How to get Motivation and Set Effective Goals

Motivation is an internal process- it is a condition within us that desires a change, either in ourselves or in our environment.  As humans we desire a lot and hence motivation has many faces and is dynamic as our motivations can change from moment to moment depending on our needs.

Johnmarshall Reeve a psychologist describes motivation as “any force that energizes and directs behaviour” (Reeve, 2009a ). Energy gives behaviour its strength, intensity, and persistence. Direction gives behaviour its purpose and goal-directedness. Simply put when we are motivated, we move and take action.

Motivation could be either internal or external (Moore, 2020).

Internal motivation could be considered as physiological needs such as food and water and psychological needs such as autonomy, mastery, improved self-esteem or wanting power. So internal motivation mainly originates from your brain and nervous system.

Our environments and social context also play an important factor in terms of extrinsic motivation. Examples of this are seeking social approval or acceptance. (Morsella, Bargh, & Gollwitzer, 2009; Moore, 2020).

Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interact with each other to direct behaviours (Deckers, 2014).

The study of motivation is a behavioural science and so there are different theories to motivation (such as Maslows hierarchy of needs) all of which attempt to answer two fundamental questions which are:

  • What cause behaviour?
  • Why does behaviour change in its intensity?

Motivation when measured scientifically is visible and detectable through (Reeve, 2018; Souders, 2019)):

  1. Behaviour
  2. Level of engagement
  3. Neural activation
  4. Psychophysiology
  1. Example of behaviour in motivation would be through levels of persistence and decisiveness in choosing one goal over another (Atkinson & Birch, 1970, 1978; Bolles, 1975; Ekman & Friesen, 1975).
  2. Examples of engagement in motivation would be if a person is (Souders, 2019)
    • Enthusiastic
    • Enjoyment
    • Expressing interest
    • Paying attention
    • Processing deeply
    • Persisting in there efforts as if time and the outside world didn’t exist.
  3. A different pattern of neural activity is present with each motivation and emotion. For example, the hypothalamus is active when we are thirsty, and when we feel disgusted, there is a rise in insular activity.
  4. There are five psychophysiological expressions of motivation (Souders, 2019):
Hormonal activity Chemicals in saliva or blood, such as cortisol (stress) or catecholamines (fight-or-flight reaction).
Cardiovascular activity Contraction and relaxation of the heart and blood vessels (as in response to an attractive incentive or a difficult/challenging task).
Ocular activity Eye behavior—pupil size (extent of mental activity), eye blinks (changing cognitive states), and eye movements (reflective thought).
Electrodermal activity Electrical changes on the surface of the skin (as in response to a significant or threatening event).
Skeletal activity The activity of the musculature, as with facial expressions (specific emotion), bodily gestures, or shifting one’s weight from side to side during a boring hallway conversation (desire to leave).

Motivation and goal setting:

The awareness of how motivation varies over time is particularly important when it comes to goal setting.

Short term goals work better for uninteresting activities as they boost commitment by providing feedback on progress more often, which further reinforces the effort to persist (Reeve, 2018).

Motivation to perform routine or boring activities can be improved; however, by providing clarity of goals and choice in how to perform a task. Clarity and choice can fuel a sense of mastery and autonomy/

When it comes to interesting tasks, long-term goals work better as they often provide for greater flexibility and more autonomy in how to pursue them. Short terms milestones can feel intrusive for interesting activities.

Interesting activities are already engaging, and we are often intrinsically motivated to perform them because they produce enjoyment. But most importantly, we are motivated to pursue them in the absence of external rewards or incentives.

We also need to keep in mind that motivation to act on the goals is often higher when the goal is based in the near future, while far off goals do not create the tension of immediacy that would motivate us to act right away (Reeve, 2018).

We will also be motivated by goals, values, and desires to experience specific emotions associated with certain end-states (Reeve, 2018).

There is also plenty of evidence that positive subjective experiences contribute to increased motivation (Moore, 2020). For example

  • Those who feel good or show positive affect are more creative, help others more, show persistence in the face of failure, make decisions efficiently, show high intrinsic motivation, and so on.
  • Studies show that short-term positive affect helps us be successful in many areas in our lives, including marriage, friendship, income, work, and health (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005).

Motivational interviewing

Motivational Interviewing (MI) is a technique for to increasing motivation change and has proven to be particularly effective with people that may be unwilling or unable to change.

