Set Your Motivation On Fire
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Always keep in mind the three-step approach in using fiery motivation. Identify the stress, control the environment then respond and aim for the goal. It’s time to put your fiery motivation into play in real-life situations. Here are some effective and useful applications to make sure that you excel in different important areas.

What is the stress?

In the workplace, you have to deal with coworkers, bosses, customers, working environment and the tasks involved. These external stressors affect you in different ways namely:

1. Coworkers. You are working together with other competitive individuals who surely have higher objectives just like you. You have to create a balance between being a team player to be productive for the company and personally making yourself stand out amidst competition.

2. Bosses. The boss stimulates you in a variety of ways which basically make you conform according to his standard, not yours. This, of course, leads to stress as you feel that you have no control over the environment he commands.

3. Customers. What your customers want may not be exactly how you want things done. Again, your control becomes dependent on the demands set by the customer. Your conflicting thoughts and feelings toward the customer’s decisions are particularly distracting.

4. Working environment. The way you do your job can be determined to an extent by the environment you’re working in. If the workplace becomes somewhat unpredictable or filled with tension, it can affect your performance as well.

5. Tasks involved. This is your actual job. When you are assigned a task for the first time or one that requires you to gain more skills and understanding, you may feel incompetent.

How do you control the environment?

1. Control the people. In the workplace, your reputation and integrity depend on how much you know and are capable of doing. Trust is important when dealing with bosses and clients. If they sense that you have full knowledge and are more than able to do the task and satisfy their needs, they will allow you to take control. Upgrade your skills and knowledge any way you can.

2. Control the workplace. Do some organizing to set your priorities straight. Fix your desk, set specific schedules and coordinate with your coworkers. If you establish meaningful working relationships with the people around you, they’ll most likely let you work in peace.

3. Control the job. If you feel that you don’t know much about the tasks at hand, don’t hesitate to ask questions and learn. Study constantly, upgrade your knowledge and be equipped with the skills required to finish the job the best way you can.

What is the Goal and Response?

Your primary goal is to perform to the fullest of your abilities in the workplace. Your primary motivation is to develop trust with people at work through meaningful working relationships and to gain a sense of accomplishment and competence by meeting the demands of your job. Your secondary goal is to earn a salary to meet your basic needs. The response in order to perform effectively is to gain knowledge and skills to qualify for the tasks and do a job well.

What is the Stress?

The stress is wondering how your abilities can meet your goal, competing with other learners and meeting with the demands set by learning standards and being taught ideas or behaviors that conflict with some of your own beliefs and understanding. Keep in mind that these stressors should be used to motivate you to learn more with the aim of achieving.

1. Questioning your abilities. In a classroom setting, you are often provided with challenges like tests, assignments and quizzes. You are provided with a goal which your abilities may or may not be able to handle. Wondering if your abilities may not allow you to reach the goal becomes stressful. If you’re not able to meet your goals, there may be positive or negative punishments.

2. Classroom competition. As you respond to other people, you’ll realize that you have to perform at a certain level acceptable to the standards set by the teacher and within the accepted range of your fellow classmates. If you fall below the accepted category, you will develop feelings of guilt and incompetence which will result in stress.

3. Lessons conflict with personal beliefs. Some of the things taught by your teacher may seem in conflict with what you have learned from experience or personally believe in. The opposing ideas and thoughts can cause confusion and hamper your development.

How Do You Control the Environment?

1. Improve your abilities. You may improve your abilities first and learn more about the goal before trying to achieve it or attempt to achieve your goal first then calibrate your weak points regardless of whether you succeed or fail. Your sense of control will depend on how much you know and how much you can control the outcome of the challenge through your sharpened skills.

2. Improve your abilities to compete. If you have the skills and knowledge, you will be more confident in facing challenges and competing with other people. Control the means which is your skills and knowledge toward the accomplishment of your goals, which are to get high grades and feel competent in the classroom.

3. Resolve conflicting thoughts. You may eradicate the new or the old thought, change the old one according to the new or change the new one according to the old thought or add more thoughts to create balance and eliminate the stress. Use solutions for cognitive dissonance.

What is the Goal and Response?

Your primary goal is to experience feelings of accomplishment and competence in the classroom as well as feel accepted among your classmates. Your secondary goals are to receive recognition, get high grades and receive other rewards for performing well. Your response mainly is to improve your skills and knowledge by learning. The stress ignites your motivation to resolve conflicts and meet needs through the process of learning.

What is the Stress?

There are several moments in all people’s lives when they start doubting their beliefs and abilities. They look at the things that they have accomplished yet dwell more on the failures. They look at the present and feel something is missing. People then try to find meaning and purpose in their lives. It is the lack of it that causes them stress.

1. Doubts and fears. Based on experience, people begin to question if they really are capable of accomplishing goals.

2. Failure. The stress is caused by conflicting thoughts and behavior. The person may have initially perceived that the goal was attainable yet did not successfully meet his needs. This results in feelings of guilt and apprehension.

