Determination is what it is, an example from life, a purposeful person

What is determination

The meaning of the word “determination” is easiest for a person to understand when he answers the question: “How do you achieve your goal?”

Determination is a strong-willed quality of a person, manifested in his desire and ability to achieve his goal. This personal characteristic is socially approved, so employers are more likely to hire those employees who have indicated in their resume that they have the ability to achieve their goals.

Achieved what I wanted

In philosophy, the definition of determination is based on a person’s subtle understanding of the picture of his own world, his ability to subordinate his momentary desires to reason. The criterion for a purposeful person is her ability to make meaningful choices.

How do you understand the meaning of the word determination?

Striving for the goal

22.22%

This is a quality of a person that helps him achieve his goals, achieve success, despite difficulties.

77.78%

Don't know

Voted: 27

Psychologists, formulating the definition of this quality, focus on such components as:

motivation;
emotional-volitional component;
perception;
strength of character;
intellectual abilities.

Based on this, we can say that psychologists consider this character trait as an integrative one that develops throughout life.

Purposefulness develops throughout life

Determination and stubbornness should not be confused. The fundamental difference between these terms lies in the fact that the pursuit of a goal is based on a person’s conviction of its truth. While stubbornness lies in the fact that a person cannot give up the chosen path, although he knows that it is wrong.

Also, one cannot equate purposefulness and fanaticism. Purposeful people independently set a goal that is meaningful to them. Fanatics blindly follow their idol and implement his ideas.

Definition

If we look into the encyclopedic dictionary, we will see the following definition.

Purposefulness is a positive moral-volitional quality of an individual, which manifests itself in the form of the ability to set clear and achievable tasks and goals.

That is, determination is the concentration of feelings, thoughts and actions on persistent movement towards one’s goal and its achievement.

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In your own words, a purposeful person is someone who:

knows exactly what he wants;
understands how high the probability is that the goal will be achieved;
knows how to keep the final goal in mind and not switch to something else;
has strong convictions that he will not give up even under pressure from circumstances;
systematically moves towards the realization of his task, regardless of obstacles.

Purpose and determination

The concept of determination is inextricably linked with the word “goal”. The meaning of this term determines a person’s attitude towards goals, the ability to formulate them and go all the way to the desired result.

Sometimes it happens that a person sets a goal for himself, spends a lot of effort and time trying to achieve it, and then suddenly realizes that the end result is not at all what he wants. This situation clearly illustrates the fallacy of the task. This means that at the stage of setting a goal, a person did not take into account all possible choices and set priorities incorrectly.

Of course, all people make mistakes. There's nothing wrong with that. If a person realizes that he does not need what he is striving for, he can adjust the goal or set a new benchmark. However, the sad experience may be repeated.

Asya Rakhovich

Psychologist with more than 7 years of experience. Expert in the “Personality Psychology” section

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To overcome the vicious circle, when setting a goal, you need to check its correctness. This can be done by asking the following questions:

Does this goal meet my life purpose?
What will I get when I achieve it?
Is this really what I need?
Do I have the resources to achieve it?
Why should I spend personal resources to achieve this goal?
What difficulties will I face on the way to it?
What skills, knowledge and abilities will I need to get what I want?

A person will not make efforts to achieve a goal that he does not like and does not provide him with any personal benefits. However, there are other cases: a person may realize the correctness and necessity of the goal, but a positive emotional response does not arise in his soul. This means that this goal is important to the person, but he understands that achieving it will be difficult. To do this, he may need to work on himself, develop certain skills and character traits. The importance of a goal indicates that there is a dream behind it. To realize this dream, a person will have to make volitional efforts. Anticipation of the realization of a cherished dream will increase the individual’s motivation to achieve the goal.

In order for goals to be clear and precise, it is important to determine the time frame for their achievement. This is difficult to do if the goal is large-scale. Therefore, it is recommended to break down global goals into small subgoals, the consistent achievement of which will lead to a large-scale result. A useful habit for developing goal-setting skills is making a plan for the day, week, month. In this case, it is possible to accurately determine the deadlines for the implementation of each task aimed at achieving the final result.

If the goal is set incorrectly, it reduces a person’s self-esteem, causes disappointment, and leads to his passivity. A series of wrong goals that a person tried to achieve turns him into a failure.

