Motivation (Part 1)

While out running lately, I have been thinking a lot about the things that are motivating me to do Challenge Wanaka and the training that goes with it. Motivation intrigues me, in fact, asking questions about human motivation is a core part of my job as an academic. You see, amongst other things, I study the wine, food and tourism consumer behaviour of people. I have read a lot about what turns people on (and off) in their daily life, their leisure time and the tourism activities. I have also written quite a bit about what aspects of wine and food consumption makes them tick and I am especially interested in those that are highly involved in these activities. But my running, and now my wider training for Challenge Wanaka, has started me thinking more deeply about what motivates me (and perhaps what drives others) to do such things.

Its intriguing me so much that from time to time I am going to post blogs that explores what is motivating me at the time or what new things I discover about myself when I reflect on this stuff. For now I am just going to say that I know that it is far more complicated than any text book can cover or any theory might explain. There are aspects of the things that I have read in psychology, consumer behaviour, leisure theory and the like that explain small fragments of what truly motivates people to do an activity that requires such a high degree of commitment and dedication.

The text books cover a multitude of the things that I have been reflecting on during my runs and they usually acknowledge the complexity of the human mind and motivation. However, I don't think that they ever quite grasp the intricacy of it all and how personal it is. They, by their nature and needing to be able to generalise, simplify things to the point that they start to loose the true essence of what makes us who we are.

I hope this doesn't sound too academic - trust me, my reflections on this have been far from academic - but the reality is, there is a part of my motivation that relates to the academic in me and that drives me to do these sorts of things. I'll start to explore this, and a number of other things about me, in the weeks to come.