WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO

“Your true success in life begins only when you make the commitment to become
excellent at what you do”
Why we do what we do is understanding self motivation by Edward L. Deci and
Richard Flaste explain that human perform best when they are totally
“autonomous” with themselves and free from extrinsic motivation such as fame
,money and external pressures.

If you reward your children for doing their homework , they will usually respond
by getting it done .but is this the most effective method of motivation?

No, says psychologist Edward L Deci , who challenges traditional thinking and
shows that this method actually works against performance . The best way to
motivate people—at school, at work, or at home—is to support their sense of
autonomy. Explaining the reasons why a task is important and then allowing as
much personal freedom as possible in carrying out the task will stimulate
interest and commitment, and is a much more effective approach than the
standard system of reward and punishment. We are all inherently interested in
the world, argues Deci, so why not nurture that interest in each other? Instead of
asking, “How can I motivate people?” we should be asking, “How can I create
the conditions within which people will motivate themselves?”
“An insightful and provocative meditation on how people can become more
genuinely engaged and succesful in pursuing their goals.” —Edward L Deci
Why do we do what we do? How are our days, our months, our lives
structured? What determines our practices? If we think back, how much of our
daily patterns were determined by the practices we acquired as a child? It is
well known that “as part and parcel of our early socialization in life, we each
learn ways of being in the world, of acting and interacting, thinking and valuing,
and using language, objects, and tools that crucially shape our early sense of
self.”
These and many more questions draw our attention to the concept of practices,
which is a concept that I feel is at the core of human existence. A practice “is
something people do, not just once, but on a regular basis.” For some reason,
people pray, brush their teeth, complete their tax, hike in National Parks, long
for the next dance, etc. Each “activity” is part of - let’s says - religious practices,
hygienic practices, economic practices, artistic practices, social practices and
more. Each practice is much more than the sum of its parts. For instance, the
combination of prayer, worship, scripture, and stewardship amounts to more
than a collection of disparate activities. They amount to a form of life, and they
rely upon resources, other participants, a sense of attachment, cultural artefacts
and a history. Therefore, a practice is “more than just a disposition to behave in
a certain way; the identity of a practice depends not only on what people do,
but also on the significance of those actions and the surroundings in which they
occur.” Put another way, our human existence is “not based on knowledge but
on practice.” It is not what we know that gives life its shape. It is what we do.

This is the first part that will reflect on those activities that give shape to the
way in which we live and the conditions under which those activities form and
change us. In the end, we must ask ourselves to reflect upon the following
question, “how successfully are we at finding peace and a home with what we
do in a culturally, economically, and politically diverse world?”

"Our philosophical experience now, finding ourselves here, necessitates taking up

philosophically the question of practice.”

Training is not successful until the learner can employ the practice sustainably in
a range of contexts beyond anticipated cases or circumstances. The true tests of
whether a practice has been adopted occurs when the learner is required to
exercise independence, act in accordance with the practice in new
circumstances, and find ways to reflect upon and contribute to the practice. In
other words, “training is successful if it results in the initiated learner eventually
becoming a skilled and autonomous practitioner and subsequently performing
within, and thus adding to, the practice - perhaps even contributing to a further
change in it.”

Therefore, the first steps “are attitudinal not cognitive. They have to do with our
needs and the direction of our attention.” Our next steps are emotive whereby
“certain feelings, such as feelings of familiarity and confidence, may often be
present when we understand something” or are prepared to understand
something. These notions of familiarity significantly illustrate how our
engagement in a practice is linked to how successfully we can imagine what it
means to be part of the practice, which is developed through experience
intellectually and emotively in the culture, conventions and expectations of the
practice. “We build our model simulations to help us make sense of things and
prepare for action in the world. We can act in the model and test which
consequences follow before we act in the real world.” And furthermore, a
practice is only possible "if one trusts something,” which includes trusting
others as well as the situations in which we find ourselves in Put together, the
learner must be "a biologically and socially adept human being ... susceptible to
training

What We Do ended by reminding us that we should not forget that there is a

broader canvas to take into account when examining our practices

My surroundings, my instruction, my peer relations and my own choices taught

me to identify with certain practices over others. In this case, “a practice ... is
intertwined with our self and sense of identity, on the one hand, and our
relations and ways of interacting with other people, on the other hand.

People are smarter when they use smart tools. Better yet, people are smarter
when they work in smart environments; that is, environments that contain,
integrate, and network a variety of tools, technologies, and other people, all of
which store usable knowledge … People are always part of environments,
whether they are particularly smart ones or not.

In actual linguistic communities there is no equal access to linguistic resources.

There are differences in upbringing, in schooling, in access to higher learning,
and more generally in the social environment in which one leads one’s life. And
these differences result in the mastery of different vocabularies and rhetorical
devices; in different pronunciations, dictions, and writing styles; and in different
discursive competences. It is important to note that language is not used in an
abstract space of logical relations but in a social space that is structured by
power relations.

“Practical holism ... is the view that [any practice] can only be meaningful in
specific contexts and against a background of shared practices’. ... Background
practices, equipment, locations, and broader horizons ... are part and parcel of
our ability to engage in conversation and find our way about.”
“You can not always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might
find you get what you need”

In summary, then, I look at motivation as a set of needs that inform, with more
or less awareness, the feelings and thoughts we have, the habits that rule us,
and the impulses that drive us. Clearly, this exploration leads to what is already
said by so many: let’s slow down before acting.

Slowing down allows us to translate and listen internally. It allows us to ask

ourselves what we want, regardless of what feelings we have and what
thoughts and habits run through us. It allows us to question our impulses and
distinguish them from our intuitive knowing.

All our actions are expressions of our needs, as we find more choice about
which needs we focus on, which strategies we employ to attend to them, and
which other needs might not be met, we transcend the legacy of separation,
scarcity, and powerlessness. Doing this, I truly believe we will, individually, have
more fulfilling lives, and, collectively, attend to more needs, for humans and for
all life.

The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the
environment in which you first find yourself. ~Mark Caine