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Motivating yourself more effectively | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| gbarv Groupie Cocos (Keeling) Islands Joined 5639 days ago 49 posts - 60 votes  | Message 41 of 53 16 September 2009 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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. Edited by gbarv on 23 September 2009 at 6:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6155 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 42 of 53 16 September 2009 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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gbarv, I find that really interesting. When you say ' Nowadays when I need to get to do something I just do it because I have to and there's no way around' what do you mean? What do you have to do to make this thing so imperative? How do know how to change the intensity of a task? For example do you go from task to task with the same intense focus everyday or is it just some tasks you choose to do this with? If so how do you choose the more 'important' tasks'?
I'm not entirely sure (but what do I know?) that it's down simply to self discipline because you must have something that has motivated you to do this task in the first place. You seem to be very pragmatic so I doubt you do something for the sake of it and I also doubt you do something without getting something from it (e.g. pleasure from doing the task, having a new skill at the end or whatever). If I may be so arrogant as to offer a theory; could it be that you've motivated yourself to such a degree, using x amount of techniques, that motivation, like any other skill/mind set, is just second nature to you now? The thing with self-discipline is that it can only exist in the presence of processes that have preceded it. I realise this is just babble but if I give an example. I get up 6am everyday. I study for 30 mins on my way to the gym, then do an hour session in the gym, and then go to work. I also have a fairly strict diet. I believe that this requires self-discipline. Like you I see these tasks as imperative parts of my day that are as certain as my going to work. They don't change. However, why do I do these things? I don't do them because they are just there. They are a result of many conscious/unconscious/internal/external processes. All of these processes have contributed in some way to motivating me to have the self-discipline to do what I do each day. gbarv, I really am curious about your answers. If you are a highly motivated person then it would be stupid of us not to know what processes you go through to make a task imperative. Edited by Jimmymac on 16 September 2009 at 12:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6155 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 43 of 53 16 September 2009 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
But what factors prompt you to start taking the stairs in the first place? What thoughts must exist before you create these behaviours? A person will not do these things unless there is a force that pushes them to do them first. These could be internal or external influences. These influences are motivators. So if I ask you why you are learning a particular language you'll probably be able to give me a reason. That's a motivator. The person taking the stairs might want to lose weight. That’s their motivator. Self-discipline is the result, in my opinion, of motivators. Edited by Jimmymac on 16 September 2009 at 1:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| gbarv Groupie Cocos (Keeling) Islands Joined 5639 days ago 49 posts - 60 votes | Message 44 of 53 16 September 2009 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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. Edited by gbarv on 23 September 2009 at 6:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Jimmymac Senior Member United Kingdom strange-lands.com/le Joined 6155 days ago 276 posts - 362 votes Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 45 of 53 16 September 2009 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Strangely enough what you have said is a decent reflection of my current situation. Although I wouldn't abandon any of the 'techniques' I've used I've certainly gotten to the point, after many many years, where I have less need for them. Because of the changes I've made I now see myself as a highly motivated person and because that's both a key belief I have about myself and a belief that others have of me I'm much more likely to live up to that expectation. Just as a person of low self-esteem who consistently sees themselves in a negative light and behaves in accord with that belief we also act in accord with the beliefs we have about ourselves.
I suppose one could say that until a person holds such a belief about themselves as being highly motivated they may need to use some of the techniques available to them. Obviously those who can motivate themselves without 'tricks' are in a good situation but then again I'm sure if we dug deeper we would find that the task that person is so motivated to do is deeply involved in either how they perceive themselves (e.g. skilled linguist) how others perceive them (e.g. skilled linguist again) or whether or not there is an external goal (attain a job in target language). I find this topic incredibly interesting and I've spent more time reading about it in various forms than I have any other topic. I genuinely look forward to people’s experiences on the matter and debating it with them. gbarv, on a final note and just for discussion sake, although you say you're not interested in setting small goals wouldn't you say the statement 'as long as I keep working on something every day' reflects a short-term goal? Edited by Jimmymac on 16 September 2009 at 3:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 46 of 53 16 September 2009 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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For me it seems that motivation is mostly a driving force to get me to a point of good momentum, where I can just carry on without needing to think about what motivates me. Once I get to a certain level of work I rarely need to remind myself of my original reasons to keep me going - unless those reasons change or I lose interest, in which case I'm left with nothing and the sinking ship can't be salvaged unless and until something changes again. But assuming my underlying motivation is in order, I really just need to develop that momentum and not let it go, and then be careful to notice if it drops for whatever reason and if so, immediately do something about it to keep from sliding backwards. It can be quite hard to get back on the horse, but simply staying on it doesn't have to be hard. Once I've reached a stable level, there's not much more to it than simply sitting down and studying, more out of habit and a sense of "that's just how it works" than any do-I-feel-like-it or should-I-or-shouldn't-I type considerations every time. If I'm motivated overall, I just do stuff.
