4. Motivation

Subject title Motivation

Purpose of the activity To introduce participants with the concept, peculiarities and importance of motivation in human life, to help strengthen skills that address the problem of absence or of lack of motivation.

Duration 2–3 hours.

Location and tools Sticky notes, paper, flip chart, projector, writing tools, several computers, internet.

Number of participants 10–20 participants.

Acquaintance/ team building methods Participants are given a few sticky notes, on which they are asked to write their name. Each participant is then asked to approach the wall, to introduce themselves and to stick their sticky note with the name as high and as firm as possible so that it wouldn‘t fall.

Practical tasks

Task: “The so-called schools of motivation“

Time to complete the task: 30 minutes. Discussion and presentations: 30–60 minutes.

Participants are divided into groups of 5–6 people and in these groups they are invited to review the so-called different schools of motivation (that promote motivation and discipline). These so-called schools can be very diverse: well-known speakers, motivators, coaches and their projects, sports schools, projects where people are challenged and helped to achieve their goals, research and their presentations, etc. – everything related to motivation and its stimulation.

Participants can discuss with each other, use computers and the Internet to search for information, etc.

Participants are asked to somehow sort out all of these schools and present them to all participants. It is possible to ask the participants which measures seem the most acceptable and the most interesting. Participants are also invited to share their experiences.

End of session reflection methods Participants are asked to take another sticky note. Each participant is asked to return again to the place where he/she affixed his/her sticky note and this time to affix the second sticky note even higher. Participants are also encouraged to share their impressions and perceptions after the session.

This two-part sticky note method perfectly complements the motivation topic, showing that human possibilities are limitless when the necessary motivation is available.

THEORETICAL INFORMATION

Until April 1954, there was a generally accepted certitude and belief that man is physically incapable of overcoming the four-minute barrier, i.e., that man is unable to run one mile faster than in four minutes. Such an attitude existed because people tried to do it over and over again, but they never succeeded.

And once, Roger Bannister broke that attitude when he ran one mile faster than in four minutes. Since then, and to this day, more than 20,000 people around the world, including schoolchildren, have repeated this victory.

What has changed? When all these people used to go out on the track, they knew it had already been done. As a result, these people had the belief which was already proven in reality that this was possible. But how people looked at Roger Bannister himself when he was seeking to overcome the four-minute barrier? How did people look at his long hours of training where he wasn’t sparing himself? Of course, he was considered a madman, a rebel, a naive man trying to fight nature itself.

We can imagine that Bannister had to have a really strong motivation to achieve his goal. And we can only guess what his deep sources of motivation were in following this difficult path.

Motivation – is a term often used in various contexts, and not in vain. Motivation is primarily an instinctive adaptive function of the body which makes the human species, like all other species, able to survive. Thanks to motivation, people hunted and looked for food in other ways, they also looked for ways how to better build safe housing, got engaged in agriculture as they wanted to feel safer in everyday life. Due to the strong motivation of certain people, all the scientific breakthroughs have taken place and nowadays we can enjoy their fruits.

WHAT DOES THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY TELLS US ABOUT MOTIVATION?

For the past two hundred years, motivation has been studied with interest in a variety of human life contexts: learning, knowledge acquisition, cognitive functions, goal achievement, etc. B. F. Skinner researched the evolution of formation and the reinforcements at various levels in the learning process.

B. F. Skinner divided motivational reinforcements into positive and negative reinforcements. Among the positive reinforcements, he attributed the rewards that a human (or an animal) receives at certain stages of an action when performing commands and requested functions, resulting in increased motivation to perform the action. He considers punishments and other painful consequences to be negative reinforcements as they induce a person or an animal to immediately stop performing actions that cause pain or discomfort. Thus, research at the time helped to understand a few things about human motivation, which we list below.

• A person learns new actions and takes on tasks much faster and with greater motivation when he receives positive reinforcement, i.e., a reward.

• Negative reinforcements, e.g., punishments, may lead you to stop performing certain actions, but are not as effective as positive reinforcement.

• Too frequent acts of positive reinforcement (awards) can also be harmful, as their impact is diminishing each time, but dependence on them is increasing.

• In the case of long-term goals, delayed reinforcement is effective, i.e., knowing that a greater reward awaits in the distant future, but that greater work is needed to achieve it.

Taking into account all these facts, one essential fact becomes clear: in order to increase motivation in performing any action, it is beneficial to create an award that will be given after performing that action. It can be a nice purchase, a gala dinner, a trip, a vacation, etc., depending on the complexity, duration, importance, etc. of the task. However, you should not pamper yourself too much, because in the long run, the appreciation and pleasure of it is weakening. From the perspective of incentive theory, which explores biological needs and natural intrinsic impulses, innate human motivation can be divided into three instinctive motivational groups: hunger, sexual motivation, and motivation for achievement.

