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.

  • We enjoy the activity itself.
  • "Happiness now", not just at the end.
  • Unlocks a state of deep concentration known as flow.
    • Practicing 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.

And it feels good.


Meaning

When your actions have positive impact on others,
it gives them a deeper meaning.

  • supporting the greater good feels rewarding
    • helping others,
    • being part of something bigger,
    • creating a legacy
  • it creates a strong and lasting motivation

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Personal vision

How we'd like to spend our limited time.

  • activities we'd like to be doing
  • milestones we'd like to pass
  • journey-based internal motivation

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Group vision

Cooperation of individual visions.

  • it boosts the entire group
  • as well as one's own potential

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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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