How do attitude emotional intelligence and motivation affect college and job success?

Our attitudes toward success and failure actually begin in the Mastery Stage during grade school (see Stages of Life, examples: Maslow; Piaget; and others). If a child's parents always completed tasks and homework for the child, or if a child was told he or she would never amount to anything, that child may feel unmotivated to even try to perform tasks.


However, attitude, emotions and emotional intelligence, and motivation can each change throughout life. This is important! People can and do change-- in all areas.


Attitude

Many young adults enter college because it "is expected". Some of these students don't really want to learn, but they enter college as if it is another milestone, like progressing from baby bottle to a sippy cup. If they have the attitude that they don't really care about education or about the grades they earn, these students could be satisfied with earning a C.

Other students, though, have an attitude that values learning, education, and achieving adult milestones. With this attitude, even a student with an aptitude of a C-learner may concentrate harder, study longer, and earn a B-grade instead of the expected C.


Motivation


Motivation works hand-in-hand with attitude, and for the most part, each is a component of success in any endeavor. In some cases, though, (a bad or poor) attitude can work against motivation. For example, a young man's attitude is the world acts against him and gives all the breaks to people who have better homes, cars, clothing. He has none of these - yet. He feels motivated to go to school, learn a good trade that will earn him good money. He has the aptitude, even though he hasn't always brought home A's in high school. Then, half-way through the first semester, he scores a "C" grade. His negative attitude rears up; he blames the instructor for giving other "better-dressed" students the A's and that he only got a C because "the teachers want me to fail, just like my dad always said I'd fail". Here, the student has a psychological disconnect between his desire and motivation, and his attitude and self-esteem. Usually, a person can have all the desire and motivation in the world, but if he or she suffers from a low self esteem with negative attitudes about themselves especially or about others, success will be hard-fought and hard-won. IF, however, the person changes their attitudes and maintains their motivation, success comes much easier regardless of a person's background.


Emotional intelligence (EI or EQ)


Emotional intelligence differs from what we know as IQ-- intelligence quota. There are many people who have high IQs but who have impaired emotional intelligence (EI). EI combines many inter-personal and personal skills and helps guide us in our reactions to other people. EI is not the same as maturity or immaturity, but instead relies on one's ability to accurately assess, identify, and even manage the emotional climate within ourselves and in relation to others. Rather than being mature or strictly self-reliant, IE means we can rely on our emotional senses as one skill among many other skills (such as IQ, attitude, motivation). Daniel Goleman introduced this "mixed model" of how to define IE. You can read more here about the different definitions and models: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence



Summary

The descriptions I gave apply to students or employees. Remember though, many people with lower EI often do succeed in highly skilled professions... and many average IQ students succeed and obtain gainful employment. Of all of these traits, motivation and attitude put the most drive into any accomplishment, and for that reason, educators and psychologists must give early attention to people who grew up in environments with low motivation and negative attitudes.