3 keys to motivation - Motivation #1
And how to use them, right now.
Hi! I’m Laure, a passionate tutor with 2800+ hours of experience helping students navigate through their learning journey.
Over the last 7 years, I have seen many students feeling completely demotivated. While most people agree that motivation is key to get anything done properly, little is taught to our children and teenagers about how to find that motivation.
This article is the first of a series with a pretty self-explanatory title: Motivation.
And today, we’ll warm-up with the fundamentals of what gets us motivated: the 3 main factors influencing our motivation as human beings, as theorized by Mr Robert Vallerand1 (Professor of Psychology at the University of Quebec, Canada, most known for his research on motivational processes). With my tutor touch to make it as relatable as possible to you.
1. Personality.
What does that mean? It includes the personality traits that you might first think of (being optimistic, showing perseverance, being a procrastinator, just to name a few), but it also includes all of what may define each of us as human beings. For instance, passions, centres of interest, or personal goals.
Is personality self-determined then? In part, yes.
But:
we can all work on developing qualities that we wish to have, and
it’s not about changing who we are, it’s about acknowledging it to take it into account when building our learning strategies. For instance, procrastinators also have huge qualities, so much so that I already wrote them a love letter.
How can I use it? Personality has the advantage of being so deeply rooted in you that you always carry it around: it doesn’t take much effort to rely on it, as we already do it naturally.
What may be harder is to acknowledge the parts of us that we are less proud of. Being a procrastinator, for instance.
Sometimes, all it takes to find your spark again is to remember who you deeply are, where you are at, and the personal goals you want to achieve.
2. Context.
What does that mean? Context as theorized by Vallerand is basically: ‘what are you doing this for?’
Context can be about rewards or sanctions, but it can also be about the reasons why you’re doing a certain task.
Let’s take the example of a 12 year-old preparing a math exam. Their contextual motivation can be related to:
‘Mom told me we would go shopping an entire Saturday together if I get at least a certain grade (reward), or that I would be grounded for a week if I get below a certain grade (sanction)’
Or ‘I really want to get a good grade on this test, because it is a selection test to get a chance to represent my school at an international competition’.
How can I use it? By remembering why we are doing something, we recall that what we are doing now, no matter how unpleasant, is a phase and not the outcome itself.
If the goal is not obvious or clear, set one yourself. It can be:
directly related to the job you need to get done: for instance, ‘I know you hate math, but you dream of becoming a doctor. So you’ll need math for a couple more years. Hang on there.’
or indirectly related to the job you need to get done: for instance, ‘Yeah, math, whatever. I want to become a writer anyway. But I’ve seen this pair of shoes that I’d really like to have. Ok, deal: I get the job done, and once it’s done, I’ll ask my parents if I can get it.’
Want to increase the commitment? Share your goal with someone you feel close to. By having shared it with someone else, you will feel more engaged, because someone is now likely to ask you if you reached your goal, and thus, implicitly, if you’re proud of yourself.
3. Task.
What does that mean? Task refers to the nature of the activity that you need to engage with: reading a book, revising for a test, doing your homework, just to name a few. The more you like the task, the more motivated you will feel to get it done.
How can I use it? Well, some tasks are pleasant, some tasks are not. And unfortunately, unpleasant ones are not ones we can just get rid of (or at least, not always).
So if you need to get down to work on something you’re really not looking forward to, best you can do is try to adjust the environment: alone or with friends? At home or at the school library? In your bedroom or at the kitchen table? In the weekend or after school?
Keep in mind:
Personality, Context and Task constantly interfere with each other. So it’s not about changing one, or another, or all three of them, or thinking that the problem is only about one of them. However, having them in mind will help you identify what works for you, and what doesn’t, and what you can try to change to make it all work better.
Last but not least. What worked for your teacher, your parent, your sibling, your tutor, may not work for you: so feel free to explore and find your own way of getting down to work. It will be useful for more years than you think.
https://www.scienceshumaines.com/robert-vallerand-la-souffrance-n-est-pas-necessaire-pour-atteindre-l-excellence_fr_47291.html