I do need to have something that motivates me, if I have that then I don't really run into trouble very often. My source of motivation can be something completely irrational or even trivial, not necessarily something it makes sense to learn an entire language for. These things are very personal to me, and I've never seen the point in describing describe them to other people, because it wouldn't mean anything to them. In addition to that basic motivation, other motivational factors seem to add themselves onto my will to learn the language as I learn more about it and discover what's cool about it - though they don't have to be there if my original motivator was strong enough. And then there's the beauty, if any, that I see in the language. I have to like it. For whatever reason. Or for no reason - this isn't particularly rational either. It's possible that it's related to me having a couple of different forms of synesthesia (which I've described a bit in my log here) so it's possible that my brain just somehow latches onto certain languages making them likeable, even ones I wouldn't suspect would fit my sense of language aesthetics. I can't control it, and I can't really explain what it is that makes me like about a language, but I very much doubt I would be able to get very far in any language that I don't have this sense of appreciation for, unless I had an extremely strong motivation from something else. From the very beginning and even once I've reached a good level of momentum, I need to keep it enjoyable the entire time, because the only thing that can go wrong once I'm at that stage is hitting some sort of roadblock. In terms of languages, that would be doing something I don't enjoy, something I don't feel like doing - using boring materials, doing drills and so on can interfere with my original motivation for learning a language, so that it really doesn't feel worth it even if I was originally really keen. The only thing I can do to fix it is stop using materials I don't like, if I don't change things around then I'll lose interest and can only resort to brute force if I need to (which I've done on a couple of occasions because I had exams coming up, but it's not something I would choose to do with languages I learn on my own time). I can do some things that don't immediately stand out as interesting, if they seem worthwhile enough (for example, being really beneficial in terms of vocabulary), but there is a (fairly low) threshold for how much I can push myself into doing before it starts to take its toll on my passion for the language. That's why using materials I like is so important to me. I don't mind tricky concepts or massive quantities of things to learn, left foot in front of the right, right foot in front of the left, rinse and repeat - that'll take me where I want to go and sort everything out, I have no concept of something being impossible to do. If given the right time and effort I don't see any reason why things shouldn't work out the way I want, so I just work at it and shamelessly expect to get the results I want that way. I can relate to the notion that once you're working on improving something and you carry on improving then you know for a fact that you will eventually reach a high level if you just go on. I don't like micromanaging things, but getting into the habit of doing something useful every single day, no fail, really helps - and I've found that sometimes just taking one day off is enough to lose a big chunk of momentum that I will then have to work to regain the next day when I start up again. I agree with gbarv that sometimes doing things for the sake of doing them in order to develop self-discipline can be a real help. Actively going against laziness every time means you can make your approach one that is active by default and never held back by feelings of not wanting to. It simply can't get close enough to influence you, so instead of sliding back we can do what we need to do without having to work up the will do to so. Sorry this turned out so long, hope that made some sense. Liz Edited by Lizzern on 16 September 2009 at 5:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| lancemanion Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5574 days ago 150 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 47 of 53 17 September 2009 at 2:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I have an extremely addictive personality. It's gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past. But now I use it to my
advantage in my work and language learning. My language acquisition ability used to be very low, relative to the average person, but I'm like a bulldog. Now I'm finding my learning skills have improved to about average, probably due to so many years of practice and finding the right methods. I don't recommend anyone try to develop an addictive personality. It is a double edged sword that is more likely to slice you in half than to serve you. Be happy with your level of motivation, and accept that you are not terribly gung-ho. It's not necessary to always try your hardest. I dream dreams of mediocrity. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 48 of 53 17 September 2009 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I'm a need achievement type of person but rely deeply on intrinsic motivation. If I were to try to motivate me like vb it would look like:
There are a gazillion of things other people can do and I do not even want to be able to. If I only do something because I want to prove somebody (or myself) that I can, I start full force, get excellent results for a beginner - and lose interest because I have proven that I have the potential, and if the matter itself doesn't interest me at all, doing anything more than that is a great waste of time. There's so much else I really want to do! Moreover, when I initially motivate myself by comparision to others it leaves out my personal strengths and weaknesses that are quite lopsided. It also leads to frustration because using this motivation severly messes up my self-efficacy: When I use my talents, it will lead to an overblown self-efficacy, when I use my weak skills it will lead to a diminuitive self-efficacy and trying to make sense of those two made me lose a couple of years of my youth.
