Motivation

All work is an uphill climb that requires effort. We human beings with our fallen human nature don't always feel like working, but we have to do it anyway if we want to accomplish our daily tasks. Some students try to get by with a minimum of work, and, unfortunately, end up doing less than the minimum and experiencing failure. How can people get motivated? What are the underlying factors in the process of motivation?

The most important factor in motivation is the hope of success. People who envision success at the end of their endeavors can sacrifice themselves to the point of exhaustion. Athletes drive themselves to acquire the skills they need. Business managers stay at work until a pressing problem is solved. Mechanics and farmers keep working until the job is done. Motivated students spend hours after class puzzling out difficult problems or researching their papers.

Students who resist completing their assignments inevitably experience failure and the resulting discouragement. Then, of course, they become even more resistant, experience more failure, and become more discouraged. Restoring the hope of success interrupts the downward spiral. In order to escape the failure cycle, the student must acquire the necessary skills for success. The student may need extra practice, tutoring, or placement in a different group or class where the work is easier. With many students who have avoided work, the mere fact that they have to spend extra time catching up can be a motivating factor that eventually leads to the success that will keep them motivated.

Even more devastating to progress than the lack of skills is discouragement. Discouragement involves the loss of hope for success. Discouraged students are hard to teach. Their fear of failure can even produce a kind of paralysis in the face of a difficult question or task. These students especially need patience and kindness. When they are being blocked by their fears they will often hesitate and look at the teacher or parent. At this point it is of the utmost importance to smile approvingly. The teacher or parent often feels quite frustrated at this point. Smiling approvingly is the last thing the adult may feel like doing. However, giving encouragement to a struggling student is so essential that it literally makes the difference between success and failure.

When a student becomes blocked, making the task easier with a hint or two will often get past the block and give some measure of success. Then an additional problem or question can be given because the student "needed too much help". This tactic prevents the student from just waiting until the adult does the work. If students learn how to get other people to do their work for them they will continue to fall behind and experience failure.

In the scheme of things some failure is to be expected in every human life. None of us can ever be successful at everything all the time. There will be hard subjects, job loss, possessions damaged, and personal conflicts. The one area in which all of us can succeed all the time is in relationship with God. We can continue to hope in Him, no matter what our apparent weaknesses and failures may be. God never asks the impossible of us (although people often do). God always gives us whatever resources we need to do whatever He wants us to do. The things of this world pass away. If we put our hope in them we'll end up disappointed every time. Hoping in God alone, however, invariably leads to success. Then that success produces the motivation to keep working and hoping. When we look up at God in prayer we know that He is smiling at us. We feel encouraged, and we keep working and hoping. . . We can teach that to our children, and then we'll all be happy together forever and ever.

Mary Sue Laing, M.Ed.
Resource Teacher, St. Ambrose School
newskill7@msn.com

by Mary Sue Laing, M. Ed., New Skill, Inc. Academic Tutor