There are no lazy persons on earth, A person you think is lazy is either not interested in doing something or they are unmotivated to do something or unskilled in doing something but not necessarily lazy
When someone wants something they will put in effort, time, think and do all the hard work to get what they want or to avoid what they don’t want
So some people will appear lazy when they don’t want to do something or when doing something they are not interested in while someone will appear hard-working and motivated when doing something they want or interested in
Below we look at the possible ways a person can be motivated in everyday life and they will be able to pick interest in an activity or put in more effort in an activity
What is motivation?
Motivation is the process of stimulating a person to do something
Motivation types
Intrinsic motivation (internal motivation)
This kind of motivation is a result of desired internal rewards like self improvement
Extrinsic motivation (external motivation)
This kind of motivation comes from the desire to attain external rewards like more money
There are two ways a person can be motivated or how you can motivate others;
Motivation through fear
When motivating someone through fear, you warn them against what could happen if they don’t do something
And to avoid that from happening they will put in effort as a result of fear.
This how most people are naturally motivated to look for jobs in life, the fear of going hungry or homeless pushes people to go and work
A school example would be telling a student that if they don’t get above 50% in an exam they will be made to repeat the class.
So due fear of repeating a class, the student will be motivated to work hard so that they do not repeat the same class again
Motivation through gain
Motivation through gain comes when you tell someone what reward they will get if they achieve something
This is what motivates most people in life, the idea of buying a new car, owning a house or becoming famous motivates most people to work hard
For example telling an employee that if they worked hard and moved up the ranks in the hierarchy organization at work, they will earn more salary and allowances
The employee in this case would be motivated to work hard so that they can get a better position from which they can earn more money
In this case an employee would be motivated by the prospect of attaining a better salary
Another example would be in school where a student is motivated to study hard so that they can go the college or university of their interest.
In the same aspect, a student can be motivated by the prospect of fulfilling a certain dream career and this makes them study hard so that they can become a doctor or an engineer
This can also be good when motivating a depressed person or unmotivated child
How to psychologically motivate others
This is a little complicated but works efficiently. The biggest problem with this is you need to know a person very well emotionally and mentally to be able to motivate them because if it is poorly used it can back fire as you will read
So will have to figure out which motivation technique will work on a particular person and which one could back fire
Motivation through praise
A person can be motivated when you praise them;
This works in the aspect that a person will attain confidence in themselves and even work hard than before
So if you credited a person that they are performing well at something, they could be motivated to even work harder because you have noticed their efforts and they feel they are paying off
If you praised a person you know that is not doing well at something but made them believe they are doing well, they could attain confidence that they are good at it and end up motivated to work even harder because they now believe in themselves that they are performing well
Disadvantages of motivation through praise
If you praised a person that they are good at something, they could instead stop trying and relax because they know and feel they are good enough
If you praised a person you know is not good at something they are actually not good at it, they may stop trying because they feel are already good enough
When you praise a person that is not good at something they clearly know they are not good at it, they will lose the morale to keep trying because your praise to them will instead appear as sarcasm
Motivation through criticism
You can motivate a person through criticizing what they are doing. In this way they will be motivated to work hard as a way of trying to prove you wrong
For example, telling someone they are not good at singing could motivate them to even work hard so that they can prove you wrong that they are actually good at singing
In another instance, someone could be motivated to work harder after criticism in order to get better at something because they want to and your criticism comes of off as evaluation that they need to put in more effort
Disadvantage of motivation through criticism
At times when you try to motivate a person through criticizing what they are doing, they may instead lose the morale to try and feel they are not good enough.
This more relatable with a depressed person as they could feel more worthless after the criticism
Motivating Yourself
Motivating yourself through a challenge
Sometimes you can get so comfortable that you no longer feel the urge to try with a complete lack of motivation
In this case you can set goals to achieve, and these goals will drive and motivate you to do something
But when setting the goals make sure there is an end gain to them because that’s what will motivate you
This is very efficient when you are feeling unmotivated and looking for how to motivate yourself
Like you can challenge yourself to own a house by the age of 25 and this challenge of owning a house by the age of 25 will motivate you to work hard in all possible ways to make it a reality and these benefits that come with this challenge will even further push you to try harder
Motivation by learning from Mistakes
The truth is if you fail at something you are going to get demotivated, for example, if you apply for jobs and you are never called for one you will lose morale in the long run
You can be motivated to try again by finding out what you did wrong that made you fail and you correct it next time you try which will make you motivated in that now you would be knowing what you need to do to succeed
You can also ask for help from those that have succeeded in what you are trying to acquire. This will give you morale to try again because now you will be knowing what to do in order to succeed at what you are doing
Conclusion
One thing all the above motivations techniques have in common is people are naturally motivated by what they will gain out of doing something
Or People will naturally be motivated by the fear of something happening to them and at times they are motivated by both fear and gain
The lesson here is if something doesn’t personally motivate you to try then the chances are high you benefit nothing from doing it or you actually don’t know what you are missing out if you did it
In the same way, a person will be unmotivated if they don’t see any end gain of their interest or desire from carrying out a particular activity
