I've been thinking a lot about motivation lately. Mostly about how to motivate myself.
The first thing I have to figure out is WHAT motivates me?
We had this conversation at dinner tonight where I asked my family what motivated them more: the negative or the positive?
Examples:
If you wanted to lose weight, would it be better to put a picture of you on the fridge looking skinny or fat.
As an athlete do you respond better to positive or negative reinforcement?
If you want to do well in school, do you think about the good marks you've gotten or the bad?
As a writer, do you feel more motivated when you read some of your worst writing or some of your best?
It was a toss up, a few thought that putting the fat picture up would motivate them not to eat, whereas others thought remembering that they had been skinny once would help.
I'm still torn about what motivates me more, but I do think I'm leaning toward the positive.
What about you? What motivates you more?
11 comments:
I'm glad you're leaning toward the positive. Sadly, I don't know what motivates me most. I think--as concerning writing--it's the story itself. If I can feel it deep within me, I can push past the fear and the reticence.
Wishing you much success!
Always good to know what motivates us, I always think its half the battle over to be able to do so.
Such an intriguing question. My first inclination is to say positive, but I get where the negative can really light a fire under me. Might have to say that one--negative.
~ Wendy
The positive, totally! I'm trying to loose a little weight, and I found a beautiful dress today and bought it! The only problem is that it's way too small, but it was only a dollar. A dollar! So I have it hanging up in my room where I can see it to motivate myself. I can't wait to fit into it!
The positive. DEFINITELY the positive. Especially it reminds me that I CAN do it, because I've done it before.
What motivates me with my writing is when I read someone else's great writing and it inspires me to do better. Or it depresses me. :D
Positive Patti! It urges me on. The negative only brings me down. Way down. And I love being up! :-)
Positive, definitely. When I read a particularly good passage that I've written, it motivates me to keep at it.
I always get motivated more reading something I've written that I feel is good. It's too easy to think, gah, I write terribly, and then I look at a passage and think, hey, that's not half bad! LOL
I think I'm somewhere in the middle, so when the one doesn't work, I try the other. :-)
I think the positives are the more motivational of the two, but a bit of negative will also give you a boost too. It then becomes a matter of knowing when you need which :p I read my good writing and I think "Yes, I am brilliant, I am going to GO somewhere with this stuff!" Then I'll look at the bad stuff I've written and think, "Come on, Bonnee! You can do so much BETTER than that! Pick up your game!"
Really it comes down to whether I want to challenge myself to do better (use the negatives) or encourage myself to keep going (use the positives). Does that make sense? :p haha.
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