who don’t go.

People typically give in to peer pressure with the motivation of getting accepted socially. This may lead to them making choices which are not in their nature but they only do so to gain acceptance in social circles. Some kids may start to bully, others take up smoking or substance use just to appear ‘cool’ driven by the desire to become accepted.

There are pros and cons in all of our choices. Most of the time we’re not in control of how someone else is going to see these choices. They might think of it as a bad idea while you don’t. We have to make do with the best we can do, making sure that as many choices we have control over have pros outnumbering the cons.

This post was reprinted with permission from Motivation Mojo