We don’t tell anyone about our goals

Except maybe for the people we trust. Sometimes it is advised, on the contrary, to involve as many people as possible in your plans. This should supposedly be an incentive to carry them out - who would want to be branded as a windbag!

But there is another danger here: they will ironically tell us something like “well, well, let’s see what you can do,” “if you were going to fly high, it will hurt to fall.” And the spark in us will go out, our hands will give up, and we will not have enough strength to move towards the goal. You can only initiate your plans into someone who says: “I believe in you!”

Qualities of a purposeful person

A goal-oriented person has the following personal characteristics:

awareness;
the ability to clearly formulate a goal;
realistically assesses his strength to achieve the goal;
concentration on the desired result, which involves abstracting from everything unnecessary and extraneous;
a calm attitude towards difficulties on the way to the desired result;
confidence in the correctness of your life goals;
courage;
perseverance, perseverance;
hard work;
independence;
initiative;
determination;
strength of character;
diligence, diligence;
self-organization and self-discipline;
ability to obey rules;
ability to maintain prudence;
developed willpower, mental steadfastness, a person’s ability to resist temptations and momentary desires;
high level of self-control;
stress resistance;
the ability to defend one’s point of view with reason;
responsibility;
loyalty to your convictions.

Purposeful people

Why is determination needed?

For many happy people, determination has become a priority topic in personal development, since this individual trait allows them to successfully cope with the following tasks:

increase a person’s self-esteem and self-confidence;
get rid of doubts and anxiety;
overcome laziness;
achieve success;
gain recognition and approval from the immediate social environment;
take criticism constructively;
find your mistakes and ways to eliminate them;
learn to be thoughtful about your life;
learn to understand yourself, hear your needs;
develop self-control skills.

Positive and negative attitudes towards goal orientation

Unpurposeful people are often called lazy, parasites. Colleagues say about such people that they are weak-willed, indecisive, quiet. In other words, others speak negatively about a person who is not characterized by active actions aimed at achieving a goal. But with the attitude towards purposeful people, everything is not so simple. The attitude towards them can be both positive and negative.

purposeful individuals are willingly hired by large companies;

focus on results allows a dedicated employee to perform his job duties efficiently;

a person’s ability to make the right choice is approved by society;

high sporting results of a purposeful person arouse national pride;

a purposeful person has many friends, since many appreciate his optimism, responsibility, commitment, punctuality, and analytical mind;

a purposeful person is set as an example in a team;

the ability to remove everything unnecessary from life makes such a person a role model;

purposefulness of actions makes a person a good family man;

Self-confidence and the ability to cogently express one’s position help a motivated person to become a leader and take a leadership position in a company.

the fact that a person goes headlong towards a landmark without taking into account the needs and desires of others is condemned by others;

wanting to get what he wants, a person uses all the methods and means available to him, which are not always legal, which entails administrative or criminal liability;

people do not like the fact that a person obsessed with obtaining the desired result can use personal connections for personal gain;

a person’s moral level, which determines his actions, can be extremely low.

How to become a purposeful person

Some people have an innate ability to set goals and plan their actions to achieve them. However, most researchers are convinced that this character trait can and should be developed throughout life. If a person wants his goals to become achievable, he must:

Give up laziness, develop motivation to achieve your goal. To do this, the goal must be realistic. But if the process of achieving it is too simple, the person’s motivation will be low. An increase in motivation is observed when a person needs to make an effort, take himself out of his comfort zone, wanting to get what he wants. If the dream is unattainable, the person will simply give up on it.
You need to learn to concretize your desires and put them into verbal form. This will help you imagine the final result in detail and feel its subjective significance.

Statement of the goal must be personal! Purposefulness does not imply fulfilling other people's desires or meeting imposed standards.

