What is motivation?

Motivation is a pre-requisite for all human action. Put simply, it is a person’s ability to find the energy to achieve a chosen goal. Often it is a case of necessity. For example, the principal reason we are motivated to learn our native language is that we would not survive socially or even physically without some form of verbal communication.

There are two basic types of motivation as follows.

Intrinsic motivation

This is the desire to do something for the sake of doing it e.g. reading a book because you find it interesting and enjoyable. It implies a willingness to learn for its own sake.

Extrinsic motivation

In this situation the drive to do something comes from outside e.g. completing a task to receive a reward or avoid punishment. In this case you might read a book because you do not want to fail an exam.

The better kind of motivation is usually the former (intrinsic), since you are doing something because you want to, not merely because you are obliged to. In these circumstances you complete tasks because of an inner drive to do so, which is more continuous and does not rely on anyone else for stimulation.

You are in university because you want to be and because your area of study is the one you have chosen. In theory then you already have the right kind of motivation (intrinsic)! It is perfectly normal that you will have ‘off-days’. You may not always be able to maintain such strong motivation and there may be dips in your enthusiasm at
various times as you meet different challenges. The main difficulty, then, is not in having motivation in the first place, but in sustaining it.