Motivation & Perseverance

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Understanding My Motivations

INTRODUCTION

Understanding what motivates us is key to setting career goals and for planning for a  career. When setting out to design your career pathway, you need to ensure that you are planning a career around activities and tasks that bring you some sense of fulfilment, as well as giving you the economic return that you expect. Our motivation is a key factor in determining our career success. So therefore, it is important that we understand what motivates us.

Knowing what motivates is valuable; it helps us to identify the factors that contribute to our sense of achievement, to our drive and what measures of success mean most to us. When we know where our motivation comes from, we can also measure when our motivations change, when they increase or decrease, and what factors cause these changes. Knowing what drives us, will help to propel us forward to achieve our goals and the successes that are personal and specific to us as individuals. This might all seem a little simplistic on the surface, you might already think you know what motivates you – money, status, competition, working with others, working for a cause, etc. While these might be your superficial motivations, it is important to dig deeper, to find out what your true motivations are. Understanding this about yourself will ensure that you persevere and achieve your goals.

TASK

You are applying for a job in a top technology firm. You are drawn to this firm because of all of the generous benefits they offer and the prospects this firm offers to advance quickly in your career with them. You have your heart set on working there. You know that the interview process will be highly competitive, and that you will need to participate in a group interview to pass the first step.  You have been researching online about the types of interview questions that this firm tends to ask their candidates.  One of them relates to people’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.  You know that this will be asked at the interview, but you don’t quite understand what these terms mean.  Your friend advises you that you should complete some research online and develop a short elevator pitch – 30 seconds – that outlines exactly what your intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are.  By taking this step, you will be prepared for this question if it comes up during the interview!

PROCESS

Step 1: Intrinsic Motivation vs. Extrinsic Motivation

The first step is for you to develop a deeper understanding of what we mean by intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. This will ultimately help you to understand a little more about your own motivations in life. To improve your knowledge of these topics, conduct some research online and learn the difference between your intrinsic and extrinsic motivations:

Step 2: Determining my own Intrinsic Motivations:

Great, so now you know the theory, but what does this all mean for you? In order to impress at your competitive interview, you will need to be able to identify what your own motivations are. Starting with your intrinsic motivations, take some time and determine what motivates you on a personal level. Write down your intrinsic motivations.

If you are stuck for some ideas, the following link might prove useful in giving you some examples:

Step 3: Determining my Extrinsic Motivations

Good job, now you have a better understanding of your intrinsic motivations. Up next, you should repeat the process and identify the external factors that motivate you. Take some time again to reflect, and write down what your extrinsic motivations are. If you are stuck for some inspiration, the following link might shed some light on the subject for you:

Step 4: Preparing my Elevator Pitch

Congratulations, you know understand the internal and external factors that motivate you – that is a big achievement! Next, you need to formulate this into a short, concise but thorough answer that will convey what your motivations are to the interviewer. A very useful format for crafting your answer is to prepare an elevator pitch. Don’t know what this is or how to develop one? Don’t worry, you will find the information you need in the links below. Once you have visited these links, get to work on developing your own elevator pitch – remember, it shouldn’t be any longer than 30 seconds, so you’ll have to practice and time yourself to get it right!

·         [VIDEO] How To Create Your 30 Second Elevator Pitch!: https://youtu.be/Lb0Yz_5ZYzI

Step 5: Hosting a Mock Group Interview

You have come this far and you now understand why you really want this job and what motivates you; but you are nervous about the interview and you really want to do your best. One common technique that people use to prepare for an interview is to get their friends or family members to perform a mock interview. This is where the other person takes on the role of interviewer, so that you have the opportunity to practice your answers before the actual interview. Thanks to mock interviews, candidates don’t feel as nervous at the actual interview because they have already practiced delivering their answers. To gain this valuable practice, assemble a group of your friends or classmates; appoint one of them as the interviewer, and the others will take on the role of other candidates for the job. Ask the interviewer to prepare a list of questions, so that you don’t know what questions will be asked or the order they’ll be asked in, but make sure they address the topic of motivation so that you can practice your elevator pitch. When this preparation is completed, set aside 30 minutes to hold this mock group interview. Remember to dress appropriately for the interview and best of luck!

