How To Set Goals

By David Johne


Several psychological theories exist, such as rational motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, push and pull, self-control, drives, need theories, incentive theory, escape-seeking dichotomy, cognitive dissonance theory, drive-reduction theory, self-determination theory, temporal theory, achievement theory, and other cognitive theories like goal-setting theory, basic desires theory, attribution theory, and approach versus avoidance theory. Some of the major theories are analyzed here.

The tripartite theory of soul expounded by Plato, the Greek philosopher of yore, is contained in his treatise, 'The Republic'. The theory of Plato is based on psyche, in which he divides the human soul into three parts, namely, the logical, the spirited, and the appetitive. He believes that these three parts correspond to the three different classes that could exist in a just society.

Extrinsic motivation allows people to perform activities with the explicit aim of attaining a specific outcome. The most common extrinsic motivating factors are either rewards for achieving something or threat of punishment for failure. Competition is a powerful extrinsic motivator, where an individual beats others and proves superiority, even though there might be no intrinsic motivator to win.

It is the inner drive in every organism to act or behave in a specific manner. If you have enough motivation, you might get up early in the morning and continue with your daily activities in a vigorous manner. If you do not have any motivation at all, you might be loitering around the house throughout the day in a lazy manner, doing nothing.

The inner conditions of the mind, such as desires, wishes, goals, ambitions, perspectives, etc. activate the living organisms to move in a specific direction, act in a particular manner, or behavior in a certain fashion. Still, these motivations could be due to either fully conscious or totally unconscious activities. The unconscious actions could result from basic evolutionary calculations, while conscious actions could stem from positive or even benign emotions.

An example of such unconscious or conscious motivation is marriage or wedding. A person having genes that desire multiple partners would marry and then break up, rationalizing the behavior with a false conviction 'I loved the other person at that time'. As such, it is a deep subject in psychology that should be studied and analyzed carefully.




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