In the June ’07 issue of Men’s Health magazine is an anticle by Tom McGrath called “Unleash Your Potential.” It focuses on the subject of people that are self motivated and how that translates to their success. Since it is a men’s fitness magazine the subject leans toward hitting the gym and being active. What really hit me is this line “… The more self-determined we are – that is, the more we’re doing what we want to do and aren’t being forced to do – the happier and more successful we tend to be.” That says a lot. It plays right to those people that always say to follow your dreams. Most of the time that rings hollow because the average person is too risk averse to follow their dreams. Unfortunately, not everyone that does take that risk realizes their number 1 dream either. So playing it safe does avoid the pitfalls that come with trying and failing. But the cost of not trying is doing a job that isn’t what you desire to do. According to the earlier quote, it suggests that your success could be limited because of it.
This blog and probably the majority of all blogs fall into this self-determination theory. No one is paying me to write what I think about the job market. I simply like that topic and want to share my thoughts. There are many other blogs for different topics that doing the same thing. Articles like this one provide further motivation externally for me to continue. Writing this does make me happy and if success is a bi-product then that is great too.
I will follow up on the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) in a few more posts. I want to read some of the material out there from Richard Ryand and Edward Deci. You can find more information from them by going to their University of Rochester website.
Working Thoughts 