What The Martian Can Teach You About Charging Your Own Batteries

The Martian is one of my favorite movies. Directed by Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon, and winner of several Golden Globe awards, the film depicts an astronaut’s lone struggle to survive on Mars after being left behind, and efforts to rescue him and bring him home to Earth.

In order to have any chance of being rescued, the stranded astronaut, Mark Watney, must navigate his rover hundreds of miles across the Mars surface to locate an abandoned spaceship that he could use to rendezvous with the mother ship.

Overcoming The Big Obstacle

Mark faces a serious obstacle. His rover runs on batteries which are charged from solar panels at his home base station. One charge won’t take him to the destination, so he has to return to home base to charge his batteries.

Mark tries to overcome this obstacle by eliminating weight on the rover in order to extend the range. While this helps, it still doesn’t get him far enough. In a moment of desperation, Mark has the brilliant idea to detach the solar panels from the base station and bring them with him. He lays out the panels during the day so they can charge his rover while he sleeps. At night, he continues driving toward his destination. This solution allows him to continue forward movement without having to return to home base.

Mark makes it to his destination. Can he get the old spaceship to work? Is he rescued? I won’t spoil the ending in case you want to see the movie.

Charging Our Psychological Batteries

Getting our personality-specific psychological needs met is a lot like Mark Watney’s journey.

• We each charge our psychological batteries in unique ways.
• We all have a long journey ahead of us.
• The journey drains our batteries.
• Charging stations are often few and far between.
• We can’t always run home whenever our batteries get low.
• When we bring along our own “portable charging station” we greatly enhance our stamina, agility, and range.

Discover your personality-specific psychological needs.

How do you get your psychological needs met when you are on the road?

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