To avoid stress, you need to plan the process of achieving your goal. Each stage in this case is seen as a small step, an intermediate link on the way to a big result. With this approach, even the most unrealistic dream becomes real.
If you have a dream, you need to plan for its implementation immediately. Otherwise, there is a chance that enthusiasm and fervor will subside. In addition, you need to learn to rank goals in order of importance and set priorities correctly. The guideline should be one’s own preferences and needs, and not the desire to conform to social stereotypes.
To increase confidence in yourself and your abilities, you can seek help from a mentor. Its function will be reduced to checking the drawn up plan to achieve the goal. This person will be able to support and say the right words at a time when it is especially difficult and you want to give up the fight.
Determination begins with habit. If a person knows how to live according to a pre-arranged daily routine, he will be able to transfer this skill to new conditions associated with the implementation of a plan to make a dream come true.
Developing purposeful action is impossible without patience, perseverance and perseverance. You need to strengthen these qualities in yourself. You also need to learn to cope with your own weaknesses.

In order to become successful, you don't need to try to become better than someone else, you just need to become better than yourself in the past.

It is important to learn to calmly accept changes in your usual routine and learn to do your work without fuss. In this case, a person will spend personal resources sparingly. Instead of performing useless actions while working, it is recommended to regularly visit the gym. Training will not only allow young people and girls to keep their bodies in good physical shape, but will also accustom a person to gradually increasing the load and train willpower.
Goal-setting skills are successfully implemented in life by those people who have developed voluntary attention and observation. This means that a person who wants to make his dreams come true must learn to abstract from external distractions.

To become goal-oriented, you need to define your personal goals.

This is already half the success. But for many people, setting goals is a difficult task. When asked about their goals, they answer in a confused and vague manner. The classic of American literature, W. Irving, generally believed that most people live guided by their desires, and only “high minds” are capable of setting goals.

So, if we intend to change our life, if we want to manage it, play a major role in it, we need to answer several questions in writing.

The questions are:

What do I want to achieve before I die?
What to possess?
What kind of housing would you like to have?
Where would you like to visit?
What people would you like to meet in person?
How much would you like to earn?

For each question you need to give detailed, detailed answers (except for the last one, which requires an unambiguous answer). For example, meet with Elan Musk, Richard Branson, David Beckham, Guy Ritchie, etc. Build a country house in the Provence style and describe in detail how we see this house. Or maybe we dream of a city apartment in a house built in the 19th century - what do we imagine it to be? Or do we want to visit the annual carnival in Venice?

The questions are not difficult, and even pleasant, but they require concentration. The experiment showed that out of 10 people who received homework assignments during the training to answer them, only one completed it. How can people want to change and become purposeful if they don’t take the trouble to write down their goals in detail? Most of them are happy to plan their weddings, thinking through the details, but do not consider it important to plan their lives! They will find a hundred reasons not to do this.

Detailed answers to the questions listed above play another role: while thinking about them, we can come to the conclusion that some goal is “not ours”, and we can easily cross it off our list of desires.

The process of defining and forming goals is called goal setting. This term is especially popular in trainings and courses for managers.

For those who find it difficult to define goals, Brian Tracy, author of several books on self-development, advises:

The question about your main goal must be answered quickly - within 30 seconds. What we think about during this time will be the main thing for us;
Answer the question: if we knew that we had no more than six months to live, what would we want to do during this time?

Another experiment demonstrates the undoubted benefits of goals written down on paper: graduates of one of the respected universities were asked which of them had clearly written goals for the future. There were only 3% of these. A few years later, sociologists returned to the fate of these young people, and it turned out that it was those who had detailed goals who achieved greater success and material wealth than others.

How to build sense of purpose in children

Purposeful children grow up in families where parents pay great attention to developing responsibility and independence in the child. Parents who want their child to become successful and reach heights in life teach him to make choices.

Psychologists have developed a guide for parents on developing their child’s ability to formulate their own problems and successfully solve them:

Since in the process of growing up a child strives to be like his father or mother, parents must convey to the child an example of determination.
Mastering a particular type of activity requires repeated trials. It is impossible to learn anything without mistakes. The task of parents is to teach the child to treat failures correctly and learn from mistakes.
It is important to teach your child to listen to himself and talk about his desires and needs.

We are engaged in visualization

In short, we can say that it is a mental representation of the desired goal as if we had already achieved it. Before practicing visualization, it is worth mastering muscle relaxation, proposed by the American doctor E. Jacobson - it will help relieve emotional and muscle tension that prevents you from focusing on visualization.

In addition, pictures and photographs with objects of our desires depicted on them or reminiscent of them, which can be hung in a visible place, will intensify our actions.

