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Posts Tagged ‘Motivation’

When Janice was in high school, she had secured a reputation as a person who hit the books real hard and who rarely, if ever, had fun drinking with her friends. She seemed highly motivated to “shine” academically so that she would be able to secure a career that she not only liked but one that also gave her some security from a financial point of view.

After much thought, in due course she came to a decision that she wanted to be a trial lawyer. In order to do this, however, she would first have to complete four years of undergraduate education.

After Completing High School Janice Gets Accepted Into A Prominent Undergraduate University as a Springboard For a Career as a Lawyer

After Janice graduated from high school, she applied to and was accepted into a highly rated program in history. Her rationale for this decision was that this subject area would be good training for law school and wouldn’t be indistinguishable from the preponderance of law school applicants who choose political science as their undergraduate minor or major.

After graduating with a 3.9 GPA at the undergrad level, she applied to and was accepted at a nationally ranked law school at one of the Big Ten universities.

She was enthusiastic about her legal studies but sometimes she was besieged with all the work that had to be done at law school. In much the same way as she had done in her high school and undergraduate days, nonetheless, she made friends without much effort but scarcely got involved in social activities until the semester was completed.

After Being Delighted With the Fact That She Had Done Very Well on Her Finals, Janice Wanted to Let Her Hair Down and Do Something Besides Going to College For a Change

Janice was the kind of person who worked studiously to complete what she started and then would take a break when she could. As it turns out, nevertheless, nearly all of the things she did between terms or during her summer vacations did not have much to do with drinking. Clearly, Janice was anything but a party-girl. Now that her finals for her second year in law school were completed and thrilled with the fact that she had done a super job on her finals, nonetheless, she wanted to let her hair down and do something besides going to college for a change.

Drinking at a Local Saloon Results in Alcohol Poisoning, Calling 911, The Emergency Services Number, and An Ambulance Ride to An Alcohol Rehab Center

So Janice and some of her friends from college went to a local tavern where they had a few beers. As the hours went by, Janice continued to drink without having a care in the world about exams the next day. Indeed, Janice mentioned to her pals how nice it was to have fun drinking with her law school friends.

As the evening progressed, Janice and her classmates continued to drink. As a matter of fact, she was having such a splendid time that she didn’t want the night to end. It was almost like she was making up for lost time and making an attempt to shove a year’s worth of laughter and fun into a single evening. Such a “game plan,” it needs to be stressed, does not often work. As a matter of fact, when Janice went to the powder room and threw up, her friends started to feel uneasy about her safety.

A few moments later when Janice started to speak in a confused manner, slur her words, and then fall unconscious, however, her pals immediately realized that they needed to call 911 and ask for medical assistance because they suspected that Janice was exhibiting alcohol poisoning symptoms.

Once Janice was in the hospital, the lead healthcare professional corroborated what her buddies had hypothesized, that is to say, that Janice consumed far more alcohol than her body could process and, as a result, she experienced an alcohol overdose.

After the emergency room medical staff pumped her stomach until no gastric contents were visible, Janice was placed in the recovery room. After staying about four hours in recovery, Janice was then transferred to one of the regular hospital rooms. Fortunately, the most dangerous part of her hospitalization had passed and all of her vital signs were back to normal.

In response to Janice’s medical predicament, her buddies attentively called her Mom and Dad. As a consequence, early the next morning, her Mother and Father and her best friends went to the hospital to visit Janice and look into her medical progress.

Janice Narrowly Escapes Death, is Happy to be Alive, and Promises to Never Again Drink in an Abusive and Excessive Manner

Janice was very aware that she had narrowly escaped death and, as a result, was happy to be alive. At the same time, nonetheless, she was somewhat disheartened knowing that she had almost passed away the previous night. Her Mother and Father realized how intensely she studied in graduate school and how little she permitted herself to socialize with her pals. Nevertheless, they also knew that Janice needed to steer clear of excessive drinking.

