REFLECTION PAPER

Drive, the Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us

By: Daniel H. Pink

Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.

However, it is possible only if how a person feels inspired or motivated as to how he

wants to accomplish the task. That’s why it’s hard for us to live in our everyday life

without motivation. It is something that we should acquire that could greatly affects our

performance if not so. Starting from doing household chores, meeting new people,

accomplishing report for work, and even doing simple things are all impossible to

achieve without getting motivated at first. With motivation, we are inspired to do things

that can satisfied our needs as well. That’s the reason why most people would love to

have rewards because they then become motivated. They like to do it because they find

it interesting. Furthermore, after reading the book, I gained knowledge as to how we

considered drives became the most powerful motivators of the people.

Bringing motivation to other people is likely crossing a muddy road. It’s very

tricky. It sounds fun but very challenging. We cannot directly know as to what drives

were in for him to be motivated. As an educator and at the same time a student, I’ve

had some experiences that could relate to the topic. What happened was that when I

was discussing in front, I found out that two of my pupils were busy talking to each

other. First offense was calling their names and it was effective for a minute only. But as

I go on with the lesson, they did not behave again and cause me to trigger to just stop
discussing and sit down without any words for them and that makes my day

unproductive. I already lose my power, my motivation and once it happens it will lead

me to move away from them than to do unnecessary actions to my pupils. Seeing my

pupils paying attention while discussing in front is already a motivation for me to

continue what I am doing. However, due to pupil’s behavior, motivation sometimes

become useless.

Other experiences I have that I can relate with the second drive - the rewards

and the punishment was during my practice teaching. My mentor told me to give

rewards to pupils during my demonstration to have more interaction between the

teacher and the student at the same time giving them punishment by means of not

letting them sit on their chair until they can answer. For me, her advices benefited me as

a teacher, so I tried it. As I was still giving them instructions as to how they behave and

interact in the class for them to have rewards, I can saw it in their eyes how excited are

they to participate. It is in their minds as to how they got the price and not punish. That’s

why at the end of the day, I knew that giving rewards, will result to better performance.

To summarized, this book (Drive, The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us)

has helped me look at ‘motivation’ scientifically, through the journey and history of

human behavior. It helped me widened my perception towards motivating other people

including myself. It helps me to boost my interpersonal skills. Thus, I’ve learned to value

the things that motivates us as I am reflecting it to my profession, as a teacher. I’ve

learned also that there are different drives that powered behavior which for me is a

necessary aspect a person must aware of. As what Drive says for 21st century work, we

need to upgrade to autonomy (giving of freedom), mastery (giving right above current
skill) and purpose (applying in a current situation) that is very applicable not just in the

teaching-learning process but with the other fields as well. Therefore, a motivated

people is what a 21st century needs and this drives me.