Self Control and Motivation in Endurance

Throughout the book “Endurance” Shackleton and his men went through many hardships, but were able to overcome them due to strong leadership and motivation to succeed by Shackleton. Each journey that these men took to reach their intended goal was draining and tiring on everyone involved. Each person had to have self control and motivation to keep going no matter how hard it got. Shackleton played a huge part in the men’s persistence to continue on this journey. Whenever there were obstacles, Shackleton would come up with plans and would give jobs to the crew to stay productive. He did it while staying calm which would exude confidence onto his men. If their leader was calm, then the crew would be less worried. This may not have always been the case, but every person did what they needed to do to survive and to help the other men survive. It was not only Shackleton who would help this crew, but each and every man were helping each other to survive this journey. Self control also had to be used in relation to their food rations. They would be given a certain amount of portions to eat in order to have enough food for later in their journey. This took a lot of self control for these men to not over eat as most if not all of them were starved every day. Some men would have more self control by saving portions of their already rationed food to have for later which would allow them to have gratification in the coming days. This was also exhibited when Shackleton allowed for feasts when they were about to move camps. Because of self control, they were able to have this leftover food to have a feast allowing for greater gratification. Motivation and self control helped these men get through their journey. Self control can be helpful in my everyday life and I use it when thinking of money. Whenever I get paid, the immediate thought is to spend it because now I have it, but using self control, I am able to put some of that money aside to get a bigger reward later using my saved money. If I spend everything right away I may not have savings to go on a vacation.