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

Motivation

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Why do we do the things we do?

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External motivation

Carrot and stick; someone else sets our path.

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

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Internal motivation

We have our own target and we follow it.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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