As a consequence, they suggested that down the road, whenever a drinking opportunity develops, that she always drink in moderation. Janice agreed and assured her parents and her friends that she would never again drink in an excessive and hazardous manner. As stated by Janice, “I never thought that I would become one of the alcohol abuse and alcoholism statistics in the local newspaper. I now realize that excessive drinking is not for me. I give my word of honor that this will never happen again.”

Fortunately, Janice was not only “book smart” but she also had common sense. Stated more explicitly, she rapidly grasped the fact that she had made an error in judgment and decided that she would never make the same error again. In actual fact, she now realized that she had involved herself in “binge drinking” and that even one instance of this type of excessive drinking can end in a loss of life.

Denny is a eighteen-year-old teenager who has finally made up his mind that he needs to go and see his physician about his hazardous drinking. At first, Denny thought he would be able to basically go online, look for some basic alcohol info and come to a decision whether or not he was addicted to alcohol.

Not surprisingly, he located many websites that detailed some of the well-known alcoholism symptoms. That’s the positive news. The less positive news, regrettably, was that Denny displayed more than a few of these alcoholism symptoms.

Alcohol Addiction Symptoms: Some Examples

As an illustration, Denny has been drinking increasingly more than usual and he has started to have more highly charged arguments with the female he is dating. In much the same way, for the first time in his young life he has been experiencing sleeping difficulties. In a similar manner, Denny regularly has felt depressed and on an increasing basis he has been demonstrating limited attentiveness in the classroom. In addition, he has felt highly stressed and more jumpy on a regular basis and for the past two or three months he has shown signs of hazy thinking at school. Given that Denny has been displaying all of these symptoms, he was understandably nervous about his unhealthy drinking.

So Denny decided to contact his physician and ask for an appointment. In point of fact, this was rough for Denny because his healthcare practitioner was also his parents’ family doctor. The origin of his uneasiness was this: at the risk of embarrassing his family, he had to go and divulge his unhealthy and abusive drinking behavior to his family doctor.

When Denny arrived at the physician’s office, he truthfully informed the healthcare practitioner about the fear he feels about his excessive drinking behavior. When the family healthcare practitioner asked what was inducing this fear, Denny declared that he had gone on the world wide web and read about alcoholism and especially about alcohol addiction symptoms. He then outlined all of the alcohol dependency symptoms that he obviously thought he manifests.

An In Depth Physical Appraisal and Outpatient Alcohol Treatment

The family doctor told Denny that it was prudent of him to attend to his problem drinking, he gave Denny an in depth physical exam, and recommended that he talk to his Mother and Father about going into an out-patient alcohol rehab facility that was managed by Doctor Devor, one of his doctor colleagues who is an alcohol and drug addiction specialist.

What is more, when Denny stated that he has been feeling a sense of melancholy to an increasing degree, the doctor told Denny that depression and alcoholism regularly come about in the same person. Thus, the physician also recommended that Denny talk to his parents about getting therapy to attend to his sense of despair. In fact, Denny can go to the local mental health center and make an appointment with Doctor Galloway, a celebrated counseling psychologist who specializes in treating teenagers.

The Significance of Coming To Grips With Your Drinking Problems and Getting Inspired About Making Positive and Healthy Changes in Your Life

The healthcare practitioner made it a point to inform Denny that he might not necessarily be an alcoholic, but that he was obviously drinking in an excessive manner. Stated another way, Denny was engaging in teen alcohol abuse. The healthcare professional then informed Denny that the reason he recommended alcohol treatment in the first place was because he wanted him to deal with his drinking problems, make sure that he prevented them from escalating, and start to live in a more healthy manner, even if it meant that he had to absolutely quit drinking.

In brief, by productively treating his drinking problems, Denny would be able to get his drinking problems under control and quit the negative cycle that could most likely result in alcoholism.

Denny undeniably did not look forward to facing his Mom and Dad about his depression and his drinking issues. And he definitely did not want to face the thought of getting admitted into an alcohol treatment facility. And finally, he was not elated about going to a psychologist about his sense of gloom. In spite of these anxieties, nevertheless, Denny in reality felt some emotional relief for the first time in many months because in the end he stopped making excuses for himself and at long last made up his mind that he needed to do something affirmative about his hazardous and careless drinking.

