By James Howe in 2018.
Motivation is a driving force that makes us act. Traditionally, motivation can be viewed as an invisible force that pushes us to either fulfil or satisfy a need or want. Subsequently this allows us to perform to the best of our ability.
Ask yourself why are you motivated to snowboard? Fun, friendship, challenges and expression could all be part of the answer.
There are many theories and studies surrounding motivation from scientific to psychological. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (MHN) is a theory of motivation we are most familiar with. It states if we satisfy physical and cognitive needs we can influence behaviour or motivation and ultimately learn or perform to our optimum. It is a useful tool to help manage motivation. Have you ever performed to your best whilst needing to fulfil one of Maslow’s needs?
MHN is however only one theory and can be limiting as a tool to help moderate our motivation. For example, ask yourself the same question as before, have you still performed to your best or the same as normal knowing that one of the needs are not being met or has been fulfilled too much?
Self Determination Theory (SDT) proposed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan is another theory that focuses on motivation in a slightly different yet appropriate light.
SDT focuses on self determination when exploring motivation, it examines the idea that we as humans all have the drive to be better and achieve more. It is proposed that there are three universal psychological needs that we seek to satisfy and that we cannot fulfil these enough.
These needs are:
– Competence: the need to be in control over our own skills and actions, to be effective in our environment. Ultimately looking for and continuously seeking mastery. Example, the belief that you have the ability to be sucessful in a task (think self efficacy)
– Autonomy: the need to feel in control over our own life and behaviours, this could be through decisions, choice, goals etc. Example, the feeling that you have decided to do something purely out of your own choice (self determined)
– Relatedness: the need to be connected with others, this could be interactions, experiences, caring for or even being cared for by others.
Motivation in SDT is described not about how much of it we might have but rather what type we are experiencing. It can be viewed not as trying to increase the quantity we might have but looking into the quality of the motivation we do have.
It is put on a continuum of 1-6. 1 is fully internalised motivation, described as doing something purely for the inherent sense of satisfaction and joy it brings. This is the ideal end of the continuum, we can experience increased positive mental health, creativity, memory retention, physical performance and importantly continued participation in an action. 3-4 states you could be doing the activity because of ego, guilt, peer pressure or maybe because you know you have to. Finally 6 is being fully and totally externalised described as a motivation where there is no perception of any benefit, satisfaction or joy that it brings to oneself.
Ask yourself where do you lie most of the time, closer to 1 or 6 or are you in the middle of the scale? You may even experience two at the same time or slide rapidly along the scale.
Achieving competence is the challenge we face, we seek to feel competent on our snowboards every day. When we feel most competent we are stoked and when it is low, our motivation is low. Autonomy is the expression and the freedom we feel. We can choose our own path, our own trick, style and our own way to snowboard. Finally relatedness, snowboarding can be a personal pursuit but we ultimately snowboard to share the experience. We can snowboard in groups on the snow, in pairs or talk about it in the pub. There is a common ground that brings together a sense of relatedness whether it be the challenges, the style, the pow or the community.
When these cognitive needs of competence, autonomy and relatedness are all met it allows us to become more intrinsically motivated and move towards or remain at 1 on the continuum. We then allow ourselves access to healthier, long-term effects on motivation, performance and behaviour. This ultimately helps to keep the stoke and ourselves progressing with positive mental attitude.
So finally ask yourself how do you relate to these on a personal level and in teaching? How could you nurture or neglect these needs in order to align with 1 on the continuum?