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It's New Year season and we're all making a mental list of resolutions and of things we didn't get done last year. So where's the motivation that's gonna see us through and get us to complete what we hadn't the year before? Lack of motivation has a variety of causes ranging from not achieving set goals in an imagined timeframe to lacking skills or knowledge to complete the task to just being plain bored. And so we’ve compiled a few reasons why you may be avoiding your work or not getting to the task at hand and how to deal with them. 1. Your goal is overwhelming you.When you think or talk about this task, all that comes to mind is ‘Aghh’. You are dreading it so much. You can’t see yourself getting it done — it’s just too much! As a result, you procrastinate on getting started and the work snowballs. What to do: Break it down. If you read our last article on Time Management, then you must already be a pro with splitting a seemingly insurmountable load of work into manageable chunks to take one step at a time. Take each day as it comes, and keep yourself organized by noting down what you’ve accomplished. 2. You don’t believe in yourself.You want to do this, but deep down, you truly don’t believe you can. And it’s eating away at your motivation with thoughts like “Why are you even trying? You won’t get there anyway…” For a quick fix: Look at your past achievements and remind yourself how much you managed to achieve to get where you are today. You’ve been through so much- you’re not about to give up now. If you find yourself constantly struggling with your self-esteem and doubting your abilities, you need to identify your limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering ones. In order to achieve big, bold goals, you need to upgrade your mindset with a new set of empowering beliefs that will get you the necessary confidence to take on your goals. “Life is so subtle sometimes that you barely notice yourself walking through the doors you once prayed would open.” ~Mounaks 3. You lack a strong reason why.You may not want to admit it to yourself, but you are not actually interested in doing it; you either just don’t see the point or the reward is just not attractive enough. Either you:
4. You are simply exhausted.There is too much going on in your life. So many things to do and to be taken care of. When everything else is taking up your physical and mental energy, there is simply nothing left for you to push hard towards your goal. What to do: Free up your energy and reprioritize! Rest, de-stress and sleep enough to recharge your batteries. Take a break to clear your head with meditation or something peaceful that you enjoy. If the will to continue is still in you, it’ll come back when your mind is less cluttered. 5. Fear of failure is holding you back.Your fear of failure is keeping you from gathering the motivation to get started. This goes for taking a big step in your career, changing the direction you’re going in and it takes courage. What to do: Get clear about what you are afraid of, how it is holding you back and how this fear shows up in your life. Understanding this is the basis for coming up with a specific strategy to deal with your fear. Talk to someone with more experience or a person who has taken similar steps and learn from them. "Great things never came from comfort zones." 7. You set your goals too small or too big.If you’re feeling dispirited i.e. demotivated from trying to achieve what you want, you may not be setting the correct goals. You may either be planning to do too little, which is practically equal to thinking, ‘It’s small, I’ll do it later.’ or you may be planning to do too much, which overwhelms you before you even begin. What to do: Both ends of the spectrum are not great for your morale. Plan enough to do in a day- don’t underestimate yourself. And yes, dream big — but let the big dreams stay in the big picture. Set your weekly goals in a manageable way and you’ll find yourself able to achieve them. 8. You are impatient.You’re frustrated because you thought you’d be there by now. You thought all that extra time you’d been spending at the clinic, those late hours studying would pay off. What to do: Understand that good things take time. Focus on the progress you’ve made so far and even celebrate little milestones along the way. Enjoy the journey, because it is as much a reward as achieving your goal. Nothing worth having comes easy.” ~Theodore Roosevelt These are a few of the most common reasons why the average person finds themselves feeling demotivated to continue to work at it. The simple ‘fixes’ and ‘what-to-do’s are not easy remedies and may not be for everyone.
But once you find what works for you, then you’ll figure out how to avoid getting demotivated in the future. And if you’ve already found what works for you, then hey! What are you still doing here? Go make New Year's resolutions that you can actually keep.
