Motivating Ourself

Motivating Ourself

Oleh:

Arip Nurahman

Pendidikan Fisika, FPMIPA, Indonesia University of Education

&

Follower Open Course Ware at MIT-Harvard University. U.S.A.

Introduction

Waktu masih remaja, kita mempunyai kemampuan untuk belajar dan melihat kelalaian masa lalu. Ketika kita mulai mengikuti ajaran-ajaran keluarga, sekolah, dan lingkungan, motivasi kita di awal tahun berganti dari tujuan kita ke menyenangkan orang lain, dan sering kali keinginan kita untuk belajar penderitaan.

Motivasi adalah dorongan psikologis yang mengarahkan seseorang ke arah suatu tujuan. Motivasi membuat keadaan dalam diri individu muncul, terarah, dan mempertahankan perilaku, menurut Kartini Kartono motivasi menjadi dorongan (driving force) terhadap seseorang agar mau melaksanakan sesuatu.

Motivasi yang ada pada setiap orang tidaklah sama, berbeda-beda antara yang satu dengan yang lain. Untuk itu, diperlukan pengetahuan mengenai pengertian dan hakikat motivasi, serta kemampuan teknik menciptakan situasi sehingga menimbulkan motivasi/dorongan bagi mereka untuk berbuat atau berperilaku sesuai dengan apa yang dikehendaki oleh individu lain/ organisasi.

Bagaimana anda bisa motivasi diri sendiri?

Dengan latihan ini, coba untuk

· mengakui rasa penemuan anda

· bertanggung jawab pada pelajaranmu

· menerima resiko dari belajar dengan kepercayaan, kemampuan, dan otonomi

· mengakui bahwa "kegagalan" adalah sukses:
belajar dari kegagalan alalah dengan jalan yang sama belajar apa

· merayakan prestasi anda jika dapat mencapai tujuan anda

Motivating yourself,
intrinsic values

Print this and write three reasons you want to learn:
focus on your needs, curiosity, pleasure

1.

2.

3.

Post on your wallboard, or in your notebook diary.

Studies have found that you will

put in more effort	try different ways to succeed
be more persistent	learn more deeply
if you are intrinsically* motivated.

* Intrinsic motivation is your motivation,

and includes your goals, your values, and your interests. This is what turns you on!
Examples:

1. I want to learn to type faster to communicate with my friends.
2. I want to learn about Africa to learn about my family's history.
3. I want to work and learn in a ski shop to ski better.
4. I want to learn joinery to make my stereo cabinet.

Motivating yourself:
extrinsic values

Print this and write three reasons someone else wants you to learn this

1

2

3

Do not post this on your wallboard but place it aside for later;
or place it as the last page in your notebook diary

Extrinsic motivation comes from outside yourself and is not as effective as intrinsic motivation. It includes the goals, values, and interests of others as they affect you. You learn in order to avoid punishment, or to get a reward, or to please someone. Examples:

1. I learn dates to pass a history test.

2. I learn this computer program as a job requirement.

3. I learn how to kick to please my coach.

4. Extrinsic motivation is not bad; it just isn't as effective as intrinsic motivation.

Keep intrinsic reasons first whenever possible.

Motivation Concepts

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation comes from rewards inherent to a task or activity itself - the enjoyment of a puzzle or the love of playing.^[1] This form of motivation has been studied by social and educational psychologists since the early 1970s. Research has found that it is usually associated with high educational achievement and enjoyment by students. Intrinsic motivation has been explained by Fritz Heider's attribution theory, Bandura's work on self-efficacy ^[2], and Ryan and Deci's cognitive evaluation theory. Students are likely to be intrinsically motivated if they:

• attribute their educational results to internal factors that they can control (e.g. the amount of effort they put in),
• believe they can be effective agents in reaching desired goals (i.e. the results are not determined by luck),
• are interested in mastering a topic, rather than just rote-learning to achieve good grades.

see also Intrinsic motivation and the 16 basic desires theory below.

Extrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation comes from outside of the performer. Money is the most obvious example, but coercion and threat of punishment are also common extrinsic motivations.

In sports, the crowd may cheer on the performer, which may motivate him or her to do well. Trophies are also extrinsic incentives. Competition is in general extrinsic because it encourages the performer to win and beat others, not to enjoy the intrinsic rewards of the activity.

Social psychological research has indicated that extrinsic rewards can lead to overjustification and a subsequent reduction in intrinsic motivation.