Achieving goals involves setting a clear and specific objective, making a plan of actions to obtain that goal , following the plan and recording our progress (read more at Achieving Personal Goals).This page is about how recording metrics on the activities we want to improve can lead to improvement in our performance and in achieving our goals.

Last year, Veronica Noone started on a regular run with a small sensor attached to her running shoes.  The sensor recorded and stored information about her run, including how far she went and how long the run took.  This information was transferred to her iPod for later review. The technology that enabled this was the focus of a story recently in Wired magazine, but it carries a deeper, more important message about performance, motivation and goals that’s relevant to general knowledge about setting and achieving goals.

Having access to this kind of information about the activity appears to motivate most people and leads them to want to do it again.  According to Veronica, “It just made running so much more entertaining for me.  There’s something about seeing what you’ve done, how your pace changes as you go up and down hills, that made me more motivated”.  The result is that it’s led to changes in her behavior, to the point that she is running regularly each week now and has started entering races.  She believes that the information she receives from her runs has alot to do with her current level of fitness.

The benefits of measuring our progress at whatever we are doing, and specifically when we have set a goal, is that it gives us clear feedback which motivates us, and it shows trends that we might not otherwise detect.  We inherently seem to want those trends to move in the direction of improvement, toward the direction of our goal.  Without the feedback , we are able to proceed with blissful ignorance about our performance and miss the opportunity to feel satisfaction from any improvements.  To spin a familiar phrase, “what you don’t know won’t kill you, but it may diminish the motivational opportunity that knowing your results provides”.

The statistics on this technology has produced another interesting fact.   It appears that something happens once someone uses the system 5 times.  Once users hit five ‘uses’, i.e. 5 times having recorded their data, they’re much more likely to continue running and uploading their data.  After completing five runs, users have gotten hooked on what the data (feedback) tells them about themselves.  It seems likely the same results would apply to weight loss, educational goals or anything else that we might track if we are interested in our performance.  The lesson: Stick to the plan you set to achieve your goal, and record your results at least 5 times, and you will significantly improve your chances for success.

Another interesting effect has been observed.   Users examining the results of their runs invoke what sociologists call the Hawthorne effect.  If we are realize that we are being watched , according to the Hawthorne effect we will tend to revise our behavior.  If you’re thinking this sounds like accountability, you’re right.  You don’t have to actually be watched by another person, but by tracking and viewing the data from your performance you effectively become your own observer, and the principles end up working the same way.  It’s inevitable that when your record your results and review it on a regular basis, you will begin holding yourself accountable for those results which will generally lead to better performance.

In studies of weight loss, it’s been shown repeatedly that people who count calories lose more weight than those who don’t.  Sound familiar?  When you examine your behavior and have a clear picture of what it has been, you become an observer.  Another company, Core Performance, has found that workouts in which metrics are recorded (sets, reps, weight lifted, etc) make you fitter, because you will train more precisely and put in more effort if you know you’re going to be seeing your results.  Once again, you become your observer and unconsciously hold yourself accountable.  Not measuring and recording your results is synonymous with not being observed.  Mason Goldbert, co-owner of a fitness club, says “People love to track things.  It brings out their competitive spirit.”

Most experts agree goals must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevent and Time Sensitive).   Getting accurate, regular feedback is a perfect example of the “measurable” component.

Veronica’s run that day covered 1.67 miles in 18 minutes and 36 seconds.  But it did something far more important.  It provided the results from the day’s run, and more importantly it created a starting point against which she could measure future performance.  Veronica had run 95 more times  since that initial story in Wired magazine,  and has logging nearly 300 miles over roughly 50 hours.  More importantly, her weight went from a high of 225 lbs to 145 lbs.

What we measure tends to improve. 

For more information on this and other topics related to making improvements in your life, go to Achieving Personal Goals.

