Day Four & Five

The past two days have been groundbreaking for my self motivation transformation. I spent countless hours at the library preparing for two exams I have this week. Instead of cramming the night before, I have nothing to worry about because I already feel prepared. I have a Statistics exam Monday morning and I am confident I will do well. I worked up the drive to study earlier because of extrinsic motivation. I was able to master the material in advance so I would not have to stress about it. This extrinsic motivation was driven by the external reward of a good grade. I realized that in order to do better and retain more information, I would have to be smarter about the way I study.

I feel more than ready to take this exam on Monday and I will avoid any feelings of frustration, anxiety or fatigue that I usually experience while cramming. César Bejarano, a fellow blogger, describes extrinsic motivation as a “person [getting] pleasure from the result of the process, rather than by going through the process.” He states that the external factors control the performance of the individual. In other words, our desires to perform a task are influenced by what tangible or psychological reward we can get from it. My personal motive for studying hard all week was to get a better grade than I would have gotten had I crammed the night before. An important point to note is that extrinsic motivation also includes performing activities in order to avoid punishment.

Benefits of extrinsic motivation include an increase in production and operations. People are more willing to do something if they can receive something in return.

Example of extrinsic motivation include:

• Winning a race to beat the competition.
• Taking a higher-paying job over a job that you would enjoy more.
• Completing assignments to avoid failing a course.

Citations:

Bejarano, C. (2016, August 29). Motivation to Design: Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation & 8 Motivators for Creation [Web log post]. Retrieved October 1, 2017, from https://medium.com/against-design/motivation-to-design-extrinsic-and-intrinsic-motivation-8-motivators-for-creation-169397a4f0d0