INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

Intrinsic motivation is an inspiration that comes from personal willingness, arouses from one’s desire or excitement enjoyed not influenced by external push as in the case of extrinsic motivation, has nothing to do with reward or punishment if not done. To learn more about the differences between Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation, click on this link

Example of when I was intrinsically motivated by something

I grew up to see my mum as a typist, and during this time, it was manual typewriters emerging to electric and finally to computers we have and see today. As a typist, my mum kept herself with every latest development or changes in technology. migrating to the electric typewriter was very easy for her, but the emergence of the computer changed everything.

So she decided to employ someone to teach and train her on the basics of computers. Her teacher comes every evening to have her trained; however, they are always having issues the next day when he comes in and asks a question about what she learned the previous day.

While all these were going on, I always sit down on a chair facing the computer but backing the sitting position of my mum who is the student and her trainer; one day, their revision session caught my attention, so as soon as my mum left for work the next day, I decided to hop onto the computer and started practicing on my own, that same year I graduated from a boarding high school and also had a colleague of mine in the school where I teach, she will go with me to our house and tell me some basic things. Before you know it, I started going deep into my practice and even overtook my mum.

So whenever her trainer comes and asks her few questions and she is confused, I quickly tell her how to go about it, and when he discovered I am beginning to know more than what I’m supposed to, he was not happy with it at all. So he decided to stop teaching my mum. And from then, I intensified my research on how to work on computers. Even though my dad who is a doctor must not see me near a typewriter at all, what he wanted for me is to become a medical doctor like him. I was quietly practicing when both mum and dad have gone to work. Before you know it, I started assisting my mum with having customers job done, while doing this, I was learning and updating my skills even though during this period I’m talking about, internet accessibility has not gained wide recognition and in fact having an email address is a big achievement where you only have opportunity of checking emails maybe once a month by visiting the café to do so.

Before you know it, my younger started learning from me, my mum’s business has the best computer operators and her store is always filled with the customer who wants to get their job done, and later on, became something that customers will have to book an appointment for and as it’s on the first-come-first-served basis.

My goal and what motivated me

My goals were to find out if operating a computer is that difficult and why is it a big deal, due to how complex the trainer was making it look.

Another goal was to get my posting to a city and an organization where I can learn and gain more experience.

My motivations and rewards thereafter:

My motivations:

* Curiosity: I was curious and that was the first motivation I had.

* Fun: I was doing it for my excitement.

* Competition: Due to the recent migration from manual to digital, the competition was high, and what customers want, is having their jobs done using a computer and not a manual typewriter, and this started closing out the manual or electric typewriter businesses.

The rewards I gained from all these, was that I was able to acquire good computer skills through personal researches I made, I even migrated to graphics designs, data analysis, and ICT to mention a few. My mum’s business grew and we all benefited from it. Lastly, I was opportune to meet people of great recognition.

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