Page 19 - TPGFBAO First Draft (5th Ed)

Understanding Importance of Motivation in

Life

For a hungry and thirsty man food and water are very strong motives to

work. It is the lowest order of need (physiological).This is often not the case

for most of us in the middle class. As per Maslow’s theory, there are other

motivational needs as we progress up in the need hierarchy — namely “safe-

ty”, “social”, “esteem” and “self actualisation” What experience shows is that

selfish motives are weaker than altruistic motives. Any mother will tell

you that her motivation to teach her children is much stronger than pursuing

her own higher studies. Similarly a committed teacher will find motivation to

teach his students stronger than pursuing his higher studies. In my own

case, I could keep awake and work for long hours at night when I knew that

the lives of my troops and civilian population were endangered. I could not

have done so for selfish reasons.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

When I do a job, solve Math problems, read History, play a game, which I

like, irrespective of any external reward I am ‘intrinsically motivated’. When I

do the same activities but the ‘motivation’ is the reward, like salary, marks in

exams, earning from game, the motivation is extrinsic. Intrinsic motiva-

tion is much stronger than motivation that is extrinsic. An example

of intrinsic motivation is the reason the protagonist in ‘3 Idiots’ gives for

studying mechanical engineering — his love for machines. A combination of

intrinsic and altruistic motives is a very strong force. For example, take

Tendulkar or Leander Paes playing for India. They both find the game IN-

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