3. Lack of meaning and purpose. Lack of confidence will result in a lack of motivation. Since the person feels that he is incapable of attaining some types of goals, he may lose sense of the whole meaning and purpose of his actions. This is where the question, “Why?” enters the picture. People start asking, “Why am I here?” or “Why can’t I be better?” or “Why did I fail?”

How Do You Control the Environment?

1. Answer your doubts and eliminate your fears. Since doubts are caused by feelings of uncertainty, it is best that you find out for yourself and stop wondering. Act and try to achieve short-term goals and tasks to know if you are capable at the moment of successfully accomplishing them. Face your fears by making decisions and setting goals one step at a time. If you fear that people won’t like your new attitude, try it for a week or a month and find out for yourself so that you will be able to determine and control your wondering thoughts and feelings.

2. Make failure a motivation. Self-development is a learning process that lasts for a lifetime. Learn from each mistake. Find out which areas made you fail and develop these in order do better the next time. You can only control your chances of success or failure if you accept your strengths and improve your weaknesses specifically.

3. Find meaning and purpose even in the smallest ways. Perhaps you have been stimulated externally for so long that you don’t realize that you have only been functioning in order to meet secondary goals. Internalize and derive meaning in your activities and behavior. Appreciate how people react and develop yourself in order to be intrinsically motivated and work out of passion.

What is the Goal and Response?

Your primary goal is to find meaning and purpose in your life and to foster a passionate attitude. By accepting your personality and improving your outlook, performance and relationships with other people, you gain a sense of “self” as a whole person. Your secondary goal is to cope with the physical demands of life. By being able to perform better in society, your basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, etc. will also be fulfilled.

The response is to keep learning mentally, physically and emotionally. This is an opportunity for you to develop your potential and see yourself as a competent and confident individual.

What is the Stress?

You constantly respond to the environmental stimuli which usually come from other people. When you’re in a relationship, you invest thoughts and emotions with the people you care about, which is why any alteration or conflict will result in stress. Varying beliefs, emotional struggles and constraints and argumentative thoughts are stressful thus motivate you to accept, argue or change your attitude and response in order to create balance in the relationship.

1. Varying beliefs. In a relationship, differences in beliefs can range from religion, philosophy, personal experience and the like. All responses, words and actions are bound to be subjective in nature, which is why you always find similarities and differences from one person to the next. Your own opinion may not be completely accepted by another person.

2. Emotional struggles and constraints. These refer to tension and hurt feelings resulting from differences. Since you are responding to the people you care about in order to feel that you belong and are accepted, you have to adjust and change accordingly. You may not truly agree with some of the changes you made, which could result in troubled emotions.

3. Argumentative thoughts. When you disagree with one person’s actions or behavior or vice-versa, there is a flurry of thoughts that go against what the other person is thinking. These argumentative thoughts cause dissonance in the cognitive state causing stress.

How Do You Control the Environment?

1. Accept differences. All individuals have their own opinion. You cannot control how others feel, act or think, which is why you have to accept the differences between people. It is through these differences that you are able to set goals of understanding the other individual in order to draw meaning from the relationship.

2. Control your emotions. Identify exactly which feelings are causing you hurt or stress. Learn how to acknowledge the emotions that matter in the relationship’s growth and eliminate nonsensical ones which only lead to emotional dissonance and confusion.

3. Argue and debate. The cause of arguments is misunderstanding, which is why you have to gain more information to take control of the environment. Determine your argumentative thoughts, especially the ones in which your knowledge is not complete. Clarify ideas by asking questions and stating your point of view on things that matter to you in the discussion. Debate but don’t fight.

What is the Goal and Response?

Your primary goal is to draw meaning from the relationship and to feel emotionally complete and satisfied. Your secondary goals may be gaining physical support from the people who are willing to help you. Your response is to maintain open communication and be sensitive to other people’s feelings and thoughts. Great relationships are built on acceptance and trust, which is why you need to appreciate the differences and uniqueness of each person.

What is the Stress?

The stress comes from feelings of worthlessness and incompetence, lack of satisfaction in self-actualization and self-esteem needs and problems in self-regulation. Rehabilitation aims to return the troubled individual back to an optimum level of functioning as well as a revitalized sense of identity and reestablishment of motivation and goals.

1. Feelings of worthlessness and incompetence. The person undergoing rehabilitation generally lacks confidence in his abilities, which is why he is dependent on others to help him feel better. He might have lost motivation from past failures leading to hurt ego and feelings.

2. Lack of satisfaction of self-esteem and self-actualization needs. Due to unachieved goals and undesirable experiences, the person was unable to meet high-level needs, causing him to respond inappropriately. These unsatisfied needs may have caused too much stress in the past, removing his motivation and leading him to habits which he now needs to fix through rehabilitation.

3. Problems in self-regulation. There is definitely a lack of self-regulation or self-control for people undergoing rehabilitation. They have indulged in an undesirable activity or behavior for a period of time, causing them to draw pleasure without any idea of a useful goal.

How Do You Control the Environment?

