What's your Motivation? (ePub)

Customarily we are motivated by rewards, desires, fame, passion, and recognition but educational motivation is different. The longing to achieve literacy, learn new things, and built a career are the underlying reasons why people pursue education. Not everyone finds education gratifying but the mentioned factors motivate us to learn:

Endless curiosity means having a constant impulse or desire to investigate, observe, or gather information, particularly when the material is novel or interesting.

To avoid the embarrassment of knowing nothing- in this scenario, learning is used as a safety behavior to avoid shame. Lived experiences of self-conscious emotions like shame, guilt, or embarrassment are a strong motivation for self-change.

To justify the illusion of knowledge, some people are motivated to learn because they have imposter syndrome - they doubt their abilities and they feel like a fraud. This disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments. Thus, they try to study more to combat the imposter syndrome that they are feeling.

To work smarter, people are motivated to learn because they want to find shortcuts and more efficient ways of solving problems. Learning enables them to work smarter and save money, time, as well as effort.

To relate with others, persons want to learn because of social inclusion. They want to be able to take part in the activities done by their peers, speak their minds on issues that they care about, and not feel left out.

Grit for personal growth means people study for the reason that they want to gain an understanding of themself and they want to push themself to reach their highest potential. They always ask themselves who they want to become and how they plan to get there.