An example of determination from life

If you analyze the lives of successful people, you can find many examples of goal-oriented behavior. They can be considered the following life stories:

The girl graduated from school with C grades in many subjects. Her parents were worried that their daughter would not be able to enter a prestigious university and get a good education. However, the girl did not aspire to prestigious educational institutions. She had a dream: to become a hairdresser. Her parents were skeptical about her daughter’s choice, but they understood that college was perhaps the most she could count on.

Studying at college gave the girl the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge. The first step towards the dream was taken. The girl graduated from her studies with honors. The student completed her pre-graduation internship in a small hairdressing salon in her city, where experienced hairdressers immediately noticed her creativity, neatness, politeness and excellent knowledge of the basics of hairdressing. She was invited to work in this salon. Yesterday's graduate was jubilant: the goal was achieved! But she was not going to stop there: the girl realized that she really liked doing complex coloring, so she constantly took courses from hairdressers and colorists.

Today this girl opened her own beauty salon. No, she didn’t give up colorism. In her salon, she is not only the director, but also continues to receive clients.

The girl fulfilled her dream

The one-year-old baby really wants to learn to speak like adults. He understands that speech is a valuable tool through which he can communicate his wishes to his parents. In order for those around him to begin to understand him, the baby diligently repeats the words every day. Every day he gets better and better. The formation of a speech skill is associated with colossal volitional efforts; without regular exercises, speech cannot be formed.

Baby learns to speak

Wanting to perform successfully in competitions, an athlete not only attends training, but also follows a daily routine. The desire to win makes him refuse harmful (but so tasty!) foods, overcome muscle pain, fulfilling sports standards. Strict self-discipline helps him maintain toned muscles. Winning a competition gives him self-pride, satisfaction and public recognition.

Determined athlete

Many people do not like working under an employment contract. Many people have thoughts about opening their own business. Success in business will only come from a purposeful entrepreneur who is ready to devote himself to his business and work seven days a week (especially in the first months after starting a business). Professionally significant competencies of an individual entrepreneur are self-confidence, willingness to take risks, the ability to overcome doubts, an analytical mind, and developed willpower.

Successful Entrepreneur

If a girl wants to win the attention of a young man, she sets a specific goal for herself. Having decided what kind of relationship she wants with this young man, she chooses the means: she puts her appearance in order, is interested in the area in which the young man is competent, in order to be able to maintain a conversation in the company. In addition, she carefully analyzes her behavior in previous relationships that ended in separation, and she works on her personal shortcomings.

Wants to make a guy fall in love

Two friends met. One told the other about her new hobby: diamond mosaics. The woman became interested in a new form of art for her, so immediately after talking with her friend she went to the store and bought her first set of “Diamond Painting”. Laying out the design with rhinestones turned out to be a fascinating task. However, my back and neck got very tired. It took the woman 2 months to finish the work. Sometimes she completely lost the desire to engage in this type of art, but the picture was very beautiful, and with each new day the final result was getting closer. The woman found the strength to finish the job. Shimmering in the rays of the setting sun, the picture was pleasing to the eye. All the guests paid attention to such beauty and admired the patience of the craftswoman.

Purposefully assembles a diamond mosaic

Quotes from famous people

Many researchers talk about determination. The most striking quotes from writers and scientists are:

“The main stone of any success is determination” (N. Hill);

“A purposeful kid is able to defeat a weak-willed giant” (N. Hill);

“Clarity of goal and an ardent desire to achieve it are the key to victory” (N. Hill);

“The basis of determination is the ability to abstract from secondary things” (M. Dreyspitz);

“A goal-oriented person seeks means to achieve a goal. If they don’t exist, he creates them himself” (W. Channing).

We use the SMART method

The name of the method was given by the first letters of the words specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timed, which respectively means specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, correlated with time.

Achieving a goal directly depends on how well it meets these five characteristics. For example, if we set ourselves the goal of earning money for a new car in a month, then it will be doomed to failure in advance, unless, of course, we accidentally win the lottery. The goal of quickly losing 20 kg without compromising your health will be equally unrealistic.

Setting unattainable and unrealistic goals means dooming yourself to failure in advance.