Teresa was a forty-three-year-old floral designer who realized that she had a drinking problem. As an illustration, within the past three months she has felt the need to have more than a few drinks before going to work, six weeks ago she tested positive for a blood alcohol test where she is employed, three weeks ago she got pulled over by the police for a DWI, and finally, for the past three months she has begun to forget what she says and does when she goes out drinking with her buddies.

Like many other individuals, Teresa’s alcohol involvement started out slowly and stayed at this level for quite a long period of time because every now and then she engaged in casual social drinking. As a matter of fact, for nearly two years, every time she went out to drink, she made sure to drink in a responsible manner. Something about her drinking behavior, nevertheless, seemed to fundamentally change when she got divorced from her husband.

So She Can Overcome the Loss of Her Husband In a Less Troublesome Manner, Teresa Made Up Her Mind That She Will Begin Palling Around More Frequently With Some of Her Pals Who Love to Have Fun and Drink

Teresa got very despondent about the divorce from her husband, and as a way to quit fixating on her discouraging emotions she made up her mind to start associating more routinely with some of her buddies who love to ”get down” and drink.

Quite forthrightly, Teresa concluded that having fun nearly every day by drinking and partying with her buddies would help her get beyond the divorce of her husband in a less wearisome manner.

Teresa’s Drinking Escalates Substantially the More Frequently She Goes to Family Get-Togethers, Dinner Dates, Sporting Events, Happy Hours, and Private Parties With Her Pals

It didn’t take very long, however, before her drinking increased to a significant extent the more frequently she went to and drank at dinner dates, sporting events, happy hours, private parties, and family get-togethers with her buddies. What is more, the fact that her drinking pals were all much younger than she was and therefore able to party and drink more recklessly was one of the reasons that she didn’t allocate more of her attention to her increased drinking. Simply put, she was drinking and having tons of fun just like everyone else in her group of pals without too much deliberation regarding the consequences of her hazardous and excessive drinking.

Yet somewhere in her brain she knew that she most probably required alcohol rehab but kept away from the thought as much as she could.

Teresa Gets a Physical, Discloses the Facts About Her Hazardous and Abusive Drinking to Her Healthcare Professional, and Owns Up to the Truth About Her Depression

One late afternoon during her twelve month physical examination, her healthcare practitioner asked her if she drank alcohol. Not wanting to tell “stories” to her healthcare professional, Teresa acknowledged that she commonly drinks more than she should. In reality, she said that she frequently drinks in a hazardous and abusive manner. Then Teresa told her doctor about her constant negativity. More specifically, she articulated that ruined relationships usually started a disheartening progression of events characterized by increased drinking which further led to more disheartening feelings that, in turn, led to more drinking. And this is precisely what took place when she and her husband got divorced two years ago.

When her healthcare practitioner heard this, he told Teresa that according to various alcoholism facts and statistics on alcoholism he was investigating, alcoholism and depression frequently arise in the same person. He then informed Teresa that some of the alcohol statistics, facts, and research investigations he has been reading about also underline the fact that individuals who drink in an irresponsible and abusive manner and who also experience depression need to receive treatment for both medical conditions.

Teresa’s Healthcare Practitioner Schedules an Appointment for a Psychological Evaluation and For an Alcohol Dependency and Alcohol Abuse Evaluation

Teresa’s doctor then stated the following: “I am not trying to make a snap diagnosis, but with your medical circumstances we may be dealing with two separate matters. As a consequence, I think we ought to schedule an appointment for you to get an alcohol addiction and alcohol abuse evaluation from my partner, Dr. Truxton, who is a substance abuse and alcohol abuse specialist. Whether your drinking situation is more associated with alcohol abuse or alcoholism is not clear, but I think that further assessment is needed. Then I believe we should make an appointment for you to get a psychological exam from another one of my partners, Dr. Jordan, who is a counseling psychologist. I want to get some more insights about your dejection and see how much your depression and drinking are interrelated.”

