Motivation is literally the desire to do things. It’s the difference between waking up before dawn to pound the pavement and lazing around the house all day. It’s the crucial element in setting and attaining goals—and research shows you can influence your own levels of motivation and self-control. So figure out what you want, power through the pain period, and start being who you want to be. (Psychology Today, http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/motivation, retrieved 2 December 2011)

I can, I will, I must is the motivational term chanted repeatedly by many successful sales motivators when I was involved in sales. Obviously whilst writing for my NaNoWriMo 2011 challenge in November, I got behind at times, and as you well know I had to write 10,000 words one Sunday, and wrote more than 6,000 on the final day of the race.  I can I will I must, Go girl, and You can do it were just some of the phrases I said to myself or read from friends on that day, and I really needed to hear them! I particularly love the You can do it jingle, as it reminds me of a funny Adam Sandler movie. It’s definitely not the brilliance of the movie, but the strength of that jingle. I even used it as a password at university for a while! I then used Just do it, the Nike jingle, another one that speaks simply, yet with great power. Yet again, I am reminded of the power of words. And from that conversation, to this. I am worrying about someone I love deeply who is not facing up to being an adult or to the reality if living in the western world. It started me researching on how to help, to try to understand why the thought processes are the way they are. Their thinking and talking is negative, and I am extremely concerned as no matter how much things are discussed, how many plans are made to make changes, no actions eventuate to follow up the words. This persons seems unable or unwilling to see clearly that the only way through the misery is to change their actions and thinking, and we all have the power to do this. The catch of course, is it means we must face the truth, look into the mirror honestly and accept ourselves, and then work hard to make the personal changes required to make the difference we want in our lives. Is motivation the key to making personal change? How do people decide whether to sacrifice now for a future reward or to enjoy themselves in the present? Do the future gains of putting money into your superannuation outweigh going to New York for New Year’s Eve? Why does a person’s self-discipline one day often give way to impulsive behavior the next? I’ve been reading some new research on intertemporal choice, examining how people face the problem of deciding over time, and it has me wondering if it is linked to motivation and healthy thinking. Economists approach intertemporal choice (the study of the relative value people assign to two or more payoffs at different points in time) by means of a model in which people discount the value of future events at a constant rate. For example why is a vacation two years from now worth less to most people than a vacation next week. Psychologists, on the other hand, focus on the cognitive and emotional underpinnings of intertemporal choice. There is some interesting research showing that four-year olds who are able to delay gratification subsequently grow up to perform better at university or school than their counterparts who chose (or perhaps were allowed to choose?) instant gratification. On the issue of self-control, the relationship between consumption and available resources, shows, for example, how a high credit limit can lead people to overspend. A persons awareness of their self-control problems affects their decision-making. All of us make important decisions every day, many of which profoundly affect the quality of our lives. How and why we make our choices are incredibly complex, and it is these complexities that surely indicate our human frailty.  Motivation may well be the key, but learning to tap into and harness it is the really tricky bit. For now, I’ve started on yet another fascinating journey of research and discovery with a long way to go on this particular topic!