What Does Intrinsic Motivation Mean?  

Intrinsic Motivation is a natural motivational tendency where you do something for your own enjoyment, rather than relying on external factors. An increase in perceived description and self-determination are the two main factors essential for intrinsic motivation.

Examples of Intrinsic Motivation

You have actually experienced a lot of intrinsic motivation throughout your life, without giving it much thought. Let’s go through some of them

• Drawing a picture as you feel relaxed, rather than drawing it with a thought of selling.
• Exercising regularly as you love to be physically fit and not because you want to lose your weight.
• Learning a new language because you enjoy experiencing new things, and not because you need them for your existence.
• Volunteering because you have a sense of self-satisfaction, rather than doing it to meet a work requirement.
• Cleaning your room only because you like to keep it clean, and not because your mom asked you to.

Factors that Promote Intrinsic Motivation:

Intrinsic Motivation fosters lasting and stronger motivation. You are best motivated when you work towards personally motivated goals.

Here are the 3C’s responsible for Intrinsic Motivation:

1) Curiosity:

The spark behind every great idea is curiosity. Intrinsic motivation can be built only by being curious about the things in your environment.

Intrinsic motivation will be promoted only if you ask the question-“I wonder what it is all about”.

2) Challenge:

Challenging a situation will help you to set personally meaningful goals. It will help us to relate goals to our self-esteem.

3) Control:

This defines the urge of humans to control what happens to them. Regardless of this controlling factor, you should actually free your mind to choose what it needs.

How to Practice Intrinsic Motivation?

• Try to find out the fun in the activities you do. Make it more enjoyable as that you can engage yourself with it.
• Find the aim of the task and know its value or how it may help others.
• Set attainable goals to challenge yourself to master a skill you love.
• Before beginning to start a new task, recollect the moments where you felt proud of yourself and focus on those feelings to conquer your new task.
• While participating in a competition, focus on your performance, rather than judging your peers.
• Make a bucket list of your favorite to-do things, and choose one among them to do whenever you feel uninspired.

Benefits of Intrinsic Motivation

1) Persistence:

Your persistence is directly proportional to the intrinsic motivation in you.

2) Creativity:

The more creative you are, the higher will be your interest, enjoyment, satisfaction,  and challenge of the work.

3) Conceptual understanding:

Intrinsic Motivation is flexible thinking, which paves the way for an active information process, leading to a conceptual way of learning.

4) Optimal functioning and well-being:

This motivation gives us greater self-actualization, self-esteem, subjective vitality, reduces anxiety and depression.

Also Read: 35 Inspirational Quotes For Teacher Appreciation

5) Internal satisfaction:

Doing something for pure enjoyment is only because of intrinsic motivation. And this gives us a positive emotion with internal satisfaction.

What are the ways to cultivate Intrinsic Motivation in Students?

1) Avoid the fear of punishment in students:

Doing something out of the fear of punishment is different from that of doing something out of excitement. Evoking fear is easier than enjoyment. And the results will be different too.

2) Inculcate the feeling of being capable in everything:

One of the major problems that a student faces is the feeling that ‘he can’t do it’, even before trying it. So, it is an important point to make them feel capable to boost an intrinsic motivation in them unknowingly.

3) Give them the freedom to choose what they want to learn and how they will learn:

Rather than suggesting a topic, you make them to choose it themselves, as we don’t know what their real taste is. But if they find it difficult to choose according to their likes, you can make them undergo a psychometric test, with which they can know their real taste.

4) Talk about the difference between Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation:

Generate at least a rough idea about the difference between Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivations, so that they will be aware of what is the difference between them.

5) Give Authentic Student Feedback:

Never give false feedback to encourage students; this will, in turn, lead them to the wrong pathway.

6) Free-thinking day:

Create a free-thinking day, where you can give time to think for your students as if they can do whatever they wish to in terms of creative productivity. It is said that the most lucrative ideas are born then.

7) Say NO to negative motivation:

Fear of failure is the biggest obstacle in achieving a goal. Fear never leaves space for genuine interest or understanding the research opportunity as such.

The responsibility of carving a better society lies on the shoulders of teachers and parents, as they are the ones to mold the future kids into good humans.

In this, intrinsic motivation plays a big role, as this deal with doing thing out of total satisfaction, and if one learns to do things disregarding the reward factor, he’ll do his best.