Helen Rosas Costa

PTA 1500
Angela Bailey
27 November 2017
Personal Development Reflection

While reading Unit 14, I tried to keep in mind the goal setting Ive done in my personal

as well as my professional life and attempted to imagine what goal setting with future patients

would be like. What surprised me while reading the information pertaining to this unit, I had

never connected motivation of doing recreational activities to the motivation required to do a job/

career. I have always categorized them as two separate entities believing that you did not require

motivation to do recreational activities when in fact theres more effort put in and more

motivation required to do those activities. Once my mindset had changed and put them into the

same category I envisioned how to incorporate the excitement of recreation and the progress of

work into the goals I set for myself and for my patients.

To continue the thought process of goal setting, the questions concerning different types

of goal setting really put the perspective of an effective way to portray goals for personal use and

otherwise, so it is unable to be easily taken off track. The first question, What happens to

motivation when a goal is easily attainable, made me think back to where it mentions the

motivation to go to work every morning for most is a difficult task to accomplish. Because there

arent very many obstacles or difficulties in everyday careers it starts to put people in a rut and

makes it disinteresting for them. Because there is nothing new to expect from your jobs, such as

new experiences or tasks, there is nothing to look forward to. The goal of going to work is just to

be present for a set amount of time and get the set amount of work done, its very attainable and
easy to do half-heartedly. Because of the lack of difficulty, motivation plummets and worsens the

end product or result further.

To continue on with the second question, What happens to motivation when a goal is

really high?, it is almost like being at the bottom of a flight of endless stairs and telling yourself

you have to get to the top. It makes you want to give up at that moment. When it seems like there

may be no end to the task, motivation will slim if not completely dissipate due to lack of esteem

in being able to even achieve completion of the task. When there is no attainable goal in the

fairly near future its commonplace for people to say Its too difficult and I cannot possibly

manage that. The best example of this in my personal opinion is at the beginning of the year

when people will join gym memberships to try to accomplish a certain goal but because they

don't set smaller goals to achieve while getting to the end goal they lose motivation, give up, and

never end up going to the gym.

Lastly, the question What happens to motivation when a goal is appropriately set,

measurable, and reasonably attainable?. The wording of the description of the goal is perfect

because just reading makes it motivational. When it is appropriately set, it makes your self-

esteem in regards to achieving that goal soar because you can look at it saying this is even

something I can do rather than I do not have the capacity to do it, someone else can/should do

it. Measuring definitely improves motivation because it shows the progress made and how

much closer you are to a goal. My personal example is when I tracked my meals; an app I had

that helped measure what I ate, how it affected my nutrition, my fitness, and how it all

incorporated in losing and tracking my weight. It initially sets goals for each day on how many

calories I needed to eat, how much activity I needed in a day, and reminded me what limits on
specific food types I should have it helped keep me on track and measured how everything

contributed to my goal.

Personally, I could see my life improving by setting smaller goals for myself to reach a

bigger end goal. Just by taking one step at a time and rewarding the small victories, the larger

end goal doesnt seem so scary and unattainable. As for patients trying to accomplish simple

tasks in life, small victories help me be the cheerleader for my patient. Each success gets us

closer to what we need to achieve, and explaining the small victories and the progress made puts

everything in perspective. If I can make the goals even more personable for my patients I feel

like it would increase their motivation more. For example, learning how to stand just to stand is

not very motivating but to stand to hug a loved one is much more exciting. Even a little bit of

happiness in something ordinarily mundane can increase motivation in anyone.