one of life's dilemma

how does one love another person without them feeling like you want to possess them, fix them, or save them?  Unless us humans are channeling God's agape love to others, our human needs seem to interfere - and even then, the other person's human insecurities and fears interfere with how they perceive our love. Hmmmmmmm???  I think God has to be working in both the giving and the receiving or love gets sooooo messy :-)

Why forgive?

When many people think of forgiving others, they think or say, "I can get past what you did to me and not hold it against you", or something like "I want to be big enough to get over how you hurt me." The problem with this is its anchored in pride. God's view is based on humility and that we should not even sense the right to be offended in the first place.

When we realize (believe and trust) what God has done for us by sending Jesus to take care of our offenses toward Him, how Jesus humbled himslef by emptying Himself of the right to be God, laying down His life (setting aside His agenda) for us, and took care of our unfaithfulness on the cross, then we can approach others with the same humility.

Living our lives absent the right to be offended and have our feelings hurt puts us in harmony with the Heavenlies (true righteousness)!! This is the life of faith :-)

Comments

I was told I could adjust a setting that would allow anyone to comment regardless of whether they have a blog or not, so I welcome all of you readers to add your comments/questions as you read the posts :-)

Motivation and Calling

     
There are only two ways a person is influenced to behave toward an expected outcome. One is when structures in one's environment constrains or guides them to behave a specific way through exchanges (Social Exchange). These generally take the form of rewards/punishment that incent people to produce specific behaviors and associated outcomes desired by the envionment (bosses, parents, government, coaches, etc). Examples include rules, policies, job descriptions, culture, praise/recognition, and compensation systems. These factors are called extrinsic motivation and usually produce the behavior desired by the enviornment as long as the factors are in place. When they are removed or when the individual no longer sees the exchange worth his/her behavior (valence), the effort ceases.

In contrast individuals may direct their attentional resources toward a behavior and its associated outcome simply because the outcome is internal to the individual and produces meaning, significance, or enjoyment. Instead of the individual receiving something from their environment because of their outcome from the behavior, the "reward" is suppllied by a satisfied soul. I call this "scratching the itches of our soul". This form of motivation is called intrinsic and produces the behavior because the individual is inspired to put forth the effort to gain the outcome.

When we consider the notion of calling, we find that it consists of those things we are intrinsically motivated to do. (Notice this is different than our giftedness, which many poeple use to help discern their calling.) The types of behaviors and associated outcomes that inspire us were placed in us before the foundations of the world. "We are fearfully and wonderfully made." So in a sense "Our calling" is playing out that which God has put in us.

more to come!!

And finally, motivation is ...

We have already defined motivation as a psychological process by which we direct our attentional resources and the intensity of those resources as applied to a behavior and its expected outcome. When we understand two little words, saliency and valence, then we understand the fundamental mechanisms of motivation.

Saliency means that something "pops out at us", gets our immediate attention, the outcome is relevant to us. One of the main ways something is salient to us is that it is proximal, or "near us" in time and space. This is where the notion of the "tyranny of the urgent" comes from. Situations right in our face usually get our attentional rsources, which means we are motivated to behaviors assoicated with that situation. However, saliency alone will influence effort only to the point where we settle the immediate issue. To exert high levels of effort, there must also be valence.

Valence means that something is important to us. The outcome form the behavior has value to us. Matt 6 says "were our treasure is our heart will be also". The Bible simply explains the valence aspect of human motivation. Treasure means "what we value" and heart means "the seat of our motives". Thus we tend to or seek after that which we value. Of course Matt 6 states later to "seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and all the other things we need will come". Jesus is reminding Christians that if we value the provisions and privileges of the Heavenlies, our soul's well-being is in good shape :-)

Thus, if we are trying to motivate someone or trying to enhance our own motivation, we must nurture the value the outcome has to them (or us). While saliency may get our immediate attention because a situation may demand it, we generally do not put forth effort with any intensity toward those behaviors that bring us outcomes we do not value.

There are a couple of other judgments we make that are precursors to our judgment on value. We must first believe we have the efficacy to perform in a way we will receive the desired behavioral outcome. Then we must believe that if we perform, we will actually receive the deisred outcome. This involves judgments of perceived control and fairness of the reward giver.

Well, motivation is both complex and simple at the same time. Whatever motivational activity we put in place will not motivate without saliency and valence and will motivate with those two facets of motivation present!!

More on motivation

A popular myth is that "you can do anything you want if you try hard enough." This raises the question of the relationship between motivation and behavioral outcomes (performance). The fact is there are three influences on behavior and its associated outcome - skill (competency), effort, and situational factors that may inhibit or facilitate an outcome. Thus, effort is only one factor influencing outcomes.

While the movie "Rudy" appears to have the message "one can do anything they want if they try hard enough", even Rudy says multiple times that no matter how hard he tries, he can never be good enough (competent) to play football at Notre Dame. The interesting point of the movie that people miss is that Equity Theory (earlier blog) is the best way to explain Rudy's ultimate outcome of getting on the field in a game.
It was Rudy's effort that drove the outcome but not through his performance. It was the reward giver (the coach) who was moved by Rudy's effort to increase what Rudy received. It was the Coach, fans, and players drive for equity that created the result. So, Rudy's effort was instrumental, but only because other's acted on his behalf, not because he could accomplish the outcome solely through his effort.

While effort may explain variance in one's own performance, it does not expalin variances in performance across individuals. Rudy had the most effort (as testified to by many), but he was not the best football player. Others had more skill which accounted for the difference in outcomes.

So now you have it!!!

Myths about motivation

My dear niece is thinking about motivation and sharing her thougts with others - U go girl!! This prompted me to make a few comments a priori (that is 'before hand') about motivation because there is so much 'stinking thinking' on this topic.

The main myth about motivation is that it is a characteristic of a person. This manifests itself in statements from one person to another like 'you are not motivated', 'get motivated', and 'I am a motivated person'. I attempt to help my students through this myth with scenes from the movie Rudy. After showing early scenes from the movie I ask, "who is the most motivated perosn in the movie?" Students think this is a trick question given the name of the movie :-)

I then ask, "was Rudy the most motivated student? the most motivated worker? the most motivated to start a dairy farm or to be a priest? to get married or buy a house?" In fact his girl friend Sheri was really motivated to get married and buy a house, maybe more than Rudy was to play football at Notre Dame. I suggest to the students that the movie have been named "Sheri".  :-) :-)

The point is that motivation is NOT a characteristic of a perosn but is a psychological process by which a person directs his/her attentional resources toward a specific behavior and its associated outcomes and then the intensity by which they continue applying their personal resources (mind, emeotion, physical energy, etc.).

Thus motivation has no meaning absent an associated targeted behavior. What most people (especially parents speaking to their teenage kids)mean when they say "you are not motivated", they mean "you are not motivated to do what i want you to be doing." While a kid may not be attending to studying for school, they may be intense at playing computer games - just a different targeted behavior.

There's lot's more but enough for now!!