Step 6: Evaluating my Interview Performance

In order to succeed in any walk of life, we need to be able to reflect on our performance at key stages, to how well we did and to identify areas where we could improve. This practice of self-reflection is key to ensuring that we persevere and are successful in achieving our goals. You are determined to succeed but competitive interviews are difficult, so you need to review how you performed in the mock interview and determine how you can improve your performance in the real thing. It might be a good idea to record the group interview so that you can undertake this analysis, and not just based on your own memory of the interview (although ensure you get permission from all participants to record the interview beforehand). Self-awareness and self-reflection are key determinants to improving and enhancing our performance. To complete this final step, you should complete a self-evaluation checklist after your mock interview. You might find these following links to be useful:

EVALUATION

KnowledgeSkillsAttitude
• Theoretical knowledge about motivation.• Describe my skills and competences relating to career options.• Awareness of my intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.
• Theoretical knowledge of intrinsic motivation.• Distinguish the difference between personal and external factors that motivate me.• Appreciation of the value of motivations in determining success.
• Theoretical knowledge of extrinsic motivation.• Describe my intrinsic motivation.• Willingness to assess my own motivations.
• Factual knowledge of how to develop an elevator pitch.• Describe my extrinsic motivation.• Openness to engaging in preparatory activities, such as undertaking a mock interview.
• Fundamental knowledge of participating in a group interview.• Develop an elevator pitch.
• Factual knowledge of how to complete a self-evaluation.• Practice presenting my skills and motivations.
• Participate in a group interview.
• Adapt my communication style for a group interview.
• Evaluate my performance in an interview.

As part of the assessment of this WebQuest, all learners will be expected to work independently to identify their own motivations, to develop an elevator pitch and to deliver this pitch in a mock group interview which they have helped to organise. The aim of completing these activities is that they will build core skills of young learners in the areas of self-evaluation, communication, public speaking, collaboration and team-work. These are all key skills that will benefit learners in their future careers. For the mock interview, these activities can be overseen by the teacher or youth worker; who will observe the group interview and will be on-hand to provide feedback to the young learners participating in the interview. Teachers and youth workers can also support young learners completing a self-evaluation after the interview.

As a self- assessment exercise for this WebQuest, learners will then be asked complete a short self-reflection exercise and write 300-350 words on how they rated their performance in the task, what elements they enjoyed or didn’t enjoy and what they would do differently, if they were to repeat the activity again. The following questions will guide this self-assessment:

  • How did you find the process of evaluating and identifying your intrinsic and extrinsic motivations? Did you struggle to identify your intrinsic motivations or your extrinsic motivations more?
  • How easy was it for you to write your elevator pitch? Did your pitch improve with practice?
  • How did you find the mock group interview as an experience?
  • How did you rate your performance in the interview?
  • Did you have to change your communication style in the group interview? Please explain.
  • What elements of this activity did you enjoy best?
  • What aspect did you find most challenging and why?
  • What skills did you acquire through this activity? Is there something you were good at that you did not think you would be good at?
  • If you were to do this activity again, would you do things differently next time? What and why?

And complete a short quiz: https://forms.gle/Gep4RFU1ASPCN56HA

Answers:

Q1: Intrinsic motivation means:

  1. Motivation that comes from external sources
  2. Motivation that comes from a family member
  3. Motivation that comes from personal satisfaction

Correct: 3

Q2: Which of the following is NOT an example of intrinsic motivation?

  1. Reading a book to fulfil a personal goal
  2. Reading a book for school
  3. Reading a book for enjoyment

Correct: 2

Q3: Extrinsic motivation means:

  1. Doing something so that you can grow as a person
  2. Doing something so that you don’t get in trouble
  3. Doing something so that you can develop a new hobby

Correct: 2

Q4: Which of the following is NOT an example of extrinsic motivation?

  1. Going to the gym to lose weight
  2. Going to the gym to impress a colleague
  3. Going to the gym to de-stress after work

Correct: 3

Q5: Which of the following should you NOT self-assess after your interview?

  1. Sense of Humour
  2. Body Language
  3. Handshake

Correct: 1

Questions that a youth workers or teacher might use in a whole class discussion to debrief this WebQuest:

  • How would you rate the over-all experience? Did you enjoy learning through completing a WebQuest challenge?
  • How did you enjoy working independently? How did you enjoy the mock group-interview?
  • Did you find it easy or difficult to determine the factors that motivate you?
  • How did you perform in the interview? Did you like this role? Would you have preferred to take a different role?
  • Did you enjoy the scenario? Are there other scenarios that you would have preferred to work through? Why?
  • What do you think you have learned through this challenge?
  • Do you feel like you have gained new skills? If so, what are they?
  • What parts did you enjoy most and least? And why?

Do you have a sense of accomplishment on completing this challenge?

