Motivation

This topic comes up often in running. Tonight I am headed over the Running Room to talk to the ½ marathon clinic about motivation. Being a smart lad I decided that I should look up some details on the subject. After a few minutes with Google I determined there is no lack of theories on what motivates us as humans.

I got to thinking, here I am going to talk to about 30 – 40 people about motivation. After thinking it through I had come to the realization that how do you motivate people who are motivated. Think about it, here are 30 – 40 people who are training for the ½ at the Bluenose this year, they come out Sunday’s, the do the hill training on Wed. and come to the clinic on Tuesday. They must be motivated or why would they bother.

So I pondered about what is motivation, of course being an Internet Jockey off to Wikipedia for this definition “Motivation refers to the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of a behavior.”(Geen, 1995). It also goes on to say that “Motivation is having the desire and willingness to do something,”

In order to be motivated to do something there has to be a reward, we have to get something out the behavior or else why bother. So the theory goes on to say there are two types of rewards, first Extrinsic, this is a reward that comes from outside the individual. In the case of us runners maybe it’s the medal or t-shirt we get for participation. It could be that we are looking for praise from our peers and friends. Somebody to tell us we did a good job.

Secondly there are intrinsic rewards; these are the internal rewards we give ourselves. This is the self satisfaction of a job well done. We giver ourselves a pat on the back smile that big smile when we cross the finish line because I did it, nobody else took me across that finish line. Intrinsic motivation is when we engage in an activity for its own sake. Why run a marathon, because I can, no other reason.

The big difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is that there are no rewards in intrinsic motivation. As explained earlier we run because we can, running is it’s on reward. But, I don’t think it starts there, it starts with extrinsic motivation. There has to be something to make us want to take that first step.

I suppose we can explain it by using Maslow’s theory, you may remember some of this from high school science or worse maybe first year college or university psychology. This is the hierarchy of human needs theory. Basically stated, as humans we have wants and desires which influence our behavior, only unsatisfied needs can influence our behavior, satisfied needs cannot.

Does that mean there is something unsatisfied in our lives to make us want to take the first steps? Perhaps it’s the Physiological need this is the lowest on Maslow’s pyramid. I am feeling out of shape, by changing my eating habits and doing more exercise I will feel better about myself. If I feel better about myself I will feel more secure and safe in my environment. This may give me the self confidence to be more social and interact with my peers and the environment around us. If we are more confident about interaction certainly our self esteem will go up leading to the fact that I am really a good guy and radiate positive energy to others (Self Actualization).

There I just explained running in terms of Maslow’s theory, not bad for a regular guy. So extending Maslow’s theory we garner the praise of others in the social step of the pyramid. Therefore giving us extrinsic motivation for running, it’s not only nice to know that you did a good job, but it’s even better when the instructor and your peers recognize the fact that you did a good job.

But still why do we take that first step? I think I can answer that question for myself, but I don’t think I could for someone else. My motivation is to live a long healthy diabetic life, it goes back to what I always maintain, and “I run for my life”.