Hunger-induced motivation is one of the main to provide the body with the necessary nutrients to ensure all the other functions of the body. One of the main indicators by which the brain determines the level of energy in the body and, in view of this, the need to cause a feeling of hunger is the level of glucose in the blood. When glucose levels start to drop, the brain sends signals with the help of hormones that it is time to eat. However, it is not just that that really regulates our body weight. There are even several separate centres in the brain that thoroughly and strictly monitor the condition of the whole body and body weight and regulate the feeling of hunger accordingly.

Sexual motivation is another vital motivational stimulus, thanks to which the human species has survived for millennia. The “mystical” attraction and love that occurs between two people is actually a astute nature selection process, when nature is looking for two partners whose genetic codes match as perfectly as possible to produce healthy offspring. Sexual motivation emerges and begins to manifest itself actively during adolescence, when sexual maturity occurs, and since then becomes an integral part of a person’s everyday life.

The motivation for achievement also has its own history from ancient times, when people had to put a lot of diligent effort to survive. The communities went hunting together and enjoyed their catch, during the territorial wars, people desperately sought to protect their territory. Over time, man has learned that in order to achieve something, he has to put in the effort and do his job diligently in order to enjoy the results.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL MOTIVATION

Motivation is divided into two main types, which define the directions of motivation.

The first type is INTERNAL MOTIVATION. It is a type of motivation that arises from the very inner state of a person, which includes such factors as curiosity, the essence of an idea, inspiration. In the case of internal motivation, a person neither seeks any recognition nor compares himself with others, he is striving for a goal as if he was playing an interesting and engaging game. It is the healthiest and the most favourable type of motivation.

The second type is EXTERNAL MOTIVATION. This is the type of motivation, when the main determining factors are exclusively external: money, punishment, fear, the desire for recognition, the desire to surpass others. This is not a favourable type of motivation, as in this case, a person devotes a lot of his/her attention to the factors of environmental observation and feedback waiting, which can significantly reduce the feeling of pleasure while performing actions.

INTERNAL MOTIVATION EXTERNAL MOTIVATION

Curiosity

The complexity of the task Idea

Inspiration Money

Fear

Recognition, observation

CHANGES OF MOTIVATION AND PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE IN THE PROCESS OF PURSUING THE GOAL

Most people, when looking for motivation and pursuing one or another goal, undoubtedly name this as one of the main factors they expect in the process – to gain a stable sense of happiness and success. We all remember those moments of euphoria that recur in certain episodes of our life. With the help of the goals pursued, people want to incorporate these moments in some way into their lives and make them stay forever.

The only trouble is that states of happiness and euphoria, like any other strong emotion in our lives, require significant resources from the body and are unhealthy and harmful to health in the long run. Likewise, strong self-emotional arousal, by intensively self-motivating and constantly crossing the threshold of personal possibilities, are states that the body will make every effort to eliminate as ineffective and harmful.

Therefore, a truly healthy approach to motivation and to the pursuit of goals is the development of a state of calm within oneself. The truth is that every journey in which one is achieving one goal or another or following a longterm life strategy will always be accompanied by a wide variety of emotions: there will be ups and downs. So it is worth learning to look at this whole process calmly, discovering inner peace and consistency of learning.

Below there is a picture that picturesquely depicts the journey towards the goal and the emotional diversity in it. Certain aspects that are important to pay attention to are also named next to certain parts in order to avoid greater losses. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow Theory Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a professor of psychology of Hungarian origin, known worldwide as a researcher of happiness, creativity and human well-being. However, he is best known for his flow state theory, which he has been studying for several decades and which is better known in the world as flow state. In his book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” Csikszentmihalyi introduces readers to the theory, according to which people are the happiest once they reach the state of flow. It is a state of complete peace with oneself and the environment and a kind of meditation when perfect unity with the current situation and the action which is being taken is achieved. Each new action complements an existing action as if it were a musical improvisation. The sense of time and space no longer exists, all other needs weaken. All that remains is the presence here and now and the perception of activity.

Flow theory combines sharply focused attention,

motivation, and a situation or environment. All of these things together create a symbiosis which forms an intense empathy for the action being performed, and together with it a sense of inner harmony, balance, peacefulness and satisfaction. It is also important to understand that the state of flow cannot be reached if the task being performed is too complex and new, because in that case huge energy resources are spent on understanding and processing new information. Therefore the state of flow is always a balance between the skills of the subject and the complexity of the task. In other words, in order to maintain motivation and enjoyment in doing one job or another, it is important not to overwhelm your emotional state with complex challenges.

Subject title

Purpose of the activity

Duration

Location and tools

Number of participants

Acquaintance/ team building methods

End of session reflection methods

Practical tasks

THEORETICAL INFORMATION