Motivation and the Role it Plays with Royal Marine Physical Training

PSYCHOLOGY MODULE - MOTIVATION AND THE ROLE IT PLAYS WITH ROYAL MARINE PHYSICAL TRAINING.

In my opinion, to be a successful and competent teacher you must be able to motivate people. The whole concept of learning requires effort, commitment and diligence and this must come from both the student and the teacher. I have decided to base this Psychology Module on Motivation and the dynamics of motivation. I will chart my progress as a motivator and hopefully demonstrate the various theories involved and establish their worth within the military environment. I will be primarily drawing upon my experiences within this field from my time in the Royal Marines (RM).

THE DYNAMICS OF MOTIVATION:

"Motivation is concerned with the "Why?" of behaviour; that is to say, motivational theories attempt to explain why people behave in the way they do." (Hardy. 2001 p. 21)

The dictionary definition is:

Motivation n: Supply motive or inducement to, be motive of: stimulate of

(The Oxford English Dictionary)

In my opinion motivation drives people to do things that require effort.

motivation-001

English: Shows early psychological student motivat...

Motivation

Traditional theories of motivation have attempted to explain behaviour in terms of biological or social needs. Hardy suggests that more recent theories have shown that the thoughts people have can often exert a much more powerful influence upon motivation. I have always tended to agree more with this concept; in fact we can all offer example of individuals demonstrating tremendous feats through mental determination coupled with focused motivation.

Clearly, different things motivate different individuals. For the men who embark on the major commitment of RM training there has to be a very powerful long-term goal they wish to achieve. If they join the RM as motivated individuals it is then up to us the trainers to reinforce their motivation by applying ourselves. The RM has recently...