Perception and Motivation in Goal Achievement

Perception and Motivation in Goal Achievement

It may be challenging for students to find motivation to reach set goals. People may be intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to succeed.  However, there are different theories about what motivates behavior.  Some people believe that reinforcement is necessary for people to truly feel motivated to change behaviors. Albert Bandura is a name often associated with discussions of motivation and learning.  Bandura is a Canadian psychologist responsible for social learning theory. Along with Skinner, Freud, and Piaget, Bandura is one of the most frequently cited psychologists. Bandura believed that reinforcement alone did not account for all learning or motivation.  He felt people could learn through observation, intrinsic reinforcement, and modeling the behaviors of others. Intrinsic reinforcement occurs when people receive an internal reward, such as pride, satisfaction, and a sense of accomplishment.

Part of wanting to achieve a goal is to have the expectancy of reward associated with that goal.  Self-efficacy is another important component that is developed as students feel confidence in performing well.  An article by Nacada.KSU.edu explained the factors associated with motivation include:  Intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation, task value, control of learning beliefs, test anxiety, and self-efficacy for learning and performance.  The authors noted, “The self-efficacy construct postulated by Bandura in his social learning theory has guided extensive motivational research.”

Students must not only be motivated to achieve the goal, but be able to make the goal measurable.  The mnemonic “SMART” is often referred to in goal-setting. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.  In the article Set Specific Goals to Increase Success, the author suggests using the following formula in order to make goals measurable:  “I will (goal + performance measure) by (specific actions).” If a student wanted to receive an A as their goal, he or she would fill in the blanks with something like this:  I will receive an A in BUS101 by studying 2 hours a night Monday through Friday from 6-8 pm.”  Students often will state the goal without remembering to include the steps required to reach that goal.  By making the goal measurable, students can measure their progress toward attaining that goal.  This creates a roadmap to achieving the goal.

 

Reaching goals requires motivation. ZenHabits does a nice job of explaining motivation, as well as ways to achieve it and sustain it during times of struggle.  To find out more about motivation, check out the self-motivation quiz from Mindtools. After the quiz, there is a nice explanation of factors involved in self-motivation including:  self-confidence and efficacy, positive thinking, focus, and environment. The author from the article How Self-Motivated Are You noted, “Self-motivation doesn’t come naturally to everyone. And even those who are highly self-motivated need some extra help every now and then. Build your self-motivation by practicing goal-setting skills, and combining those with positive thinking, the creation of powerful visions of success, and the building of high levels of self-efficacy and self-confidence.”

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10 Most Important Steps to Obtain Dream Job

 

I often speak to students and career groups about how to obtain a dream job or reinvent a career.  I have listed some of the most important points from my lectures, with appropriate links to articles, to explain the process.  Be sure to click on the links listed under each step to watch videos and read the articles to get step by step instructions.

  1. Define Your Goals:  People fear making mistakes.  Although it can be argued there are no mistakes, only learning experiences, part of avoid mistakes is to have good goals.  The goals must be measurable with timeframes listed for when you wish to achieve those goals.
  2. Analyze “You” as the Product:  To get a job, you must showcase your talents by thinking of “you” as the product.  When you are networking and interviewing, you are “selling” a product and that product is you.   Be sure to analyze your online reputation.  You can be sure that companies will check on this.
  3. Create a Personal SWOT Analysis:  SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  By creating a personal SWOT analysis, you can work on capitalizing on your strengths and find solutions for any weaknesses or threats.
  4. Analyze Your Competition: When you are interviewing, you must remember there are a lot of others that are competing for the same job.  Think of those things that you bring to the table that your competition does not.  What do others have that you need to be working on in the meantime?  Have you done your research?  If an interviewer asks you the question: “Why did you pick our company?” . . . do you have a good answer?  Know the answers to difficult job interview questions.
  5. Capitalize on Personality Skills: Part of finding the right job is based on understanding your personality preferences.  Personality tests like Myers Briggs MBTI can be very helpful in leading you to the right job.  It is also important to work on developing emotional intelligence. Find out why employers are placing as much value on EQ as IQ.
  6. Analyze Jobs:  Find out what jobs pay:  One of the first steps is to find out what a job is worth.  Consider what types of jobs motivate you.  Check out top 10 ways to find a job or have a job find you.
  7. Showcase Your Talents:  Use social networking to get noticed.  Find out how you can use a simple PowerPoint presentation and Camtasia to showcase your abilities.  If you are not on LinkedIn, you should be.  Use Google Docs and LinkedIn to get noticed.  Rev up your business card by adding a QR code to it.  Avoid putting these top 10 wrong things on resumes.
  8. Ace the Interview:  Once you are able to obtain an interview, use personality skills to wow them.  Deliver information in the job interview based upon understanding introverts and extroverts.  Keep in mind the proper answer to tough interview questions.
  9. Follow up on the Interview:  Always follow up with a thank you note.  It is important to stand out from the crowd and having manners is very important.  It is important to realize that millennials have unique job expectations and may not come across as respectful at times.
  10. Use what You Have Learned to Succeed: Continue to use the things you have learned in order to obtain the job.  Don’t stop setting goals.  Stay connected through social networking in case the job doesn’t work out.

5 Ways to Develop Time Management Skills For Online Students

5 Ways to Develop Time Management Skills

I often have my students tell me they find it challenging to manage their time wisely. We all have the same amount of time in our day to accomplish things. Why do some people seem to be able to do so much more than others? Some of it is genetics. I know I am on the hyperactive side so I tend to do a lot. Other people might find what I do to be overly stressful. For me, I find that the more I do, the better I feel. You don’t have to be hyperactive to get things done. A lot is based on how organized you are. Here are some tips that may help you:

1. Put activities you need to do into your planner or calendar. Plan for studying just like you would any other appointment. Mark out time that you will read, write papers, etc.
2. Set goals for the things you want to accomplish. If you need to write a paper by Friday, have that set up in your calendar, but also have smaller tasks set up as well. For example, you might want to spend an hour on Monday writing the outline, spend an hour on Tuesday researching the topic, spend an hour on Wednesday writing the initial draft, spend an hour on Thursday proofreading and rewriting. By breaking down what needs to be done like this it makes it easier to accomplish your goal. Remember goals need to be measurable. By writing down the due dates for each task, your final goal becomes more easily attainable.
3. Recognize your roadblocks to success. Are you afraid of criticism? Do you thrive on last minute stress? Are you a perfectionist that may avoid doing things for fear of it not being perfect? These are some of the things that hold people back from completing tasks on time. Try to keep in mind that no one is perfect. If you try hard to write a good paper that is much more important than if the paper is perfect. No paper is perfect. That is too subjective. Worry less about getting perfect grades and spend more time focused on learning. If you thrive on last minute stress, perhaps you need to schedule your time closer to the due date. But be reasonable with time expectations that it may take to complete your assignment.
4. Are you lacking motivation? Often, people really do have enough time to do the work but they lack motivation. Find ways to reward yourself for doing a good job on your work. If you really want to see a movie or do something fun, have that be a reward for finishing an assignment.
5. Are you taking advantage of multi-tasking? This is something I do a lot! You can multi-task at work and home in order to create more time in your day. When I exercise, I watch my television shows at the same time. When I have work conversations on the phone, I can type my notes about what we are talking about at the same time to remind me for later. Often times, people do one thing at a time, when they can be doing multiple things to free up more time.

from www.drdianehamilton.com