CONCLUSION

Congratulations! You have reached the end of this challenge and you have learned about what motivates you. Motivation is a key resource that we have within us, which can support us to attain our goals and propel us forward to succeed. Motivation can be hard to muster, but once we tap into what motivates us most, it can provide an unending supply of support, inspiration and enthusiasm that will to spur us on to achieve goals and ambitions in our personal and professional lives. In many cases, the reasons why we do what we do, and don’t do, stem from what motivates, or doesn’t motivate, us. Understanding and knowledge what motivates us most can help us to plan career and learning pathways that are in keeping with what motivates us, meaning that we will stay engaged and inspired to see what we plan through. Now you understand what motivates you, it is time to plan your own road to success, whatever that means for you! If you take one thing with you from this lesson, remember the quote:

“The harder I work, the luckier I get” – Samuel Goldwyn

Photo by Manasvita S, on Unsplash

Reviving your Local Cultural Festival!

INTRODUCTION

Motivation and perseverance, what do we mean by these terms? Motivation can refer to our willingness to undertake an action, what compels us to act the way we do and go after certain goals. In this way it is linked to our behaviours and our values – those things that we hold dear to us, that we use to strive for better. Perseverance refers to our determination to use our motivation to complete the action. In order to achieve a goal, we need to be motivated – we need to identify the role our values have in setting the goal – and we need to practice perseverance – to overcome obstacles and be determined to achieve our goal. These are key attributes for an entrepreneur to have. While not all entrepreneurs have the same motivations or values, they all share a personal motivation, and a lot of perseverance, firstly to establish their business and get their idea off the ground, but also to keep their business in operation, regardless of what obstacles or difficulties they encounter. Understanding your motivations and learning how to harness these so that you can achieve a goal through perseverance, are the first steps to starting and managing a successful business. To practice and develop these qualities, we have put together a short activity for you to complete in small groups.

TASK

You volunteer as part of a local cultural festival committee. The festival has been running in your community for the last 7 years, but recently there has been little support for it from the local community and the turn-out for the festival last year was at an all-time low.  With sponsors considering pulling their funding and support for this event, the festival is getting to the point where it either needs to re-invent itself, or else it will be cancelled.  You, and another member of the committee, are determined not to let that happen!  Between the two of you, you decide to work together to brainstorm ways that you can re-invent the festival and bring back some of the support from the local community, as well as attracting new families and individuals from communities across your region. The decision about whether or not the festival will go ahead will be made at a local community meeting in 10 days’ time. At this meeting, members of the festival committee and local sponsors will discuss the merits of investing in the festival for one more year to see if things can be turned around.  This is you and your partner’s opportunity to convince these individuals to continue to support the festival this year! For this meeting, you and your partner will need to prepare a presentation using a Business Model Canvas, to show how you will revolutionise the festival and bring festival goers back to your community. With the 2-3 changes that you will introduce to the festival in mind, you will complete a Business Model Canvas template, and present it to the festival committee, along with a cost-benefit analysis for these changes, and the expected impact that these changes will have on the festival.  Remember, the future of the festival is at stake, so make sure to make compelling arguments!

PROCESS

Step 1: Assessing the Damage

In order for you and your partner to prepare your plan for revitalising this festival, you first need to understand and assess why the festival failed in the first place. Working with your partner, hold a ‘festival de-briefing’ meeting to make a list of all the things that went wrong in your festival. In order for you to plan for the future, you first need to evaluate the failings and mistakes of the past. When you have your list of the 3-4 main reasons why you and your partner believe the festival failed, it will be time for you both to take the first step towards planning for the future of the festival.

The following links might help you to evaluate what went wrong with your festival:

Step 2: Brainstorming

Now that you have evaluated your previous festivals and assessed what went wrong, it is time to dust yourself off and start generating some ideas that will breathe new life into the festival!

One of the most common techniques for coming up with new ideas is called brainstorming.  It works best in a group or pair, because everyone comes up with as many ideas as they can and then all ideas are shared around, which may spark a new idea in another group member.  The activity involves setting a time limit of 5-10 minutes and, in that time, writing down every idea that comes into your head – the ideas can be silly, ridiculous and outlandish – it is most important in brainstorming that you don’t’ censor your ideas, because you don’t know what idea might work best when you and your partner put your heads together.  After 5-10 minutes, you and your partner should share and swap ideas.  When brainstorming your ideas, remember to make sure that you are addressing the issues that you identified in step 1!

The following links will help you and your partner to complete the brainstorming activity:

When you have a list of all ideas that you and your partner have generated, take some time to narrow down which are the most realistic ideas, and which could yield the greatest benefit for the festival.  You should end this activity with 4 or 5 good ideas. 

