Motivation

     To me this video felt like an animated TED talk. TED talks are always interesting but because of the animation I couldn't stop watching and listening to this video. The color scheme of simple black and red kept me focused on the words being said more so than the pictures. Another thing the animation did was very quickly reinforce what Pink was saying. If I didn't catch a word or missed a point the illustrations were a fun way to catch me back up.

     Obviously for a teenager school is going to be one of those things that you need motivation for. Its not something you roll out of bed in the morning longing to do. In school I think we can equate money to grades and purpose/mastery to how your teachers feel about you & you feel about yourself. There are definitely some  classes where I could get an 'A' without really understanding what I'm doing. If the class is gym and I feel like I'll get nothing out of it or I don't respect the teacher I might take that path. One of my main motivators though is not disappointing myself or my teachers when I know I can do better. The last day of third quarter I had three tests. In all of those classes I had at least a 98%. I could've not studied, bombed them all, and still kept my 'A'. But then I started to think about my teachers grading those tests. They would know I didn't study. I would feel like I let them down. I mean they spend their whole day teaching and I can't even try on a test? So, I studied for them all and got A's. Now semester exams were a different story. My motivation every year to get A's on my exams is that I get exempt from the final. Well this year since I don't have to take any my goal was to get the grade that could still give me an A for the year. The only class I was worried about not even being able to get a C on was AP Bio. So I studied for 12 hours and ended up getting a A. Maybe if I had put that much effort into my other classes I could have gotten all A's. But what I lacked was the motivation for that. I think this is because semester exams are supposed to be hard. Teachers understand that you have 6 others to take and that you probably won't perform to your usual caliber.

     Throughout the video I think Pink made very good points and backed them up with a lot of evidence. Its hard to argue against someone when you don't know much about the field and they are providing study after study in their favor. It makes sense to me that simple tasks can be improved upon when you are given a money incentive. These tasks are usually accomplished best by the hardest worker, not the most skill. One thing I wish he did more was go into more detail about why more money made you worse. I get that it does but are there any reasons why? I'll definitely have to look that up soon.

     Since I am going to be in college next year I started to try and apply this video to how motivated someone is in college. After thinking for awhile it occurred to me that it is just a completely different idea. I think money is the number one motivator in college. You are not going to want to fork over thousands of dollars to just sit there and do nothing. I remember reading about one study where kids who paid their own admission to college did better. This makes perfect sense to me. It follows the phrase "get more bang for your buck." If it actually is your buck you're going to want to get as much out of it as possible! I'm just thankful my parents don't know about this study.

I'll leave you with my favorite motivational quote: "Failure doesn't come from falling down. Failure comes from not getting up."