1. Encourage feelings of self-worth. The individual must slowly gain back his sense of identity. It is very helpful to make him feel that change is the best option. Provide motivational factors in order for the person to take control of his behavior and actions in small ways. Help him establish small goals and praise him with each little success.

2. Provide means to satisfying needs. It is important that you respond passively so that the person will learn how to independently cater to his high-level needs. At this point, it is more helpful to show him success instead of making him experience failure again since his thoughts and emotions are still vulnerable. Satisfy basic needs at all times.

3. Develop self-regulation. Allow the person to appreciate the rewards and satisfaction of needs whenever he accomplishes a small task. Let external factors motivate him to perform as an individual until he gradually derives pleasure and meaning from being a functional being.

What is the Goal and Response?

Your primary goal is to let the person undergo rehabilitation to gain self-identity, self-worth and self-control. He must appreciate and be motivated by the joy and pleasure of being a functional individual. Your secondary goals are to provide for his basic needs as well as keep him healthy by drawing him away from his undesirable past habits and experiences.

Your response is to motivate him externally at first, encourage him to express himself as a unique and confident person and to help him gain independence.

What is the Stress?

The stress is the conflict of your thoughts, values, behavior and actions with the norms that your environment has. If you’re a smoker, the conflict may arise when you meet non-smokers. Your family may not fully agree with what you feel and think are normal. Some places may restrict you from smoking as well. All these oppositions cause you stress.

1. Conflict with environment. You try to cope with the standards set by your surroundings and the people in it. Your habits are in conflict with the rules and beliefs of your environment, which is the main reason why you’re motivated to get rid of them.

2. Conflict with self. When you develop a habit, you internalize the behavior even if it may not be fully good for you. Stress comes as you try to fix the intrinsic factors that cause your habits without reason or reward. Apprehension increases as you feel that you do not have full control over yourself.

How Do You Control the Environment?

1. Respond to the environment. Do not change your thoughts and behavior abruptly just because you feel the environment wants them to be different. Contemplate and review specifically each of your internalized thoughts and feelings with the opposing notions set by the environment. Identify how you can make them work together through cognitive consonance.

2. Use self-regulation. Self-regulation is the important factor that made you internalize your habits in the first place, and it is also capable of eliminating them. Practice self-regulation or self-control. Keep in mind that the habit may not actually be satisfying any of your needs and you only derive pleasure and passion from the habits. Gradually remove the internal stimuli.

What is the Goal and Response?

Your primary goal is to feel a sense of achievement and self-control and the belief that you are capable of kicking habits that may not be fully good for you. Your secondary goals are that by kicking bad habits, you keep yourself healthy and get to spend your time, money and effort on satisfying your real basic needs. Your response is to practice self-regulation and remove the developed intrinsic motivation that is feeding your habits.

Allow the need to kick the habits to motivate you, then maintain fiery motivation with each gradual success until you’re completely free.

What is the Stress?

The stress comes from the need to win in order to gain a variety of rewards and satisfaction, competition with both teammates and opponents and the pressure to constantly be prepared physically and mentally. Athletes are then motivated to keep learning and to maintain their drive to win.

1. Need to win. You gain various internal and external rewards when you reach your goal of winning sport events. However, the stress on the road to victory may seem insurmountable at times. There is a constant struggle within yourself as you wonder how you’ll win and whether you’ll win. You also face the fear of consequences should you not achieve your goal.

2. Competition. In sports, you compete with your opponents and try to measure up or be better in every single way. Before you face the opposition, you also have to compete with the environment where you’re practicing and aim to be better in order to feel that you belong. Even if you’re competent in the face of adversaries, if you’re falling behind compared to other teammates you will feel the stress and transform it into motivation to improve and cope.

3. The pressure of being prepared. There are times in the middle of a match or game where you are expected to do more than what you’ve already given or are capable of doing. The drive to win may be greater than your actual capacities. Stress sets in due to time pressure and intimidation by stronger opponents.

How Do You Control the Environment?

1. Be driven to perform. The drawback of needing to win is the greater fear of losing. However, the fear may be so great that it can cause you to freeze and perform below your standard. If you want to win, your motivation is driven by secondary goals but if you internalize the sport or the game itself you will be driven by the passion of performing, which in turn can lead to victory. Your sense of control returns when you know that you can manipulate the outcome of the game.

2. Improve your abilities. You will be more confident to compete with your teammates and opponents if you know that you are capable of performing at the same level or beyond. Learning and adaptation are important in sports since you will be facing different players with varying strengths and strategies.

3. Adapt to the situation. During a game, there are several points and periods which will vary in intensity. When you’re facing a rather difficult situation, let aggression set in. The element of chance is also present during these circumstances so the best you can do is adapt to feel control.

What is the Goal and Response?

Your primary goal is to feel competent among other athletes and gain a sense of fulfillment upon winning games. Your secondary goal is gaining rewards and recognition from achieving as well as staying fit and healthy through hard practice. Your response is to improve your abilities in order to perform up to par with your team and opponents and to internalize the process of the sport itself so that you will learn how to derive passion and pleasure in controlling the game.