The theme of this week’s lecture is about How We Are Differently Motivated. It highlights how people’s sources of motivation vary and how understanding these differences can help us sustain our drive in both personal and professional contexts. If you are new, this is a continuation of the IT2900 Weekly Reflection series where I share my responses to the weekly assignments of this course.

The previous week’s blog post was titled “Pause to Propel” You can take a look if you later find this article interesting.

Personal Takeaways

Initially, I did not find this week’s topic interesting. However, as we progressed through the discussion and heard more from our guest speaker, I realised that I was indeed interested in this topic. Motivation has been something I’ve often questioned over the past few years whenever I paused to reflect on life. Perhaps the ongoing midterms in the past weeks didn’t allow me to pause and realise that I’ve always been interested in understanding motivation.

Every now and then, I look back at moments in life when I did great work in something I was pursuing, and I ask myself why I was so motivated back then but not anymore. What we learned in this lecture about self-determination theory (SDT) seems to best answer a question that has been on my mind recently: “Why do I sometimes feel unmotivated, while at other times I feel driven and inspired?” Honestly, I felt that my motivation peaked during high school. Over the past one to two years in university, life has sometimes shifted into a “getting things done” mode rather than an “enjoy doing it” mode. However, recently it has been more of the latter, and I will explain the reasons behind that later. More context on my high school motivation will be discussed in the second question.

One key factor that I believe reduced my motivation earlier was the transition from being a teenager to an adult (though I’m still quite young, 19 this year). Coming to university and moving to Singapore have made me more concerned about life. What drives my motivation now tends to be extrinsic factors: growth in life, external rewards, and career progression. Back then, I wasn’t limited by the expectations of the world, or perhaps I just hadn’t seen enough of the world to be afraid. I was simply creative, autonomous, and driven by passion.

What I learned today is that those were intrinsic motivations, which can be strengthened through the three components of SDT: autonomy, mastery, and relatedness. One extra point I want to make is that extrinsic motivations are sometimes not only temporary but can also bring you down. After coming to university, I became more concerned about life, and many of my decisions started being driven by fear or by others’ expectations rather than my own passions. For instance, when choosing a project or deciding how to spend my time, I often focused on the potential benefits or outcomes. Back then, I simply focused on whether something would be fun, and life was good.

As a side note, I did not mean to say I would just spend time watching movies and have fun, I meant I would choose something that have some benefits. However, those benefits may not be valued by persons who need to assess and evaluate me, such as recruiters, etc. One of the key properties of those tasks are also things I feel I am not good at, but I want to keep doing it anyways.

Reflecting on that, I feel that I should have done more things for myself, and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing in the past few months, which has made me happier in my day-to-day life. During the summer, I was glad to have the autonomy to design features and learn from the projects and people I worked with at CVWO. As the semester began, I chose courses that I genuinely enjoyed rather than those others recommended. These are small steps, but they’ve really helped me feel more motivated.

Looking ahead, I think that if I make small life decisions the way I did as a kid: chasing fun and learning rather than focusing on extrinsic factors or others’ opinions, I can become more confident in my choices and happier in general.

In conclusion, I want to encourage myself and others to do something for themselves if they haven’t done so in a while. Of course, sometimes we have no choice, but I’ve also found that we can still connect those situations to our values somehow and make them at least 1% more enjoyable. That small sense of enjoyment, and its connection to SDT, can help keep us motivated in life.

Reflections on When Motivation Is High/Low

When I Was Very Motivated

Looking back to my final year of high school, I remember being very motivated. During that time, I had the opportunity to work on several research projects, which became one of the most fulfilling periods of my academic life.

For context, my school typically required students to complete one research project in the penultimate year as a graduation requirement. In the final year, most students focused on studying for national exams and preparing for university. What was special in my case was that I had overloaded my elective courses in the earlier years, so by the last year, I had very few classes left. Looking back, that gave me a strong sense of freedom and autonomy, which allowed me to explore my interests creatively.

I had already completed one research project for the graduation requirement, and that experience was rewarding. It exposed me to real-world applications of knowledge beyond what I learned in the classroom. I also had the chance to present my work at various science fairs and conferences, which was a completely new and exciting experience for me. I have a chance to work on what I care about, and it was a good thing that my mentor allowed me to have lots of autonomy in my decisions.

In my final year, I wanted to further build on that momentum. I channelled my motivation into pursuing deeper mastery in both academic knowledge and the presentation and writing skills I had developed along the way. Reflecting on it now, I realize that my motivation was driven by intrinsic interest rather than external pressure. While most of my peers were focused on exams or university preparation, I found genuine joy in conducting research and learning independently, which is aligned with the contributors of SDT. Having a chance to explore the combination of multi-disciplinary subjects, also convince me to pursue degree in Computer Science at the end.

When I Was Not Motivated

From my observation, I don’t think there is a specific situation that creates the kind of demotivation I am going to talk about. There are several similar situations in my life that share common attributes, particularly when I am working with people who do not care about the work and are just in the “getting things done” mode.

Some examples of such people include those who work only close to the deadline despite having free time earlier, while delivering work that reflects at most half the effort of others. Another example would be group projects where no one bothers to reply to messages or join discussions. For me, the problem with these kinds of situations is that they lack autonomy and relatedness. Of course, I can still do my own tasks at my own pace since nobody is overseeing them, but it is hard to communicate with others when I am stuck or when tasks depend on them. I have less control because sometimes we need to divide tasks, and I cannot work on something because others have not started yet.

I would say relatedness also contributes here, since poor communication makes team members feel more isolated and less approachable. It doesn’t feel like I belong to the team or the work I am doing. When these kinds of situations happen, it is hard to control what others think, so it is likely that I, along with other enthusiastic members, will eventually stop putting in extra effort and also switch to the “getting things done” mode, which is quite unproductive in the long run.

Related Motivation Theories

So far, I have found that SDT is the most relatable theory, as suggested by the above experiences. First, I would like to acknowledge that intrinsic motivation is more reliable than extrinsic motivation. The reason why SDT is particularly important to me is because it correctly describes the scenarios where my intrinsic motivation actually arises. It allows me to utilize them to build more sustainable motivation.

For instance, I can look for ways to make something more autonomous or more meaningful, and that will contribute to my motivation in doing it. It is a powerful technique that can make things more enjoyable to do. We just need to understand what we value, such as learning or relatedness, and try to find ways of doing things in a manner that contributes to our values.

I believe this technique can also be applied to developing others. If we understand the values of our team members, we can assign tasks to them more effectively. When encountering issues, we can decide how to approach and provide mentorship in ways that would resonate with them the most. `