Extrinsic incentives sometimes can weaken the motivation as well. In one classic study done by Green & Lepper, children who were lavishly rewarded for drawing with felt-tip pens later showed little interest in playing with the pens again.

Self-control

See also: Self motivation

The self-control of motivation is increasingly understood as a subset of emotional intelligence; a person may be highly intelligent according to a more conservative definition (as measured by many intelligence tests), yet unmotivated to dedicate this intelligence to certain tasks. Yale School of Management professor Victor Vroom's "expectancy theory" provides an account of when people will decide whether to exert self control to pursue a particular goal.

Drives and desires can be described as a deficiency or need that activates behaviour that is aimed at a goal or an incentive. These are thought to originate within the individual and may not require external stimuli to encourage the behaviour. Basic drives could be sparked by deficiencies such as hunger, which motivates a person to seek food; whereas more subtle drives might be the desire for praise and approval, which motivates a person to behave in a manner pleasing to others.

By contrast, the role of extrinsic rewards and stimuli can be seen in the example of training animals by giving them treats when they perform a trick correctly. The treat motivates the animals to perform the trick consistently, even later when the treat is removed from the process.

Applications

Education

Motivation is of particular interest to Educational psychologists because of the crucial role it plays in student learning. However, the specific kind of motivation that is studied in the specialized setting of education differs qualitatively from the more general forms of motivation studied by psychologists in other fields.

Motivation in education can have several effects on how students learn and how they behave towards subject matter^[9]. It can:

1. Direct behavior toward particular goals
2. Lead to increased effort and energy
3. Increase initiation of, and persistence in, activities
4. Enhance cognitive processing
5. Determine what consequences are reinforcing
6. Lead to improved performance.

Because students are not always internally motivated, they sometimes need situated motivation, which is found in environmental conditions that the teacher creates.

There are two kinds of motivation:

• Intrinsic motivation occurs when people are internally motivated to do something because it either brings them pleasure, they think it is important, or they feel that what they are learning is significant.
• Extrinsic motivation comes into play when a student is compelled to do something or act a certain way because of factors external to him or her (like money or good grades).

Note also that there is already questioning and expansion about this dichotomy on motivation, e.g., Self-Determination Theory.

Motivation has been found to be a pivotal area in treating Autism Spectrum Disorders, as in Pivotal Response Therapy.

Motivation is also an important element in the concept of Andragogy (what motivates the adult learner).

Sudbury Model schools' approach to motivation

Sudbury Model schools adduce that the cure to the problem of procrastination, of learning in general, and particularly of scientific illiteracy is to remove once and for all what they call the underlying disease: compulsion in schools. They contend that human nature in a free society recoils from every attempt to force it into a mold; that the more requirements we pile onto children at school, the surer we are to drive them away from the material we are trying to force down their throats; that after all the drive and motivation of infants to master the world around them is legendary. They assert that schools must keep that drive alive by doing what some of them do: nurturing it on the freedom it needs to thrive.^[10]

Sudbury Model schools do not perform and do not offer evaluations, assessments, transcripts, or recommendations, asserting that they do not rate people, and that school is not a judge; comparing students to each other, or to some standard that has been set is for them a violation of the student's right to privacy and to self-determination. Students decide for themselves how to measure their progress as self-starting learners as a process of self-evaluation: real life-long learning and the proper educational evaluation for the 21st Century, they adduce.^[11] According to Sudbury Model schools, this policy does not cause harm to their students as they move on to life outside the school. However, they admit it makes the process more difficult, but that such hardship is part of the students learning to make their own way, set their own standards and meet their own goals. The no-grading and no-rating policy helps to create an atmosphere free of competition among students or battles for adult approval, and encourages a positive co-operative environment amongst the student body.^[12]

Business

At lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, such as Physiological needs, money is a motivator, however it tends to have a motivating effect on staff that lasts only for a short period (in accordance with Herzberg's two-factor model of motivation). At higher levels of the hierarchy, praise, respect, recognition, empowerment and a sense of belonging are far more powerful motivators than money, as both Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation and Douglas McGregor's Theory X and theory Y (pertaining to the theory of leadership) demonstrate.

Maslow has money at the lowest level of the hierarchy and shows other needs are better motivators to staff. McGregor places money in his Theory X category and feels it is a poor motivator. Praise and recognition are placed in the Theory Y category and are considered stronger motivators than money.

