Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had as much practice," said the Queen

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had as much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age I did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
--Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass

Ahh motivation, learning about all the ins and outs of it this semester has been really interesting in so many ways. I have made connections with motivation in almost every aspect of my life which has been great. At work, I'm a program manager for Early Childhood Business Services and work with preschool and childcare providers, mainly in very low-income areas, to strengthen the programs they run and support them to higher quality. They are motivated to reach the higher levels of quality in many ways, but once they start to realize that this could affect their already struggling "bottom line," they hesitate. While I understand this hesitation, I am committed to helping them take that next step, take a flying leap off the plank, imagine the impossible. It's certainly not an easy job, but I think it's so important that we provide the best environment possible to kids and teachers and families, I'm willing to imagine it all coming to fruition (while at the same time realizing sometimes you take 2 steps forward and 1 step back. I'm motivated, but I'm not completely naive to the ways of the world).

In my personal life, motivation has given me a nice bite this year. I am motivated to do the best I can at work, and was motivated to take 9 credits this summer, and also was motivated to buy a house at the same time which of course came with its own set of drama and challenges. While I am SO HAPPY to say I made it, I will caution anyone else that they may want to think twice about taking on so much...unless you like to have "character building" experiences pretty much every day for 8 or 9 solid weeks. Understanding that motivation can lead some people to occasionally take on too much (I do have a hard time saying no!) was good, just to help keep things in perspective at times.

This class was also really eye-opening for me in terms of being to recognize and identify self-handicapping and undermining strategies that people use both in their professional lives and personal lives. Again, I got great perspective on different aspects of how people do things, what inspires them to take that next leap and challenge, and how to support people of all ages that you can believe the impossible - it just takes a little practice and perseverance, and you have to be willing to try again, sometimes in a different way, if things don't go as planned the first round.