Motivation: about short-term and long-term satisfaction

Motivation: long-term goals! About intrinsic motivation and why postponing short-term satisfaction leads to more success in the long run.

motivation: long-term goals! - motivation - goals - intrinsic - extrinsic - free initial session - renunciation - satisfaction - needs - smoking

Our affluent societies create a world that is characterised by instant satisfaction. When everything always seems to be readily available, it can be very difficult to consciously postpone the immediate fulfilment of all needs.

However, short-term gratification often only offers a fleeting pleasure that quickly fades. Whether it’s impulsive buying decisions, unhealthy meals or rash actions, these things may make us feel happy in the short term, but they rarely lead to the lasting results and changes we want for ourselves and our lives.

For example, if you want to stop smoking, the longer-term success is quick and clearly definable – you want to be a non-smoker in a few weeks. The hurdle on the way to a ‘non-smoker’ status is to give up the countless small satisfactions that every single cigarette offers you. Every time you feel like having a cigarette, you can now ask yourself: do I prefer the short-term satisfaction that I get from this one cigarette, or do I renounce and at the same time invest in a happy future self that will soon be proud to call itself a non-smoker?

The more intrinsic factors of motivation you have, the easier it will be for you to give up short-term gratification. Intrinsic motivation means that you yourself have important reasons for wanting to stop smoking, for example – you are looking forward to being physically fitter, being able to do more sport, smelling better and saving money.

It will be less easy for you to reach your long-term goals if your motivation is purely extrinsic, which means that you are solely driven by external factors – perhaps someone important to you wants you to stop smoking or your doctor has recommended it.

Motivation: long-term goals! Long-term success comes from planning, perseverance and patience as well as a solid foundation of intrinsic motivational factors. If you know the intrinsic reasons why you are striving for a certain change and realise the relationship between short-term and long-term satisfaction, you can invest more easily in developing your rational and emotionally intelligent ‘past self’ and thus make your ‘future self’ happy.

Are you having any long-term goals that you want to achieve? What are your intrinsic motivating factors? Do you want to work out together how you can avoid the temptations of short-term gratification?

Let’s talk about it in a free initial session!

#decisions #desires #reason #emotionalintelligence

motivation: long-term goals! - motivation - goals - intrinsic - extrinsic - free initial session - renunciation - satisfaction - needs - smoking