Question

Discuss why people try to attain difficult goals?

Is motivation likely  to be higher at some career stages than at others? Why or why not

Are career plateaus inevitable for most employees? Why or why not

Answer 1

This answer has its root in both philosophy and psychology, I am going to take the psychological approach here. Attaining difficult goals and attempting them is necessary for an individual for a number of given factors. First of all, it represents the hierarchy of needs as given by Abraham Maslow. It provides the individual with a sense of achievement and therefore increased motivation when they are able to achieve such hard goals. On the other hand, the need to constantly improve and keep moving is part of our human existence and is even more necessary in today's corporate culture which has increased emphasis on capabilities, performance and the aspect of change.

Yes, motivation is initially higher when we begin our career and thereby it continually decreases as we have progressed through the different stages in life as well as our work. Though it is not the normal case for every individual, we can say that the most motivated individuals tend to be the younger generation that has just started working. This is attributed to higher levels of career planning, goals and the level of attainment that one has. We need to be able to understand the function of motivation on the basis of our needs as well as the aspect of the nature of the work itself. SImply saying that motivation is higher when there is the availability of harder tasks as well as future goals can be considered as the most viable reasons to understand this process.

While career plateaus are common, it is not invertible, rather, it can be said to be the function of a proper aspect of career management, understanding of our own personal need as well as an adherence to the aspect of utilization of skills based on selecting SMART goals. Once an individual is able to define their needs, their skills as well as their goals, they can carefully manage their career as an aspect of positional compromise thereby creating an understanding of improvement and constant growth while remaining at the same position professionally.