Motivation, the neglected superpower.
Tags: health, programming, habits
Published: 2024-04-19 17:05:20

I have many years working in the tech world, as a programmer, analyst, hardware, etc, and my last 20 years as a software developer. So many hours in front of a screen that I lost track of how many weekends I spent reading documentation or just writing code for fun, is my decision, and I don't have regrets about it. But sometimes is hard to keep the energy up, and maintain the mindset, sometimes we just need a break from everything and organize my mind mess, I started to study when we didn't have social networks, using tech books and meeting with other people interested in the same things. 

I was full of expectations about the future, young, and energized, but maintaining that mindset through the years is not an easy job, I felt burned a couple of times due to some projects, 35 hours days, and no weekends for months, I thought I could manage this level forever, I was wrong, my body started to feel bad, to many hours seated destroyed my back, I use glasses now too and yes, overweight and bad habits (yeyyy pizza nights overtime) was killing me.

All these variables were affecting me in so many ways, I started to lose motivation to learn, to do my job, spend too much time using social networks, sleep badly, consume innutritious food, and another important factor, I'm not in my 20s.

This lack of motivation and energy forced me to make a change, I started to learn a little bit about neuroscience, habits, and how the brain works. 
This is the core of everything, how your mind is affected by your behavior, how a simple action day after day starts to build how you react and think, and this affects every single aspect of your life, not only in your job, this affects all your life layers.

But let's talk about motivation, currently is too diminished by gurus who say: "Motivation is not important, is temporary, what you need is discipline". 

Motivation by definition: Motivation refers to the psychological forces that drive and direct our behavior toward achieving a particular goal or outcome. This force can be intrinsic or extrinsic, intrinsic is how you feel about the goal, and extrinsic is what you will win with the goal (recognition, fame, etc). Is a fundamental skill to interact with the world, all animals share the motivation to obtain their basic needs, including food, water, sex, and social interaction.

Motivation is directly related to brain functionality and can be affected by two different frames, pathologies like schizophrenia and affective disorders and pathologic behavior problems like addictions or affective disorders.

Now you have a better idea about my point. To be motivated you need to accomplish a couple of points, and these points are based on how motivation works in the brain. 
How the brain interprets motivation could be defined as:

1. Costs: How much effort will you need to finish the task? This includes time, pain, discomfort, lost opportunities, etc.
2. Benefits: What will do I win with this?

In between of these you will find:

1. Physiological state: Deprivation, stress, health.
2. Environment: availability of goal, response opportunity.
3. Past history: Experience of goals, responses, and stimuli.

In terms of have a good state to be motivated, we need to have in mind these points:

1. Respect your body, yes, go to the gym, park, or in your home, but you need to spend at least 1 hour a day doing some exercise (strength exercise is highly recommended).
Check [these free workouts](https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workout-routines) 
2. Eat better; food is your brain's fuel, and if you want a healthy brain, you need to eat healthy food. You can have a couple of [ideas here](https://www.helpguide.org/articles/healthy-eating/healthy-eating.htm)
3. Sleep well, this is one of the most important points to having a healthy brain. [How to improve your sleep Habits](https://gmb.io/sleep/?utm_campaign=16382884749&utm_source=x&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content&utm_term&seg_aprod&ad_id&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwrIixBhBbEiwACEqDJXCRJBg7Mkwxk3k3oXOiVXOynnMAErXsm3LTH5IzhCobVl2mTyxyphoCEQkQAvD_BwE)
4. Define your goals, and be concise, I know sometimes it is super boring to be structured, but this will give you a path to track your improvements. [SMART methodology is great for this](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/how-to-write-smart-goals)
5. Define your reasons for doing the things you want to do. Could be for fun or something to improve your career, but you need to be clear about why are you doing that task, this is directly related to intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and is a key point to maintaining energy.
6. Don't punish yourself. You are a human, embrace the failure, learn, and start again with more knowledge. The problem is not to fail, is to punish yourself so badly, that it destroys your self-confidence. Check this article about [imposter syndrome](https://www.verywellmind.com/imposter-syndrome-and-social-anxiety-disorder-4156469)
7. Develop critical thinking. Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate facts and information, remain objective, and make a sound decision about how to move forward. This is a way to develop good emotional intelligence, this gives you the capacity to identify if your goal makes sense.
8. Regulate time using social networks, porn, video games, and all the sources of dopamine, excessive dopamine segregation affects directly and hardly how motivation works in your brain. Check how [dopamine works in the brain](https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-dopamine-5185621)

Motivation is not only the result of an internal voice that says: "go, you can do it", or consuming a lot of self-help books or videos, is how your brain works based on your beliefs, your habits, your knowledge, and your ideas, you can build a strong mind but you need to care your body too, everything is interconnected.