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Motivation is the process that initiates, guides, and maintains goal-oriented behaviors in order to achieve milestones and dreams in one’s life. Motivation is not usually an ocean of abundance but more like a seasonal stream that will fill up and flow in the favourable conditions, while sometimes it may dry up or even freeze over. Getting motivated is easy enough for many of us. We can watch one TED talk by an inspirational doctor, or be super inspired by a sudden New Year's Resolution to do better which makes us want to hit the books. Everyone is a fan of the infamous work high, when for that one day, you’re ready to complete all your work and additionally take over the world. The hard part is staying motivated, through the cycle of success and failure that is life. Getting trapped in that never-ending spiral of procrastination feels like a one-way trip, when in fact with the right help and tools, you can get back on track and stay on track. But what happens when you do go off track?As to-be vets, we experience things like burn out, loss of motivation and compassion fatigue more often than in the average profession. Compassion fatigue is related to the burden felt from caring for suffering people and animals. It is the emotional residue and strain of being exposed to those with trauma. Burnout on the other hand is the physical and emotional exhaustion we feel when we don’t have control over things that are causing stress and frustration. A dvm360 survey in 2015 asked, “What is your biggest stress on the job ?” Only 1% of veterinarians answered euthanasia and only 5% mentioned critical patients. The largest groups answered time management issues (23%) and difficult clients (21%). To phrase it with less numbers and statistics, we know that demotivation from a certain job or task, stems from the unhappiness and stress that comes with doing that job or task. Everyone has heard of “Do what you love and love what you do.” Most of us try our best to adhere to it when making important decisions about our career and our relationships. But research shows that when our brain- the voice of reason- and our heart- the voice of passion, do not speak in unison, we tend to lose sight of our goal and why we wanted to achieve it. So when we get wrapped up in the problems that come with the territory, the desire to fight through them no longer burns inside. There are two basic ways to drive ourselves onward: Intrinsic motivation is the act of doing something without any obvious external rewards. You do it solely because it is enjoyable and interesting to you. This is the ideal type of drive because there is usually very little for you to turn away from doing something you love. Extrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards such as money, fame, grades, and praise. While this inherently sounds like a bad idea, because not every task you do will always be rewarded, it’s a good way to get yourself to do an aspect of the job that you dislike. Both extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation spur human behavior. Understanding how each type of motivation works and when it is likely to be useful should help you get back to the work you've been avoiding. Finding MotivationSo chances are, you’ve been in a situation where you’ve had second thoughts about what you’re doing. “I can’t do this anymore” or “Why am I even here?” It's as simple as taking a break. Use this time to evaluate the work that you’ve done so far and to estimate what you need to accomplish your goal. This is to help you take a step back and re-prioritize, while looking at it from a different perspective; seeing at it as a big picture should remind you why you wanted to achieve this in the first place. Losing your motivation is common. Very common and not just among vets and aspiring vet students. After all, anyone reading this came here looking for a solution. It is our goal to help and we’re not about to lose sight of it. Regaining your motivation and getting back on track should be just as common. But how can you keep pushing on, even when you don’t feel like it? Check out our next article for some answers and on how to regain your motivation for this next year and get going! For more on the topics mentioned in this article and to check out where we got our information from, visit:
Regaining Motivation In Medical School- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6006981/ Factors associated with motivation in medical education: a path analysis- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6006981/ Burnout in veterinary medicine: Let’s talk action- https://vetidealist.com/burnout-veterinary-medicine/#:~:text=The%20recent%20Merck%20Animal%20Health,topped%20the%20list%20of%20problems. Burnout and health promotion in veterinary medicine- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3711171/ 1/2: Need Motivation? The 3C-Check for Success & Happiness- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9a-xrPjFqQ&feature=youtu.be |
What is SCoCA?The Standing Committee on Career Attributes (SCoCA) aims to complement veterinary education with opportunities to improve career attributes, aiming a successful future career in veterinary medicine for all veterinary students around the world. Archives
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