Motivation
by Peter Antonenko - Psychologist
One of the key components to over-coming harmful stress and anxiety in today’s society is to find the motivation to change or modify your outlook.
In my practice, I see a constant stream of people who have lost sight of their goals, interests and aspirations. Perhaps they have found that their job demands have taken over their life, or there is a perceived need to conform to unrealistic demands of a family and friends at the expense of their own individuality.
Another reason may be that they have achieved a number of goals and have reached a stagnant point in their lives. Whatever the reason, there is a need to re-evaluate and place into action some mechanisms to overcome these difficulties.
As individuals we cannot expect to achieve quality of life if we don’t have things to strive toward. Whether our objective is to get fit, lose weight, compete in a marathon, change our career path, travel overseas or any other desire, these goals need to worked towards at a realistic pace rather than attempting ‘quantum leaps’, which only serve to hinder our overall progress when we fail to reach those unrealistic expectations.
It is advisable to set out the goals and the pathways to achieving them by understanding our individual limitations. If we attempt to pursue a goal at the expense of other important things then this may cause unwanted and damaging stress and anxiety, particularly if we also fail to achieve that particular goal. Too often, we set ourselves up to achieve perfection without realising our limitations.
The human being does not come with an instruction manual, therefore there is a need to set a frame of reference in order to achieve our goals and aspirations. The basis of this frame of reference is the need to provide some objective insight into what we hope to achieve.
To commence this process of finding the motivation to improve your quality of life, you may wish to try out some of the following suggestions:
Allow yourself some time to clear your head.
Write down some of the things you want to achieve for yourself (not necessarily what others want you to achieve).
Be realistic when looking at your strengths and weaknesses and realise that you can gain knowledge from both of these.