Hello readers,

              My name is Ankush Santra, and this is my first blog here. Since you have opened this blog, I guess you’re also facing the same problem faced by millions of similar humans (including me) out there, the lack of sustainability of motivation.

Thanks to the research paper by the University of Columbia, I realised the solution was pretty simple. On that day onwards, I never lost my motivation.

Here is what they found in a nutshell.

They selected few students and asked them to solve a set of questions of varying difficulty levels. Various students solved the problem in different ways. Some of them were pretty quick to solve, some were a little slow but worked hard and rest of them considered giving up was the best solution. Despite the varied patterns seen among the students, the researchers grouped the students into 2 categories. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say they were A and B.

Now here comes the main twist. Members of group A were told that their performance was extraordinary and their score has exceeded the score of Group B. They also assured the students that they were born with some extraordinary problem-solving skills. On the other hand, members of group B were told that their performance was extraordinary and their score was far better than the score of group A. But they cited that they performed better because of their hard work.

Now, they again exposed both the groups with problems to solve, but this time the difficulty level was greater than before. What do you think, what were the performance of both the groups? It was strange, but true.

Group A performed the worst, solving the least number of questions. After solving a few questions, they gave up. Performance of group B was marvellous, they tried their best to solve all the problems. Although they weren’t able to solve all of them, but the numbers were far greater than group A. It was students of group B who enjoyed solving the tough questions, while the students of group A felt nothing more than boredom.

Now, here comes the main conclusion.

Can you guess why was the reason behind the results of the 2 groups? But before answering, I want you to familiarise with a new term “Locus Of Control”. Locus means center and you all know what is control. So center of control is known as locus of control. Now, for better understanding, let’s dive back into our example.

Group A were told that their brains were better programmed to solve such type of questions as compared to the other group. So, when the difficulty level was raised, they simply preferred to quit because they knew their brains can’t solve such kind of problems. Here, the researchers simply shifted the locus of control to some external factor which the student can’t control. Well, I know, still some of you may argue that two-thirds of our brain is still under our control, but let’s be practical. The research was instantaneous, and we can’t give students the time and resources to develop their brains first:) .

Same rule for group B also, the researchers simply shifted the locus of control to something the students have control over. Over what? Their effort and hard work. This way, the students felt motivated to do more. They knew that they can work hard, and thus they could tackle the boredom as well. Best of both worlds.

So readers, always keep the locus of control in your reach. This way you would always feel in control and motivated. Believe me, this is the only way to be motivated all the time.

Want to do something big, just think of all the humans who have achieved their dreams in that field. How were they able to achieve that? Simple, hard work and determination. Would I be able to achieve that? Depends on how much am I willing to put the efforts. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility. Same is true for opposite. With great responsibility comes great power.

Wish you all the best, may every reader be able to achieve his/her dreams.

Liked this post, hit a like. Needs improvement, type a comment. Have a new idea and want me to write about it? Also, mention it in comments. Since I am a student, I may not be able to reply to all the comments, but all your ideas would be considered. Want to support my work, leave a tip. Want more from me, then follow.

Stay tuned, the upcoming blogs would be a series on how to improve brain power. It would be an all in one series, covering the knowledge of various experts in this field and my experience.

Courtesy- All the images were taken from unsplash.com, thanks to their amazing team of photographers.

The research papers were obtained from researchgate. You can yourself google and find lots of research papers based on this topic. Here is the link to one such paper-

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265118528_The_Effects_of_Locus_of_Control_on_Learning_Performance_A_Case_of_an_Academic_Organization

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