The kernel of my goals

So a person in my program stopped into my office this morning to chat for a bit, and we got on the subject of motivation and deadlines. I was actually just reading about those things last night, so it was sort of funny that it came up in conversation less than twelve hours later.

Anyway, I think that it’s important to motivate myself to do certain things. That’s a no-brainer. But what I do end up wondering is how to best motivate myself…and whether or not I’m choosing a good strategy. I’m not just worried about choosing an effective strategy; I’m worried about choosing a strategy that is healthy for me. For example, I could reward myself with candy corn after I finish a task, but the danger is that I will just make myself sick on a day when I’m super-productive (this alone might even deter me from being super-productive again).

When I try to map motivation onto the identity I wish to achieve, I find that the motivation I tend to use falls into one of two camps: internal or external in origin. Sometimes I can rely on my own wishes, desires, hard work, and ambitions to move myself from point A to point B. I like when that happens…it lets me know that I really value something, or that I’m excited about something, or that I’m really convinced that I need to buckle down and do something. Yay for internal motivation. :)

Sometimes, though, I find that I need an extra “kick” to do the job. Usually, this “kick” comes from an external source, like a deadline or peer pressure or knowing that I’m affecting someone else with my actions. The question then becomes: is my occasional reliance on external motivation a bad thing? If I know that having someone (my advisor, my bank, a friend) impose a deadline for me will help me accomplish an otherwise difficult task, is that okay? Or should I just naturally want to complete my thesis on time (hah!), pay my bills on time, and hold myself accountable for my actions? Similarly, if I am acting in ways that can hurt myself and hurt others, is it bad when it’s the “hurting others” part that will encourage me most to stop? Shouldn’t I want to stop because I feel hurt too? (Note that it can also be really bad if I only want to stop because I’m hurting, which blatantly disregards the other people in the picture).

When I do consciously decide to use external motivation to accomplish something, I usually do it with the hope that it will eventually feed back into internal motivation. But I don’t know how much I push myself to actually make that happen. Usually, when we see results, we stop right there. And if a similar case comes up in the future, we continue with the method that got us to our goals. So I guess one thing for me to keep in mind is that I should question the amount of motivation I have for motivating myself in healthy ways. Okay, that’s confusing. But it’s probably understandable and do-able with enough thought…and motivation (yes, feel free to groan). :)