The Last Word

By James Nind | Posted: Friday March 18, 2016

Each week at Senior Assembly one of our prefects addresses the students.  We would like to share their thoughts with the school community in our weekly newsletter.

In life and learning there is always more than one way to get something done. I am not the person you want to ask, on what path to take. I carry more than enough scar tissue to show that I tend to take the unnecessarily difficult route. I really shouldn’t be the one to try and tell you how to get it done, but I might be able to help you find your way.

Earlier in the term Mr Hall spoke about Tim Chisholm’s, quote “Discipline trumps motivation”. I think this is incredibly powerful. Discipline is needed to create anything truly great. If it is worth achieving it must take time. Yet no one is born with discipline. I believe that motivation creates discipline. If you want to achieve something badly enough you will start to work for it, little by little you will start to move towards your goals. Just doing something each night or training everyday, is an easy way to begin. Truly successful people are those who have kept working long after the easy patch. Their desire to succeed keeps them pushing themselves until it becomes a habit. So when they hit rough waters when their desire wavers, discipline turns up and won’t let that habit be broken when the initial motivation has left.

I’m a big supporter of intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic motivation. Being intrinsically motivated means you are driven by your own belief of what you should do as opposed to being extrinsically motivated when the idea of being seen as successful is what motivates you. An example of this would be doing extra work, learning something for learning’s sake even if it isn’t in an up coming test. I think we should be motivated by the desire to learn rather than the excellence grade on our reports. People who are intrinsically motivated will be more successful at keeping the habit of hard work going after the easy patch and becoming disciplined.

Set your goal’s long and high. But think about what sort of motivation is driving these goals, then set about creating that habit and discipline we all need.