When I feel unworthy, my self-efficacy goes down the drain and I lose the slightest bit of confidence in achieving a goal I once set, leading me to abandon it. Also, it is unprofessional. Shame is one of the most destructive feelings because it will almost always lead to behaviour to hide the shame* and that will lead to new mistakes that lead to new shame. Bad idea. *in order to avoid the social consequences that follow when you have a real reason to feel shame and are found out, shame leads to concealing behaviour (why didn't you choose embarrassment? at least it's easier to deal with)
I do the whole thing the other way around. I WANT to be able to do X. Of course I try again and again, until I see progress. Of course I do not stop once I see a little bit of progress because I want to see if I can make more progress in a shorter time span. Of course I look forward to practicing X. Of course I feel disappointed when I can't spend time on it, or my practice goes bad because of outside stress, but that only means that I need to schedule better.
I prefer maintaining a good level of health rather than avoiding to destroy a so-so level, but that's personal choice. I don't have much of a margin to begin with anyways.
If the initial motivation and the ultimate goal are competition with others and one of the highest motivators is shame (=the sensation of having made a socially unacceptable mistake which might lead to one's expulsion from one's society if discovered; highly group-oriented), how does that work? If you motivate yourself like this, you need a mental image of what the competition is capable of as well as of what you yourself are capable of, and when you're using this, your psyche will crave for reality checks. It takes an in my opinion unnecessary amount of self-discipline to keep the motivation up - and self-discipline is exhaustible, there's only so much one person can use of it on a given day. (It is somewhat trainable, though.) The funny thing is that you and I, we probably would do very similar things to achieve a specific goal, but for different reasons; and I wouldn't be able to do the same for the reasons you do it for. And I hold the belief that motivation that bases primarily on competition+shame+self-deprecation works only in fields a person is highly talented for (or for a trainer who can choose between a number of highly talented individuals.) As language learning is an immensely complex task, there probably are few people who are highly talented for it; most people are talented for a number of sub-tasks but not so talented for others. Now, motivating yourself strongly with negative motivators and keeping your schedule up using self-discipline makes you automatically favour your strong skills (because in those you can meet the requirements). If you're clever, you also will adress your weakest skills once you notice they are bringing down your overall performance. But what's with the mediocre skills? And what's with the way they work together, how is that supposed to work out when you are exhausting yourself trying to meet the requirements and boosting the weakest skills? I thought a lot about posting in this thread because me initial reaction was: DO NOT LIKE D=. But today I realized that it is mostly because I do not have any trouble at all with the things Jimmymac mentioned in his initial post. I do not need to visualize, or set specific goals because that goes automatic, without ever thinking about it. I could say I am quite talented to find this kind of initial motivation and on-the-way re-adjusting, and bringing negative motivators into the picture makes me go on strike exactly because of that; it signals to my psyche that I do not trust in my well-proven ability to motivate myself with positive motivation and thus shows that I believe I am not capable of doing it after all. The only time I will do things that I believe I can't do is when I absolutely have to thanks to immediate social or life-threatening consequences of not even trying. These certainly do not apply to learning languages on my own. Honestly, my friends and family often enough showed positive emotions ('after all, you're human as well') when I gave up on a task I set myself, so there is no way I could use 'giving up = losing face' as a negative motivator! What I personally need is better focus (because, oh, Thai! Oh, Cherokee! shiny~), a better idea of what I actually am doing (when I'm not drop dead exhausted from all I've done I will swear I spend all the day daydreaming) and routine. Which leads me to this: when I myself researched motivation, I learnt that once a person has decided to take action, 'motivation' itself isn't that important any more. What's more important then are self-regulation/volition and habit - just what Lizzern wrote about. If you're frequently find yourself in the situation that your will to do something is dwindling and you have to motivate yourself again, it's not because of lacking motivation, but of lacking self-regulatory competence. This does of course include unrealistic expectations which might be avoided from the start - but on the other hand, you can re-adjust your expectations on the way as well. gbarv, the things you mentioned for developing self-discipline actually only work for a few times, after that they become habit ('auto-pilot') Both are important self-regulatory skills. In order to train one's self-discipline it is possible to add little challenges to one's routine but change them every week. One week of taking an icy cold shower after the warm one (it works well in winter :D), one week of taking the stairs whenever possible, especially when tired from a sedentary/stationary work, one week without any sugar/artificial sweetener - and then the same thing again, or other little challenges. After a couple of days, doing these will start to become routine, and then you can decide whether you will try to maintain them as a new habit (maybe somewhat reduced, like taking the stairs except when you are really tired) or let go and use them again for volition training in a couple of weeks. Or you can decide to learn ten new words every morning while you are waiting on the coffee machine to finish, and keep that up until you don't even remember whether you did it and only realize that you did when you look it up in your notebook; and come up with small time-boxing habits like that. そんな感じで; or: done with rambling. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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