Personal Motivation Factors
Module Six Assignment
Chris Lewis
EDU 523
April 16, 2008
There are many factors behind our motivations. I am intrinsically motivated to watch TV, eat chocolate, and play with my dogs (poodles, tons of them at the moment--puppies). I am also intrinsically motivated to browse the internet, learning all I can about and building computers, learning graphics and photography skills, and watching movies. These are genuine intrinsic motivations because I do not make a living at these things, and I actually take time away from extrinsically motivated activities to do these things. I enjoy learning about history and culture, and l love to travel to new places. I love to eat good food because it tastes good.
I want my floors to be pretty, so I am motivated to lay hardwood. I guess enjoying the hardwood might be an extrinsic factor, but I actually enjoy that kind of thing anyway, otherwise I would not have been sanding the floors at my sister's house. Perhaps motivation in a person's life would best be expressed in a Venn diagram, where there was a section in the middle for the things that have an external reward, but are largely promoted by internal desire.
I believe that if I were to list my activities into two columns, intrinsic and extrinsic, the pursuit of my masters' degree would fall into both columns. I need to make money as a teacher: therefore, extrinsic. I wish to become highly educated, it is my personal duty to develop my intellect as I feel it was a blessing to me, and I shouldn't squander it: therefore, intrinsic. I want to make money and have the summers off. This is a further extrinsic motivation for a master’s in education, and not just the pursuing of knowledge for knowledge's sake. Love and money are the strongest motivators we have (besides survival), and they are tied closely together. I have been a substitute teacher for eight years. I did not want a full time job because I wanted to be able to take my Dad to the doctor and his chemo. If being unemployed for the rest of my life meant my Dad was still with me, there would be no question as to my choice. However, he is not, so my motivations changed.
I believe in order to be truly successful in life, our motivations for what we do must fall into both categories. If we hate our work, then the rewards of money begin to fade over time. When I was in college, I experienced the sophomore slump, which is so easy to recognize after you have been through it (a lot like puberty, or motion sickness). I went to a college known for giving people a social conscience, and the desire to make the world better. I questioned my purpose for being there, for getting an education, was it just to make money? Because that sure sounded like a hollow existence. Had I made the right choice, or was I doomed to destruction, boredom and misery in this chosen field? I tried to talk to my Dad about this, and I don't know how much he understood me, but he did say something that helped keep me going. He said, "You have to make a living at something." My parents grew up in good old-fashioned Appalachian poverty, no electricity and running water, and built their lives from nothing. Money was not necessarily a hollow pursuit to him; it was just a means of survival. It made me feel okay with myself for wanting education for money's sake because I had to make a living at something. It might as well be a decent living, because work is work and you'd might as well get paid. It helped me to understand that becoming educated in order to secure a well-paying job was not an act of greed, but a means to a successful life. I have recently been discussing with my students the meaning of wealth. I explain to them that financial independence is a necessary step to wealth, and that physical appearances of wealth are not the same as true wealth. True wealth is the freedom to do what you want; go where you want when you want to, with whom you want. True wealth answers a lot of wants.
I believe there are many reasons why some activities are intrinsically enjoyable. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators work together. Some things answer to our basic human needs; quality food tastes good, air conditioning feels good, a roof is handy to have in winter... these basic needs help us to translate the extrinsic rewards of monetary wages to meet internal desires like comfort, not just survival. Work itself may not be intrinsically enjoyable, but if we find work that we are more easily intrinsically motivated towards, then we are like to reap inner enjoyment and outer rewards. Sports and hobby activities allow us to have creative expression and community with others. Human beings have forethought and the ability of long-range planning. We are likely to accept temporary discomforts that lead to long-term payoffs. I also believe we develop intrinsically motivated desires based on the things that have brought us pleasure and success in the past. This topic is discussed in the section on self-concept in Anita Woolfolk's Educational Psychology, in which she writes about how students choose elective courses in high school based on the ones they have been successful with in the past. These selections over time shape a person's career choices (2006, p. 86). Her example illustrates the importance of the self-concept on choice, and choice is often a result of motivation.
Reference:
Woolfolk, A. (2006). Educational Psychology (with MyLabSchool) (10th Edition) (MyLabSchool Series). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