• Motivated employees always look for better ways to do a job.
• Motivated employees are more quality oriented.
• Motivated workers are more productive.

The average workplace is about midway between the extremes of high threat and high opportunity. Motivation by threat is a dead-end strategy, and naturally staff are more attracted to the opportunity side of the motivation curve than the threat side. Motivation is a powerful tool in the work environment that can lead to employees working at their most efficient levels of production. ^[13]

Nonetheless, Steinmertz also discusses three common character types of subordinates: ascendant, indifferent, and ambivalent whom all react and interact uniquely, and must be treated, managed, and motivated accordingly. An effective leader must understand how to manage all characters, and more importantly the manager must utilize avenues that allow room for employees to work, grow, and find answers independently.^[14]

The assumptions of Maslow and Herzberg were challenged by a classic study^[15] at Vauxhall Motors' UK manufacturing plant. This introduced the concept of orientation to work and distinguished three main orientations: instrumental (where work is a means to an end), bureaucratic (where work is a source of status, security and immediate reward) and solidaristic (which prioritises group loyalty).

Other theories which expanded and extended those of Maslow and Herzberg included Kurt Lewin's Force Field Theory, Edwin Locke's Goal Theory and Victor Vroom's Expectancy theory. These tend to stress cultural differences and the fact that individuals tend to be motivated by different factors at different times.^[16]

According to the system of scientific management developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, a worker's motivation is solely determined by pay, and therefore management need not consider psychological or social aspects of work. In essence, scientific management bases human motivation wholly on extrinsic rewards and discards the idea of intrinsic rewards.

In contrast, David McClelland believed that workers could not be motivated by the mere need for money — in fact, extrinsic motivation (e.g., money) could extinguish intrinsic motivation such as achievement motivation, though money could be used as an indicator of success for various motives, e.g., keeping score. In keeping with this view, his consulting firm, McBer & Company, had as its first motto "To make everyone productive, happy, and free." For McClelland, satisfaction lay in aligning a person's life with their fundamental motivations.

Elton Mayo found out that the social contacts a worker has at the workplace are very important and that boredom and repetitiveness of tasks lead to reduced motivation. Mayo believed that workers could be motivated by acknowledging their social needs and making them feel important. As a result, employees were given freedom to make decisions on the job and greater attention was paid to informal work groups. Mayo named the model the Hawthorne effect. His model has been judged as placing undue reliance on social contacts at work situations for motivating employees.^[17]

In Essentials of Organizational Behavior, Robbins and Judge examine recognition programs as motivators, and identify five principles that contribute to the success of an employee incentive program:^[18]

• Recognition of employees' individual differences, and clear identification of behavior deemed worthy of recognition
• Allowing employees to participate
• Linking rewards to performance
• Rewarding of nominators
• Visibility of the recognition process

Online communities

Motivation to participate and contribute represents one of the most important element in the success of online communities (and virtual communities).

See more at: Online participation

Masih Bingung Memotivasi diri kita?

Ini dia sebuah Tips dari Kang Refi Harianto:

Cita-cita atau tujuan hidup ini hanya bisa diraih jika anda memiliki motivasi yang kuat dalam diri anda. Tanpa motivasi apapun, sulit sekali anda menggapai apa yang anda cita-citakan. Tapi tak dapat dipungkiri, memang cukup sulit membangun motivasi di dalam diri sendiri. Bahkan mungkin anda nggak tahu pasti bagaimana cara membangun motivasi di dalam diri sendiri. Setiap orang mendambakan masa depan yang lebih baik, kesuksesan dalam karir, rumah tangga dan hubungan sosial, namun seringkali kita terbentur oleh berbagai kendala. Dan kendala terbesar justru ada pada diri kita sendiri.

1. Perluas wawasan

2. Mengembangkan gambar diri yang sehat.

3. Temukan kekuatan dibalik pikiran dan perkataanmu.

4. Lepaskan masa lalu, biarkanlah ia pergi.

5. Temukan kekuatan di dalam keadaan yang paling buruk

6. Yakinlah dengan keyakinan anda.

7. Memilih untuk berbahagia hari ini.

Sumber:

Wikipedia

Pengalaman

lainnya!

Revisi dan Perbaikan:

Ke-1: Tgl: 09-10-2009

Arip Nurahman

(Guru dan Dosen Profesional)