Analyzing motivation
Motivation is what actually makes or breaks a man. Emotions are deeply involved in the process of getting motivated or motivating someone else. We emote as result of the way we react to the stimulus received from the environment. The responses of our hormones to these stimuli also play a major role. We have a set of core emotions and these are all tied up particular facial expression. From this we can infer that there are a specific number of responses ingrained in us that are connected to a specific facial expression. When the external stimulus forces us to respond in a particular way we generate a particular facial expression. If we just reverse what we have read above then we can conclude that in order to change our feelings all we need to do is change the expression on our face. Thus, when talking about motivation it should be clearly understood that it is an intrinsic feeling. What sets this feeling apart is that this is an emotion that is inherent to every human being whatever social strata he may belong. In fact if he/she is suitably motivated and inspired a human can transverse numerous boundaries in order to be motivated. History has shown many great examples of such leader who have been motivated. This has made them cross insurmountable odds and be established as the heroes in history.
The mark of a true leader is that he/she manages to motivate and carry along a crowd of followers with him/her. Leadership is a term that is akin to motivation and a significant fact about it is that when you are a leader you are a person who is motivated.
There are diverse sources from where we get motivational needs. Certain external stimulus, which created a situation that was extremely desirable or undesirable, is one such source. There is also a social angle to the needs associated to motivation. The craving to be associated with a particular group or be an important member of some organization is what I mean by the social angle. The biological factors that speed up or slow down the stimulus that set off our five basic senses are also part of this. Some of the other sources of motivational needs are the effective disagreement. In this, at the same time a feeling of goodness is increased and a bad feeling is slowly eliminated. Another example could be the apparent decrease of danger to self-esteem and simultaneously increasing or keeping a steady level of positive thoughts and encouragement.
Personal dreams and aspiration also work as a source of motivational need.
There are a number of motivational theories and the basic idea of quite a few has already been mentioned in this piece. Behavioral theory is one of the most popular and well documented theories. It states that behavior plays a very major role in motivating a person. Classical conditioning theory is another popular theory of motivation and suggests that a particular biological response to created external stimulus is what acts as the motivating factor. Operant learning theory has a different take on this. According to it a person is motivated to do something depending upon the consequences associated with it. These consequences might be both positive and negative. In fact a study of the motivational theory clearly highlights facts such as that there are several theories that trace their roots to the information processing approach to learning and therefore it is these approaches that focus on the categories and labels people use help to identify thoughts, emotions, dispositions, and behaviors, thus allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of the motivational theory.
The cognitive dissonance theory developed by Leon Festinger has a totally unique take on motivation and that sets it apart from all the others. In fact this is one of the well known theories of motivation that ahs been studied by many a scientist. They have found that this theory has a significant role to play in the motivation theory. After studying this theory it can be understood that there is a connection between these theories and disequilibrium. According to this theory whenever there is a mismatch between any two beliefs or actions or even between an action and belief, the duty of a motivational theory is to resolve the difference and thus disequilibrium is created. As a consequence of this it is seen that a person transforms himself or herself. There is a significant alteration in his thinking process and at the end we also see a major shift in his temperament.
Another cognitive approach theory is the attribution theory. Heider in 1958 and Weiner in 1974 had suggested it. According to this theory an individual tries to explain his success of failure by attributing that to a certain external or internal factor. Thus to sum up the concept we realize that the knowledge-sharing communities and organizations, often consist of members who cite altruistic reasons for their participation. There are a number of reasons that they cite and these include contributing to a common good, a moral obligation to the group, mentorship or 'giving back'. At the same time in the office arena we notice that a powerful factor for motivation is money and this provide a more powerful extrinsic factor which is far more significant than the intrinsic motivation provided by an enjoyable workplace. Nonetheless it can be said with certainty that the obvious form of motivation is coercion and definitely as far as this is concerned the avoidance of negative consequences has an immediate effect.
Finally we can conclude that the basic function of motivation is to create such a condition within the individual that he/she is encouraged to do something. They are ready to walk that extra mile to reach a particular target. Motivation is also the factor that helps a person take up challenges and that makes life worthwhile. Often a person who is down and dredged, need to be suitably inspired and motivated. Only then he can survive all odds and create what is known as the history.
Every person needs to have a self-motivating factor. For people who are not self motivated it is a challenge to keep themselves charged up and motivated. This is because only when you are motivated you can reach your targets and achieve your goals. At times, however the people themselves are unable to be motivated. In such a scenario they need the guidance of the leaders who allow themselves to stay focused and work towards their goals.