Take a trip down memory lane for a second and reflect on middle school. Heelys sneakers, 'The Suite Life of Zack & Cody," an omnipresent T-Pain all over the airways and the beginning of an annual tradition: the school dance. At this moment, the image of a certain someone should pop into your head (and an ambivalent reaction shall follow.) However, at that point in time, you were brimming with excitement at the prospect of asking someone to attend your first school dance. Well, do you know what requires an immense amount of motivation? Asking someone to be your date as a 13-year-old, fresh-faced teenager without any comprehension of the concept of motivation, yet still taking a step into the unknown. See, motivation is what inspires a person to get up in the morning. Motivation is what allows an individual to choose certain foods when faced with a ravenous hunger. It’s what permits Jim the audacity to ask Pam to be his date for the semi-formal dance. But, if motivation indeed drives our daily life decisions, then how can we become more cognizant of what drives our actual motivation?

The spiritualist, Eckhart Tolle, said it best when he pronounced, “Get the inside right. The outside will fall into place.” As we know all too well, the inside is not the easiest destination to book a departing flight for a vacation get-away, but it’s where we start the discussion of motivation. General theories of motivation emphasize four essential components of motivational states. The first of which is that motivational states are energizing. They activate certain behaviors, conscious or unconscious, meaning they cause humans to do something. For instance, the desire to be fit might propel one to get up for a run on a frosty January morning. Second, motivational states are directive, meaning they guide behaviors toward accomplishing specific goals. For example, the fear of flunking out of college incites one to study for final exams. Third, motivational states help humans persist for an extensive period of time until a goal is achieved. Recall that time you went 15 hours without eating and felt compelled to commit any crime short of murder until delicious White Castle burgers found their way into your stomach? Last of all, theories agree that motives differ in strength, depending on a plethora of internal and external forces. Ever met a person who happened to be the first member of his/her family to attend college, and it seemed the weight of the world appeared to find solace only on their shoulders? The strength of their motivation came from generations upon generations of unfulfilled goals in academia. Thus, motivation is a deliberate process that energizes, directs, persists and maintains behavior toward a goal.

In order to understand what drives our behavior, and in essence, leads to the expenditure of our valuable motivational resources, we must first attempt to grasp the behaviors we emanate to the world. Simply put, our thoughts control our emotions, which in turn, manifest themselves into our behavior. Our thoughts literally run our perception of the environment around us, but more importantly, they run the way we perceive ourselves, along with our innermost needs and desires. Common sense, right? Positive thoughts will produce positive internal emotions which will reproduce themselves into positive behavior being set forth. Contrary to that, negative thoughts will produce negative internal emotions which will reproduce themselves into negative behavior, and that’s something I’m sure everyone can corroborate is not what we want to be set free into the world any longer. What we need is a concerted effort to take care of our individual needs, first and foremost. By this point, somewhere deep in the recesses of your mind, I would hope a light shined bright onto a certain pyramid that brought itself to the forefront of your attention.

Way back in the medieval 1940s, the psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed a revolutionary “need therapy” of motivation. Even though the “Hierarchy of Needs” pyramid lacks empirical support, it has long been embraced as a useful indicator of what might be accurate regarding people’s behaviors and why they are predisposed to specific actions. I’m an avid supporter of the “needs pyramid” being a guide to the understanding of internal motivation as it relates to external behavior. It’s come to my attention in recent times that people yearn to reach their full potential and truly take advantage of the opportunities provided in this day and age. More so, this drive towards self-actualization, which is at the top of the pyramid, has its conception as a single arbitrary thought taken in spite of the higher priority needs at the bottom of the pyramid. I adamantly believe that dissatisfaction with one’s current life situation can almost always be traced back to a drastic jump from the bottom of the pyramid to the top, leading to deficits in what someone might consider to be the non-too-stimulating needs.

According to Maslow’s classification of needs, basic biological needs must be satisfied before people can address higher needs (such as those for achievement of personal goals). The pyramid consists of five layers, each of more importance than the next, theoretically. The first two are physiological (hunger, thirst, sleep) and safety (security, protection, freedom from threats). We all need air, food and water to survive, but satiating our basic biological needs isn’t enough to practically live a fully satisfying life, right? Certainly, we have social needs to satisfy as well, although preferences to be in isolation or with people tends to vary based on the context of one’s situation. The third layer is belonging and love (acceptance and friendship), followed by esteem (positive self-opinion) and finalized with the aforementioned self-actualization (living to one’s full potential.) In order to be motivated to attain personal greatness, a deep motivation must first exist to fulfill the simplest of needs like having a roof above the head and food on the table, which we forget isn’t a given to all of mankind. Yet, so many would rather own the newest version of the iPhone to be able to “keep up with the Joneses,” even if it came at the expense of a month’s worth of rent money. This is a sad depiction of society’s current paradigm leaning in the direction of superficial matters. Now, self-realization might not be a complete requirement for personal happiness, but we all feel a tad incomplete if personal goals are not met. The fire inside must stay lit at all times as that is the best depiction of motivation playing its part within the being. How does one manage to keep the fire constantly burning? Feed it with logs all the time. In this case, logs are positive thoughts and positive emotions leading to productive behavioral actions.

On the other hand, it’s undoubtedly difficult to maintain optimal motivation 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some days, the grass just seems to be greener on the other side of the hill. Some days, we need additional sources of motivational fuel. That’s where incentives play a crucial part to our understanding of motivation. Incentives are external objects and/or goals that motivate behaviors as opposed to internal drives. Even forces outside conscious awareness, or what’s currently on our mind, can provide incentives to behave in certain ways. For example, an up-and-coming athlete can develop a sudden craving to work out after a training commercial runs on TV and the prospect of a ripped physique makes its way across the screen while subconsciously guiding behavior. Two types of incentive motivation exist: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation refers to the performance of an activity because of the value or pleasure associated with said activity, devoid of an apparent external goal or purpose. Extrinsic motivation refers to, you guessed it, external factors that cause one to act in a certain way, with money obviously being a leading example. Whether it’s through intrinsic or extrinsic factors, or both, the rewarding of behaviors will reinforce one’s desire to repeat actions. Repetitively practicing productive behaviors day after day will foster the necessary habits to succeed in any field, and yes, we are talking about practice. That’s always been the key to success in any field, in spite of what Allen Iverson might have once said.

Overall, there are a spate of different ways to dissect motivation and what it truly does for the individual. There are many more key elements that come into play that we seldom think about, such as differences in gender, culture, race, religion and ethnicity. My only hope is that people can begin to explore the vast array of research available on motivation in order to acquire the keys necessary for long-term self-realization, or even to receive a simple pick-me-up on a less-than-average day. Family members and friends alike take pride in asking the question, “What would you like to be doing five years from now, and how do you plan on getting there?” We’ve all been there. Or, my personal favorite being, “What personal traits would you like to change about yourself, or at the very least, improve?” It takes a special kind of motivation just to answer those questions, yet alone have a definitive foolproof plan. One’s expectation for success plays as big a role as any other factor. Self-efficacy is the expectation that your efforts will unapologetically lead to success, however, it may be defined in your eyes. All those efforts will naturally mobilize your energies towards positive thinking and productive behavior. If we take a few minutes to search for the forest capable of containing the burning fire within, then our motivations will become very clear, and as a direct result, we will become irrepressible spirits. Remember, if the inside is right, then motivation will cater the outside to fall into pieces like a perfectly played game of Jenga.