What is Motivation?
Motivation is defined as a driving force or force responsible for the initiation, persistence, direction, and vigor of goal-directed behavior.
Human behavior, aspirations and goals, thinking, and feeling cannot be understood without considering the role of motivation in it.
Motivation prompts compels, and energizes an individual to act or behave in a particular way to attain some specific goal.
Let's go to the depth of Motivation
The word motivation came from the Latin word meaning to move.
Hence, motivation is a study of what we do, and why we do that.
It is the process within that organism that moves it towards some goal.
The goal may be to acquire something or to avoid something.
Motives are specific forces that energize and direct behavior toward solving a problem to achieve a goal.
A motive is a specific need or desire, such as hunger, thirst, or achievement that prompts goal-directed behavior.
Motivation in our everyday life
The first stage for the starting point of this motivation cycle is the birth of a desire, want, or need in the individual. The desire wants or needs to make an individual think about the way and means of satisfaction.
The drive or motives so produced on account of the felt need a desire now become a driver, persuader, and energizer of one's behavior. It initiates one's behavior toward a goal-directed path and provides sufficient inputs for the continuation of such behavior until the goal in terms of the realization of the desired need, desire, or want is not attended.
However, what one gets through the satisfaction of his felt need or desire through his motivating behavior, provides a temporary hold to his behavioral activities.
Satisfaction often leads to a motivated behavior that reinforces one's behavior to work for the realization of another goal which is the satisfaction of other needs or desires accompanied by new motives.
In this way, one motivated behavior gives birth to the next motivated behavior in the shape of a motivation cycle. It further energizes an individual to remain in the cycle of motivation by creating new desires, ambitions, and needs, the satisfaction of which further requires a new set of motivation behaviors and motivation cycle.
So right now, we studied the motivation cycle which starts from motive & ends on motive.
The process that accounts for an individual's intensity, direction, and persistence of efforts to attain a goal.
Intensity - describe how hard a person tries.
Direction - in which direction the person is working is it a goal-directed direction.
Persistence - how long a person can maintain his or her efforts.
When we are talking about motivation how can we forget Maslow's theory of Motivation!
Maslow's Theory of Self Actualization or Hierarchy of Human Needs
This theory was developed by ABRAHAM MASLOW in 1954.
The best-known theory of motivation is Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow hypothesized that within every human being, there exists a hierarchy of five needs.
First and foremost is Physiological needs
1. Physiological Needs
It includes the most basic needs that are vital to surviving such as the need for water, thirst, air, food, shelter, and other bodily needs.
2. Safety Needs
After fulfilling the physiological needs organisms want to protect the environment from their enemy's security and protection from physical and emotional harm.
3. Love and Belongingness
This includes needs for belonging, love, and affection. Now the individual is interested in making intimate relationships with other members of the society being an accepted member of the law of an organized group.
Important to note that you can't go on to another level of this hierarchy without fulfilling the previous level
4. Esteem Needs
This includes the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition, and accomplishment.
Internal factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and achievement, and external factors such as status, recognition, and attention.
And the last one...
5. Self-actualization
This is the highest level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. When a person comes to this level, he comes to recognize his strengths and weaknesses.
And for a person to reach the level of self-actualization is very challenging and very hard.
the persons who have achieved the level of self-actualization are mostly saints.
There are two types of motivation
Extrinsic motivation and Intrinsic motivation let's know what are they
Extrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic motivation is those that arise from outside of the individual and are less often involved in rewards such as toffees, money, social organization, or praise.
Intrinsic Motivation
Intrinsic motivation is the type of motivation in which a person acts because it is fun, rewarding, challenging, or satisfying in some internal manner.
Motivation is something you get, from yourself, automatically, from feeling good about achieving small success.
Take Away 😊
Don't be sad if you think that you are not internally motivated. See motivation is not just a one-time action it's a time action.
Without being motivated you can't go a mile, and without trying to walk you can't be motivated to walk even a mile.
Find the things that give you internal happiness, the work for which don't need external motivation, the work for which you don't need to be pushed, the work for which you are ready every time & anytime, a friend that's your internal motivation that's your passion 😊 go & rock the world.
"Motivation is the fire that starts burning after you manually, painfully, coax it into existence, and it feeds on the satisfaction of seeing yourself make progress."