Step 3: Idea Evaluation

Now that you have brainstormed ideas to get the festival back on track, it is time to narrow these ideas down further, so that you can bring forward the most appropriate ideas to save your festival!

There are many different methods and techniques that you and your partner can use to evaluate the quality of the ideas you have come up with.  The most common idea evaluation techniques include the ‘Six Thinking Hats’, which works best in a group, and which encourages group members to consider ideas, and problems, from different perspectives.  Just remember, you need to complete this activity for all the ideas on your list! That might take some time… especially as you are working in a pair – that means you each will need to wear 3 hats each for each idea!

To help you get started, you might find these links helpful:

If you are limited in the amount of time you have for this step, you could also complete a simple idea evaluation matrix, where you and your partner can evaluate and validate each idea based on a set of parameters in the matrix.

For some examples, or to get you started in developing your own idea evaluation matrix, you might find the following links to be useful:

Step 4: Cost-Benefit Analysis

The final step in preparing your ideas, is to find out how much these additions to your festival will cost your festival committee, and what the intended benefit will be for your community? You need to be able to estimate how much your ideas will cost, what resources you can call on to invest in the festival and who will benefit from these improvements to the festival?

To help you to complete a cost-benefit analysis for your festival ideas, the following links might be a useful starting point:

This step is also the beginning of completing your Business Model Canvas. When you have completed your Cost-Benefit Analysis, use the ‘Cost’ part to complete the ‘Cost Structure’ segment of your Business Model Canvas. You don’t need to fill the Canvas in at this point but take note of the cost you propose in your plan – you will need it when you complete the Canvas in step 7 below.

When you are evaluating the additional supports and resources you have within the community to call on to support the festival, you can use this information to complete the ‘Key Resources’ segment of the Business Model Canvas.

Step 5: Finding a New Audience

Now that you have completed a Cost-Benefit analysis for the new innovations you will introduce to your festival, it is time you consider who these changes will appeal to? In business terms, we call this identifying your market segment! If you consider this festival to be like a business, the idea here is that you will identify who your ‘customers’ are. For this, as well as identifying who you want to target, you also need to consider how you will convince them to attend? What are the unique elements of your festival that will attract your intended, or target, audience? We call this a Value Proposition.

In order to identify your customer, or market, segment and to write your value proposition, these links will help you and your team:

Based on your research in this step, you can use this information to complete the ‘Customer Segment’ section of the Business Model Canvas.

Step 6: Marketing – How far can your message reach?

So, you now know who your target audience are and what message you are going to use to attract them to your festival – but how do you get the message out there? You need to consider what marketing resources you have at your disposal, but remember, the festival committee has a limited budget! You and your team have set the target to reach 5,000 people with news of your festival, how will you achieve that?

These links might help you to plan to reach 5,000 people with your message:

With what you have covered in this step, you will be able to complete the ‘Channels’ segment of the Business Model Canvas. You now have content for 4 of the 9 segments completed. In the next step, you will find out how to complete the other 5 sections of the Canvas!

Step 7: Developing your Business Model Canvas for the Festival

You have come this far and developed some very good ideas for how you can give the festival a re-boot! In order to prepare these ideas to present to the festival committee, it is time you started thinking about this festival as a business again, and to prepare a Business Model Canvas.

What is a Business Model Canvas? Any why are you applying it to a festival?

The Business Model Canvas was developed by Alexander Osterwalder. It outlines nine segments which form the building blocks for the business model in a nice one-page canvas. Rather than writing a 100+ page Business Plan, you can now use the Business Model Canvas to fully map out what your business idea will look like before you even get started. However, while it was developed with businesses in mind, the information in the Canvas template can be applied to a range of different contexts – and so, it is the perfect tool to use to plan how you will introduce new innovations into your festival!

Step 8: Presenting your plans for the Festival

You are almost there; you have completed your Business Model Canvas for the festival – you are committed to saving the festival this year! Now all you need is to prepare your presentation to the festival committee, and remember to practice it, so that you can stir your audience and persuade them to back your plans!

