Being there

Motivation: a ringside view

Motivation is a fuelling and inspiring force that enables us perform our mundane regular routine activities. It influences our direction and life’s purpose, ultimately affecting our happiness and fulfilment. It provides us with goals to work towards and helps us solve problems we face along the way.

For me (Arja Banerjee), who has lost her father in the last couple of months, seeing my mom boldly fight back almost immediately after having completed the last rites, to support the engineering college my parents had painstakingly established, stands as motivation of the highest order possible. They have always inspired us to be a good human being at first, a good student thereafter and to always drive my ambition to prepare oneself such that we can help other people in future.The need to stay positive and focussed in adverse situations itself works as the motivating force.

 

Motivation classified

Our sense of motivation is influenced by the intensity with which we wish to achieve our goal, our gains, our possible losses in not attaining our goal and our personal expectations. There are both intrinsic and extrinsic factors behind our motivation. The former relates to personal enjoyment, satisfaction, curiosity, or a sense of accomplishment derived from performing the task itself, while extrinsic factors involve rewards, recognition, praise, or tangible benefits obtained from completing the task or achieving the goal.

The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is based on the source or origin of the motivation. Intrinsic motivation comes from within the individual and is driven by internal factors, like enjoyment, curiosity, or a sense of fulfilment. It occurs when people pursue an activity for its own sake. This occurs when people engage in an activity because they are interested in the effects or the outcome of the activity rather than in the activity itself. For instance, if a student does their homework because they are afraid of being punished by their parents, it is a case of extrinsic motivation.

Theorists have further classified motivation on the basis of consciousness, rationality, duration, purpose, i.e. whether egoistic or altruistic; and even a biological-cognitive distinction.

 

How to remain motivated

The key elements that enable us to remain motivated are the intensity of our desire, our persistence and sense of direction. To streamline the process, it becomes very useful if we set SMART goals for ourselves which we can achieve by following a routine in a disciplined way. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. As we pursue our goals in the process, they need to be broken down so as to avoid seeming too overwhelming. Here, it is also important to practise self compassion and not take ourselves too seriously. And most importantly, we should be mentally prepared to embrace failure in the process and take it as a learning opportunity.

The motivation thus acquired needs to remain sustained. So we need to keep reviewing our goals and set new ones in the process. Support groups are important, as are positive people alongside. In spite of it all, if we do get dissuaded from reaching our goal, we should have the resilience to take a break and start afresh.

 

About the authors

The article has been contributed by the following students from Auxilium Convent School, Bandel: Aritri Karmakar, Ishika Biswas, Arja Banerjee, Ahana Banerjee and Dorothy Biswas.