talk-end-of-procrastination/slides/motivation.md

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Motivation

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Why do we do the things we do?


External motivation

Carrot and stick; someone else sets our path.

  • activity feels meaningless
  • makes it easier to procrastinate
  • long-term: numbs our self-motivation

Internal motivation

We have our own target and we follow it.

  • progress feels more rewarding
  • brings good mood
  • engages creativity and learning

Goal-based motivation

We want to achieve something in the future.

Two phases:

  1. long displeasure from not reaching the goal
  2. short rush of joy from reaching the goal
    • that quickly evaporates

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Pros: it works!

Cons: it causes us damage,
it is not sustainable

Joy fades, requiring more demanding goals.

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Hedonic treadmill 🔗

Humans quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events.

The reward for finishing a major goal
is not worth a long struggle to get there.


Journey-based motivation

Joy is found in doing an activity, not finishing it.

  • "Happiness now", not just at the end.
  • Unlocks flow,
    • flow brings contentment and mastery,
    • that in turn brings results.

Flow

State of deep immersion in an activity that...

  • is challenging
  • makes use of our strengths
  • matches our skills
  • is enjoyable.

We tend to lose our sense of time.


Meaning

When your actions have positive impact on others,
there is deeper meaning in your work.

Supporting the greater good feels rewarding.

Meaning creates strong foundations for a lasting motivation.

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Going beyond an individual

  • helping others
  • being part of something greater
  • leaving a lasting legacy

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Group vision

Cooperation of individual visions

helps the growth of one's potential

and boosts the entire group.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.


TOOL: Personal Vision

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What is the direction of your journey?

What gets out of bed in the morning?

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How to build a Personal Vision?

  1. Personal SWOT analysis
  2. List your Achievements
  3. Analyze motivating activities
  4. Define a Beta-Vision
  5. Final Personal Vision

Step 1:

Personal SWOT

S

Strengths

W

Weaknesses

O

Opportunities

T

Threats

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Time to reflect on yourself!

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Strengths

  • skills, traits and qualities you have
  • using them supports flow
  • personal vision makes use of these as much as possible

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Weaknesses

  • qualities you lack; limitations and negative traits
  • using them retards flow
  • personal vision avoids them if possible

These can be improved, but don't devote too much time to it.

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Opportunities

  • possibilities today's world offers to you
  • using them supports flow
  • personal vision builds on them

Only a few will be used.

The rest needs to be rejected and banished:

  • to gain focus, clarity and mastery,
  • to avoid decision paralysis or regrets.

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Threats

  • risks, possible negative impacts or scenarios
  • take them into account
  • recognize them and be prepared
  • awareness helps with facing a potential fear

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My SWOT

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Strengths

  • life-long programming experience, love building useful solutions
  • attention to detail, carefulness, looking for perfection; love creating nice and clean software
  • persevering problem solver; like to explore and solve mysteries in tech
  • open-minded and attentive listener

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Weaknesses

  • introverted, social interactions are taxing
  • lacking in open confrontation, group arguments
  • cautious in opinions, not an 'influencer'

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Opportunities

  • switch jobs for
    • better fitting role - SW developer?
    • higher pay
    • different tech stack
  • contribute to an open source project
  • use college degree (distributed systems)
  • build specific expertise, get exposure
  • share knowledge through talks and blog
  • contribute to the state-of-the-art

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Threats

  • changed role: boring / stressful / annoying
  • changed job:
    • low pay / annoying co-workers / toxic workplace / long commute
    • having to use Windows
  • more exposure - personal attacks

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My Observations

  • my SWOT felt misaligned with the current career (people management)
  • Threats already applied to the current situation

Change was desirable and not even that risky.


Step 2:

Personal Achievements

  • things that brought you joy / you are proud of
  • provides specific evidence of your strengths
  • helps to gain confidence and think positively

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My Achievements

  • finished college with a cool master's thesis
  • became a dev team leader
  • self-hosting the services I use via VPS
  • extracted ERP legacy tax functionality via a strategy pattern
  • built and coded a split keyboard
  • learned to type using the Workman layout
  • ...

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My Observations

  • Nice! I did some cool things!
  • Very little of it was connected to people management

Step 3:

Analyzing motivating activities

Find out what drives you; strengthen your vision.

Categories of activities:

  • bringing personal growth
  • creating legacy
  • building relationships
  • with deeper meaning

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Growth : Legacy : Relationships : Meaning

An activity should ideally fit into multiple categories.

Goal: find groups of activities that support each other.

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My Activities

  • writing readable code, testing, refactoring
  • exploring new technologies and approaches
  • contributing to open source projects
  • learning through books and conferences
  • knowledge sharing through blog, mentoring, talks
  • working with colleagues - reviews, discussions
  • research of innovative solutions
  • solving problems, making software more useful ...

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My Activities Grouped

  • collaborative software development (direct)
  • exchange of experience (learning & teaching)
  • research, experiments, investigation

Step 4:

Beta-Vision

Finding a personal vision takes effort and time.


Finding a beta version is easier
so you won't procrastinate to start!

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Answer these...

  1. Favorite quote/idea that resonates?
  2. Life values?
  3. Fulfilling activities?
  4. Meaningful activities?

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My Beta-Vision

  • coding useful software on a daily basis, publicly
  • learning from others and sharing my knowledge

Step 5:

Final Personal Vision

A few paragraphs of what you want to be doing,

taking into account the analysis from the previous steps.

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My Final Vision

WIP


Act Now!

How can you incorporate your vision in the daily life?

Starting small is fine, as long as you start!

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My First Steps

  1. Coding refresher:
    • Kotlin Koans
    • Go by Example
    • Learn Go with Tests
    • Personal React project
  2. Fixing defects in the Android apps that I use (in Kotlin).

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My Findings

  • starting small & early was great:
    • for "prototyping" the vision
    • to experiment stress-free
    • to avoid overthinking it
    • to figure out if I need to scale it out
  • I regularly experienced flow, improved my mood, raised my skills and really enjoyed doing it.
  • having a vision is one thing, but acting on it is also essential