1st Pillar of Intrinsic Motivation
Self-efficacy, our belief in our ability to perform an action or role, is the 1st crucial pillar that underpins motivation. It is linked to eustress, which is based on how we perceive a given situation or the stressors behind it: as a negative threat or a positive challenge.
Someone once said:
“Everything we know how to do, is tested by what we don’t know how to do, and the conflict between the two is what creates growth and meaning.”
If stress is winning that conflict, growth and meaning remain untapped.
Judy Willis, a neurologist turned teacher, states that boredom or frustration are the most common causes of stress in the classroom (and possibly workplace too).
While stress has some positive effects on short-term memory, it doesn’t help us to remember facts. Our ability to recall facts relies on the prefrontal cortex. However, the amygdala is the switching station that, when hyperactive in response to high stress, switches input and output away from the prefrontal cortex, and down to the control of the reactive brain, which can overpower our response through felt emotion (we feel distress as opposed to eustress, and those facts we’re trying to learn just don’t stick).
Demotivation can be a vicious cycle.
If challenges are continuously perceived as a negative threat rather than a positive opportunity, it can lead to low self-efficacy
Without self-efficacy it is hard to find intrinsic motivation to grasp these opportunities
Feelings of failure will grow, leading to heightened stress, which will continue to divert control away from the prefrontal cortex, increasing the probability of feeling distress rather than eustress
Motivation can be self-perpetuated in a virtuous cycle also. Here are just a few ideas to help you mentor others who may be feeling high levels of stress about something:
Make sure that negative consequences for inaction are not highlighted
Explore distress and eustress together, as well as the evolutionary benefit of stress
Encourage contingency planning
Break the stressful role or action down into manageable chunks