Motivational interviewing is a patient-centered counselling style based on the principles of the humanistic psychology of Carl Rogers. He argued that for a person to “grow,” we need an environment that provides us with:

  • Genuine openness that enables self-disclosure.
  • Acceptance that includes being seen with an unconditional positive regard.
  • Empathy where we feel like we are being listened to and understood.

Rogers discovered that it was more effective to let clients guide the direction of the process in the person-centered form of therapy.

Why motivational interviewing works is based on the self-determination theory. It states that we are more likely to change if our three basic psychological needs are attended to:

  • Autonomy in making decisions
  • Mastery and a sense of our competence in making the change
  • Relatedness and a sense of being supported by key people around us, including healthcare professionals

Another useful theory is that when we hear ourselves talk about change, it tends to increase our motivation. Within motivational interviewing, this is known as “change talk.” An emerging body of research is currently tracking the language that patients use when talking about change, and it appears that change talk predicts better outcomes (Gaume, at al, 2013).

What people say about change predicts subsequent behaviour because it reflects motivation for and commitment to change. When clients make arguments against change, often counterproductively referred to as exhibiting resistance, it produces less change (Zimmerman, Olsen, & Bosworth, 2000).

Finally, it was also noted that practitioners’ behaviour could influence clients’ behaviour in measurable ways. One review of research suggests that minimizing practitioners’ behaviour that is inconsistent with motivational interviewing, such as disagreeing with and confronting clients, has a clear positive influence on outcomes (Gaume, at al, 2013).

Motivational interviewing requires four key communication skills that support and strengthen the process of eliciting change talk, also known as OARS:

  • Open-ended questions
  • Affirming
  • Reflective listening
  • Summarising

Motivational interviewing and Self-efficacy

Motivational Interviewing (MI) has proven to be particularly useful with clients that lack self-efficacy and believe they may be unable to change.

It is very much a collaborative process of careful building the client’s belief in his or her ability to achieve their goals. 

Building Self-efficacy

If the client scored low on the self-efficacy scale and feels resigned and unable to change, increasing optimism about the possibility of change and focusing on internal strengths are some of the effective methods to encourage change talk and increase belief in one’s ability to change.

This can be done through the following questions:

  • Tell me about a time you made changes in your life. How did you do it?
  • What personal strengths do you have that would help you succeed?
  • Imagine you decided to change, what about you would enable you to do it?
  • What encourages and inspires you?
  • Who could offer you support in making this change?

What you can you apply to practice:

Motivational interviewing

  • Open-ended questions
  • Affirming
  • Reflective listening
  • Summarising

Smart goals

  • Short terms goals vs long term goals
  • Visualise and relate a positive emotion that they’ve had to the experience
  • Do you goals empower the patient? Is there clarity in the goals?
  • Create the tension of immediacy
  • Have a Context- where do you want your goal- “ I run in 3 months”- where do you want to run, how far do you want to run.
  • Go into senses- what you hear, smell and feel
  • A recent study Psychology Professor Dr. Gail Matthews confirms the importance of the steps above to achieve goals, providing empirical evidence that supports the practice of writing down goals and committing to action steps. Her research also highlights the effectiveness of goal setters soliciting a supportive friend to hold them accountable for completing their action steps through weekly progress updates. Matthews’s study broke participants into five groups, each with different instructions. The first group had unwritten goals, the second wrote their goals down, the third wrote down both goals and action commitments, the forth wrote goals and actions and gave them to a friend, and the fifth group gave their written goals and actions to a friend and also provided weekly updates.

Intention and Rewards

Visualisation

The more vividly one can visualize, the more “colorful” and detailed the imagery, the greater the intensity of emotion will be. Since such an experience can sharpen awareness and elevate confidence in one’s performance abilities, successful visualization sessions enable the athlete to “step into” his imagination, “see” every detail, and “feel” what it is like to perform in the desired fashion. 

Cartesian questions

  • Encourage us to delve beneath the obvious and unearth subconscious thoughts when we’re trying to make decisions or work on a goal. They help loosen up our thinking and push past self-imposed mental boundaries into a new perspective

Auerbach GOOD coaching model

  • Goals – define the most important goals a client wants to work toward
    • Options – explore option is available to help them move forward
    • Obstacles – name obstacles that might get in the way of progress
    • Do – specify what is the client going to do specifically and by when

Neurological levels of change

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