The Key to Motivation

We have another great post from our student guest contributor Samantha Ege on motivation: 

Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher in the early 1800s, stated that being motivated was “to be moved into action, or divide on a change in action” (Deckers p.2); motivation has been a popular topic for centuries and is still today. But what exactly is motivation? It’s talked about in schools, at work, and even at home; there are many definitions and branches of motivation, that have many variables contributing to it. Everyone has problems with keeping his or her own motivation, but there are ways on maintaining it.

Motivation is the reason why we do what we do and how we change our behavior. Motivation is how we complete tasks; simply, we need motivation to actually act. However, motivation alone is useless; energy, knowledge, and competence are also really important. Energy is the ability to complete an action, and it has two forms, psychological and physical energy. In other words, you must be in the right mindset and be physically able to complete a task. Knowledge is the “how,” how can you complete a task, and “competence means being capable of performing the behavior necessary to achieve a desired end” (Deckers p.9).

The ability to act is just the starting point, physically acting is where motivation is the most relevant. There are a few models that explain what can cause motivation; the most common way is dividing motivation into two categories; push and pull motivation. Push motivation is your desire to do something, usually by the effect of motives, which are internal causes of motivation; for example hunger. Pull motivation is something (externally) pulling you to do something by the work of incentive, or external causes of motivation, for instance, getting a pay check for going to work. (Deckers p.3).

There is another way you can classify motivation; motivation has internal and external causes. Internal causes are either biological, (the brain and body), psychological (the mind), or environmental (how you view your surroundings). External causes are mostly incentives – as stated earlier - there are positive incentives, that tell you to do something, and negative incentives, that tell you if you should avoid something. There are also environmental effects which is, basically, what is actually in your surroundings, not really how you interpret it.

Unfortunately, knowing how motivation works and what influences us often does not help when finding motivation is a struggle. You have probably had trouble finding motivation at least once, but there are ways to find your motivation again. Usually the reasons why we have trouble being motivated is because of the task itself. The task could be unrewarding, boring, excruciatingly long, difficult to understand, the potential rewards aren’t immediate, or the likelihood of failure is high. There are some ways that you can use to increase motivation.  One way is to visualize yourself reaching potential goals and the other is simply forcing yourself to complete the task. Visualizing the completion of goals and other tasks can help make completing a goal more probable. 

Visualization is a very powerful tool. Many of your favorite athletes may be practicing visualizing themselves winning the game or preforming well on the field. Forcing yourself to complete a task or reach a goal does not sound very appealing, however, once you have completed the task once, each time that task is required it becomes easier. Forcing yourself to complete a task is the most sure-fire way to increase your motivation. If you have ever exercised or went to a gym you likely understand this concept. Going the first time is incredibly hard but each time after is easier. With the right tools and knowledge, everyone can understand how to motivate themselves. If you are having trouble finding motivation or setting goals consider reaching out to a psychologist for assistance. 

References

Deckers, Lambert. Motivation: Biological, Psychological, Environmental. Fourth ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Hi! I’m Samantha Ege, and I am currently a sophomore at Iowa State University. I am originally from Carol Stream Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, and attended my local high school, where I was first introduced to Psychology. Majoring in Psychology and



being a research assistant this semester has opened me up to research and how I can conduct research in my everyday life. Although I am not sure what field of Psychology I was to pursue, I am positive that Psychology is the way to go.