Mr Motivator

A recent trip to Snowdonia got me thinking about motivation. What motivates a person to climb a hill? What motivates an unfit person to climb a hill? What motivates an unfit person to climb a hill, in February, in thick mist and driving rain? I’m sure that many people have very different reasons to climb a hill. Maybe it’s a love for the scenery or a desire to get fit, perhaps they want to prove something to their friends or themselves. With this in mind, how does it affect me as a mountain leader? How do I ensure that my group members remain motivated and get the most out of their day?

Do we really have to go up that? Maintaining group motivation levels on Snowdon.

It is suggested that motivation comes from reward. This can come in the form of praise from another person such as a coach or teacher, or it could be a prize or trophy. This is known as extrinsic motivation. Sometimes the reward can come from within oneself. It could be the satisfaction of reaching the top of a hill or walking that extra mile. This is known as intrinsic motivation. Deci (1975), cited in Woods (1998) suggests that intrinsically motivating behaviours are: ‘those which a person engages in to feel competent and self-determining’. Deci (1975) also noted that extrinsic motivation can have an effect on intrinsic motivation. This is something that the mountain leader must be very aware of and something that I had to think carefully about whilst climbing Snowdon.

From the moment that we left the Pen Y Pass car park and started our way up the Pyg track I had to think about how I was going to keep the motivation up of one particular member of the group. I knew that for her, reaching the top of Snowdon would be a major achievement but also to keep up with her family would be a reward in itself. I had to consider that if this person was left at the back struggling to keep up with the rest of the group then her motivation levels would rapidly decrease and it wouldn’t be long before she wanted to turn back feeling defeated. By putting her at the front of the group it allowed her to set a pace she was comfortable with and it kept her motivation high.

It was important that I didn’t give too much encouragement as I felt that this could have had a negative effect and come across as patronising. Every now and then we would stop and I would say ‘how are you doing?’ or ‘I’m enjoying this pace, it’s just right for me’. Too much encouragement could have singled her out and made her feel like she was being helped up the hill.

Woods (1998) suggests that extrinsic motivation must be appropriate to the individual and applied intermittently. I think this is very important for the mountain leader to understand as the amount of reinforcement they provide could work the wrong way and single out a member of the group, demotivating them and resulting in them failing at what they hoped to achieve.

References;

Woods, B, Applying Psychology to Sport, Hodder and Stoughton, 1998