Teresa Gets Enthused About Finally Addressing Her Excessive Drinking and Her Depression

Teresa displayed her satisfaction with her healthcare practitioner’s line of attack and thanked him for his assistance and concern. In all honesty, Teresa now experienced a sense of personal satisfaction because she finally made up her mind to do something positive about her abusive drinking and her depression. Now all she had to do was to try to cut back on her drinking and wait for her appointments.

Sarah and Jerry have been married for five years. They wanted to have some excitement and fun before they decided to have some kids and so they intentionally developed an incredibly exciting social life.

The principal issue, however, is that nearly everything they do socially is associated with drinking. For example, all of the happy hours, dinner engagements, sporting events, parties with friends, and family get-togethers they attend have something to do with drinking.

Jerry and Sarah Start to See Some Noticeable Alcohol Related Issues That are Associated With Their Abusive Drinking

If they were occasional drinkers, this wouldn’t be such a difficult situation. Because they drink in an excessive manner, nevertheless, they are starting to see some unmistakable alcohol-related issues in their lives.

For instance, just four days ago Jerry received a third DWI and has been showing up late for work due to alcohol-related health issues. Furthermore, Jerry’s last two or three performance appraisals at his place of employment have been less than acceptable and he has begun to fail to remember what he says or does while he drinks. As a final point, Jerry has been experiencing sleep-related problems and his family is starting to get apprehensive about his drinking difficulties.

Similar to Jerry’s situation, Sarah has been feeling unhappy about life in general and to manage these feelings, she has been drinking more than any time in the past eleven months. Moreover, Sarah has been getting more than a few headaches and suffering from excruciating hangovers from drinking. Finally, Sarah has been feeling appreciably less active when she awakens, she has been getting to work late almost every Monday, and she has been getting some harsh criticism from her relatives, friends, family members, and coworkers about her irresponsible drinking.

Watching the Television and Flipping the Channels and Finding An Out-of-the-Ordinary Program About the Signs of Alcohol Dependency

One Sunday evening while watching the television, Jerry and Sarah went through the channels and found an attention-grabbing documentary about the signs of alcoholism.

This TV program was a real jolt to Sarah and Jerry because many of the alcoholism signs that were discussed appeared as if they were indisputably linked to numerous alcohol-related drinking problems Jerry and Sarah had been experiencing.

A Candid Chat About Drinking Behavior Exposes Alcohol Related Relationship, Health, Employment, Legal, and Financial Problems

After watching the television documentary, Sarah and Jerry made up their minds to have an open conversation about their drinking circumstances. They both were in agreement that most, if not all, of their social activities somehow involved drinking, that they were drinking in an abusive manner, and that as a married couple, they were beginning to see alcohol related employment, health, financial, legal, and relationship problems for the first time in their lives.

With thoughts of the television special still running through her mind, Sarah asked Jerry if some of the alcoholism signs they have been displaying could be a signal that they are alcoholic or maybe becoming addicted to alcohol. Jerry didn’t know the answer to Sarah’s inquiry and so he recommended that they make an appointment with one of the physicians at the nearby alcohol abuse treatment clinic to find out more about the seriousness of their drinking difficulties.

Attending To Your Drinking Difficulties Just May Lessen Your Trepidation and Give You A Degree of Peacefulness

Ironically, although their drinking situation hadn’t yet changed, it was clear that Jerry and Sarah were at least dealing with their drinking problems, they were willing to find out more about their drinking situation, and they were concerned about how they could significantly reduce or get rid of the alcohol-related difficulties that had started to deteriorate.

When Jerry and Sarah went to bed that night, they made up their minds that the next morning, Jerry would call and make an appointment for both of them at the alcohol rehabilitation center located downtown. After they made a promise to one another that they would do whatever it takes to surmount the alcohol-related difficulties that had manifested themselves in their lives, they actually had the most revitalizing night’s sleep they could recall in the last eight weeks.

Just before he fell asleep, Jerry turned to Sarah and observed how painless it is to lessen one’s apprehension and actually experience some serenity by addressing one’s problems with conviction and deciding to do something affirmative about them.