Mental Challenge
To motivate yourself, find a task that is the right level of difficulty. Or learn to transform tasks. A difficult task will frustrate you and it is easy to give up. And an easy task quickly becomes boring.
A trick is to mentally change the perception of the task to continue to stay motivated. Working under time pressure can make a boring task more motivating. Another way is to perfect your skill. For example, a sport person may perfect the movements and thinking about the way the hand enters the surface of the water makes a swimming session more motivating. In a similar way, considering different ways to write e-mails may be more inspiring and motivating than using the same standard phrases. If the tasks are too difficult, dividing it to smaller bits setting intermediate deadlines can help increase the level of motivation.
Motivation driven by Curiosity
The secrets of being motivated to apply the Six Thinking Hats are different from applying critical thinking competency where the intention is to decide if a statement is true or false. Self-motivation where you are hungry is often the driving force when you are using a thinking framework. You need to be hungry to achieve the goal to convince someone or prove that you are right. In contrast, when you are using the Six Thinking Hats you need to motivate the search for possibilities. This type of motivation is driven by curiosity.
Merely directing our attention at different aspects is not enough. Imagining alternative realities, speculating, and exploring future uses of an idea is a process that requires an active curious attitude. Developing a curious attitude helps to broaden your mind.
- Understand that success is your personal responsibility.
- Mentally change tasks and search for possibilities to make them more interesting, harder, or easier.
- See tasks as challenges or opportunities.
- Skill can be improved upon with practice, coaching and training.
- Continuous effort and commitment.
- Try and try again.
Photo: Success by nokhoog_buchachon
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