Curtis Zhang
6/11/20
Motivation
People who want to be motivated usually tell themselves about what bad will happen if they do something bad, but that is not the best course of action. Research has shown that giving positive motivation, having social incentives, and having immediate rewards help the most with getting people motivated.
When you give positive motivation, it has been shown that people are better at understanding it than if you give them negative motivation. For example, if you tell a kid smoking “Your lungs will die if you smoke,” he will be less likely to react than if you told him “If you stop smoking, then you will get better at playing your instrument.” I think that giving yourself positive motivation will work very well because when I give myself negative motivation, I usually give up after a while because I run out of motivation very quickly within half a day or less(I am a very lazy person), but if I have some positive motivation, I usually are able to last a day or 2.
When you have social incentives you have more incentive to work harder to change or do whatever you are doing because humans are very social beings, and we want to be accepted, so we do that by looking good in front of everyone else. This has also been proven by research, but personally, I do not need the research to prove it because I think that I usually try harder at things when there are other people around than if I am by myself. For example, I have never run a personal best for the mile while with myself and family, (besides the first mile I have ever run) and all my records were either set at school or at a track meet.
When you have immediate rewards, it has been proven through tests that you are more motivated when you have immediate rewards because you usually don’t think about the future as much, so when you come to a choice to an uncertain future or a certain now, you will most likely choose the certain now, but by giving you immediate rewards to get you to point towards the uncertain future, you are more likely to work towards the uncertain future. I think that this is also better because if you decide to give yourself a reward later, you might associate the reward with something else, or just now associate it with the thing you just did. If you however, reward yourself immediately, then you will think that because you did that, then you will get the reward.
The next time you are trying to complete a project or get motivated to do something, you can remember to give yourself positive motivation, social incentives, and immediate rewards to make sure that you are well motivated, as well as help you be able to build better habits for the future.