To prepare this important presentation, and to make sure you don’t leave anything out, remember to cover the following topics:

  • What went wrong with the festival in the first place.
  • Your Business Model Canvas – broken down into the 9 segments
  • The results of your Cost-Benefit Analysis
  • Your unique marketing strategy

You already know how to create a presentation, so with these links, it will help you to work on that all-important delivery:

A Beginner’s Guide to a Successful Presentation: https://visme.co/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-giving-a-successful-presentation/

EVALUATION

On completion of this WebQuest, learners will have achieved the following learning outcomes:

KnowledgeSkillsAttitude
• Basic knowledge of what motivation is• Apply teamwork skills to complete the challenge• Openness to work collaboratively with their peers.
• Basic knowledge of the importance of perseverance in achieving a goal• Practice negotiation skills to communicate a perspective.• Appreciation of the role of motivation and perseverance in achieving a goal.
• Basic knowledge of how market segmentation• Apply research skills to identify a problem• Willingness to use motivation to set goals.
• Basic knowledge of cost-benefit analysis• Evaluate ideas using ‘Six Thinking Hats’• Commitment to persevering so that goals are achieved.
• Basic knowledge of the Resources required to succeed in achieving a business goal• Practice creative thinking to identify solutions to a problem.
• Factual knowledge of how to complete a Business Model Canvas• Apply digital skills to develop a social media marketing campaign.
• Practice presentation skills to deliver a presentation.

As part of the assessment of this WebQuest, all learners, working in pairs, will be expected to present their slides to the ‘festival committee, who in this instance will be played by the teacher, facilitator or youth worker. The aim of completing this short role-play activity is firstly, that learners will have a defined deadline for completing these tasks and developing their presentation; but also that learners will gain important experience and practice at public-speaking and can develop their presentation skills; two skills which they will gain confidence from and will need to refine for their future employability, or if they wish to become entrepreneurs.  At the end of these presentations, the facilitator can give direct verbal feedback to each individual group and note any areas for improvements. The facilitator can also choose a winning pair in this challenge. This element of competition can be a motivation in itself for the learners!

As a self- assessment exercise for this WebQuest, learners will then be asked complete a short self-reflection exercise and write 450-500 words on how they rated their performance in the task, what elements they enjoyed or didn’t enjoy and what they would do differently, if they were to repeat the activity again. The following questions will guide this self-assessment:

  • How did I work as part of my partnership? How did our partnership collaborate over-all? How was communication in our partnership?
  • What role did I take on within the partnership? How did I perform in this role? What qualities did I show in this role? Did I enjoy that role?
  • What elements of this activity did I enjoy best?
  • What aspect did I find most challenging and why?
  • Did the group listen to my ideas? Did I have many ideas to contribute?
  • What skills did I acquire through this activity? Is there something I was good at that I did not think I would be?
  • Are there aspects of this challenge that would make me want to start my own business? If so, which aspects and why?
  • If I were to do this activity again, would I do things differently next time? What and why?

And complete a short quiz: https://forms.gle/FCjot8NxvZNAutAbA

Answers:

Q1: In the six thinking hats, the black hat represents:

  1. Planning
  2. Judgement
  3. Ideas

Correct: 2

Q2: In the six thinking hats, the green hat represents:

  1. Ideas
  2. Facts
  3. Planning

Correct: 1

Q3: In the six thinking hats, the black hat represents:

  1. Emotions
  2. Benefits
  3. Planning

Correct: 2

Q4: How many elements does the business model canvas have?

  1. 8
  2. 11
  3. 9
  4. 7
  5. 10

Correct: 3

Q5: Which of the following is NOT included in the business model canvas?

  1. Customer segments
  2. Prototyping
  3. Value proposition
  4. Key partners

Correct: 2

Questions that a youth workers or teacher might use in a whole class discussion to debrief this WebQuest:

  • How would you rate the over-all experience? Did you enjoy learning through completing a WebQuest challenge?
  • How did you feel you worked as part of a partnership? Did you enjoy working as a pair to solve a challenge?
  • Did you enjoy the scenario? Are there other scenarios that you would have preferred to work through? Why?
  • What do you think you have learned through this challenge?
  • Do you feel like you have gained new skills? If so, what are they?
  • What parts did you enjoy most and least? And why?
  • Do you have a sense of accomplishment on completing this challenge?
  • Of all the tasks you completed in this challenge, was there one task that you enjoyed so much that you could envisage a career in that field? If so, which one? Explain your answer.

Do you envisage yourself starting your own business based on what you have learned through this experience?

CONCLUSION

Through completing this activity, you have learned some valuable lessons and practiced important skills that will help you to use your motivation to drive you forward. You have also proven that you have the perseverance to fully develop your idea and to present, aiming to persuade others to follow your lead. These are all important qualities for an entrepreneur! If you take one thing with you from this lesson, remember:

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas A. Edison

Photo by Raul Varzar on Unsplash