Middle School

• Our research indicates that the topics of motivation and of boredom are two very important concepts for students to learn and grapple with.
• Motivation (and boredom) is a dense and complex topic. We’ve offered a number of ways you can explore it, or use them all over a period of time.
• There is a related Session 4 that further explores activity interests, motivation, and benefits.
• Also see Additional Possible Discussion Points at the end of this document.

• To develop a more critical understanding of how they spend their leisure time.
• Begin to understand the concept of motivation as it relates to how they spend their time.
• Begin to understand how motivation for an activity is associated with being bored or interested.

• What are the five types of motivation?
• How does why I do an activity have an effect on how I feel about my activities and what I get out of them?

• What is the main motivation for eating?
• What about using social media? You might have several different reasons for using social media. What are they?

Recognizing patterns in how we spend our time is helpful to understanding how we sometimes feel positive and sometimes unhappy about what we do in free time. 

Patterns give us some ideas of what types of changes we can make to have better, more satisfying and healthy free time.

Every person has different reasons (motivations) for doing things. We will talk about motivations in more detail in the next session because there are often multiple reasons for doing something. For now we will keep it simple and just talk about the main reason we do things.

Just like benefits, not everyone does the same activity for the same reason (or get the same benefits).

Complete TimeWise Journal Analysis (page 12 in student book).

• Were you surprised at how you spend your time and why?
• What about how you felt during the activity? Were you more bored or more interested in what you were doing?
• What is the relationship between motivation and feelings in an activity?
• How do you feel about the amount of free time and leisure time you have during the day or week?
• How many times did you do something because you had to? Wanted to? Had nothing else to do?
• Think about how often you typically do something because you have to. How do you generally feel about that?

• What is the relationship between motivation and feelings in an activity?
• How about when you are the one who choses what you do? How does that affect how you feel?
• When is it a good thing when you have to do something that you didn’t choose? How do you think the community or even your family would function if you could always do just what you wanted to?

Motivation refers to why you do what you do. Every person has different motivations for doing things and not everyone does the same activity for the same reason. Just like different people get different benefits from doing the same activity.

You’ve already been introduced to the five common motivations. Use a form of Transparency 3, Common Motivations.

Identifying The Motivation

Ask for volunteers to read one of these motivation scenarios. Ask students to identify the motivation associated with each scenario. Use the following discussion ideas to discuss each scenario

Suggested talking points (see also material at the end of these bulleted points):

• Sometimes we do things because we have to do them…that is, we are told that we must. This type of motivation is called “Have To or Extrinsic Motivation.” It happens when parents or coaches or teachers or other adults make you do something. If your parents made you play the drums, for example, and you really didn’t want to, you would have the “I have to” type of motivation. In this case you don’t get as many benefits as you could. But, sometimes, this type of motivation is important because it can get you involved in something you would have never tried, and you end up really loving it.
• Sometimes we do things completely because we want to. We can think of this type of motivation as “Want To or Intrinsic Motivation.” You do things just for you. Sometimes, this also means doing things because it gives you a lot of pleasure to do something for someone else, or your community. You don’t do it for any other reason except you WANT TO. You don’t expect anything in return.
• This kind of motivation happens when you just don’t know what to do, there is nothing else to do, and you don’t really care. This type of motivation is called “Nothing Else to Do or Amotivation”. This happens to us all, but if it happens too often to you, it is not very good. The “nothing else to do” motivation can lead to unhealthy things like using drugs and alcohol. It can make you very unhappy because you are just bored and miserable all the time.
• Sometimes we do things because we know they will be good for us. We choose to do them, but we do the activities for a purpose…not just because we love to do them. This kind of reason is called “For a Purpose or Identified Motivation.” These are activities that we choose to do, and the activities lead to something. For example, when you practice for a sport, you are practicing so that you will be good in the game on Saturday or so that you will make the high school team and maybe someday get a sports scholarship. Other examples include: practicing your flute for the recital next weekend, doing your chores so that you will become more responsible, and studying for a test so that you will do well in the class.
• Sometimes we do things that makes us look good and it impresses other people. Another reason we might do something is because we want to create an image of ourselves so that people will think about us in a certain way. This type of motivation is called “What Others Will Think or Introjected Motivation”. When we are motivated to look good, we don’t choose the activity because we want to do it but more so because of some type of pressure. We could also be doing something because the media (TV, radio, magazines) make it look exciting and glamorous. For example:
• We feel we should (sometimes my friends do what I want to, so I should do what they want to now).
• We feel guilty if we don’t do it (my friend’s or my mom’s feelings would be hurt if I didn’t go shopping with her).
• We think our friends won’t like us if we don’t do the activity (if I don’t play basketball with my friends, they’ll think I’m really boring).
• We want to create an image of ourselves so that other people think of us in a certain way (my friends will think I’m really cool if I do it).
• For What Other Will Think is a tricky kind of motivation. When do you think this might be a good form of motivation? [When friends, family, valued adults encourage us to do something that we don’t think we would be good at or are afraid to try.]

So far you’ve been analyzing how you spend your free time, what benefits you get from it, and your motivation for doing various activities. These are all complex issues and they all affect each other.

One of the main reasons of these sessions is to help you think about why you do what you do in your free time, what changes you might want to make, and think about how your motivation affects how you feel. As you learn more, you may want to start taking more responsibility for your own actions and activities.

Taking more and more responsibility for the decisions you make in your leisure time will contribute to your health and well-being, as well as help you avoid getting into risky situations. We’ll discuss that more in later sessions.

Additional Possible Discussion Points:

• What would it be like if you always did things in your free time because you had to?

How would that feel? People value their free time because it is the time in the day when they can choose to do things they like to do, either alone or with their friends and family. However, free choice comes with responsibility. Think about what it would be like if everything you did was “for me.” How do you think your friends and family would feel about you?

Debriefing Points: It is selfish and not responsible if you always do things only because you want to. For one thing, we live in families and have obligations to parents and siblings. And, developing and keeping friends means that you can’t always do what you want to. We also have obligations to our community. So, our connections with other people mean that we have to compromise and sometimes there are some things that we have to do.

But, the more you can do things because they connect with your beliefs and values and you enjoy them, the more benefits you will get from your leisure time. These leisure activities will also help you keep up your interest so things don’t get boring.

• What would it be like if you did everything because of what others would think of you?

Debriefing Points: Doing things just to please other people, like your friends, or doing things to create an image of yourself to be popular, can get you into a lot of trouble. Therefore your leisure time can become very stressful and create dilemmas for you.

The “for what others think” motivation is complicated because there can be some real problems associated with this type of motivation. If we spend a lot of time always doing what our friends want to do, we may not be taking very good care of ourselves and being honest about what we really want to do and value. Being worried about what people think can make it hard to really enjoy and get the most out of your leisure time.

Many times, young people think that they are making their own decisions and choosing to do things like smoke cigarettes, take drugs and drink alcohol. But if they would really analyze why they are doing those things, they would see that they are motivated by wanting to impress or please their friends, or become popular with another group of friends.

There are a lot of ways to spend your leisure time to please your friends and to create an image of yourself that are healthy, and we’ll be talking about those next week. Remember, if we are doing things with a purpose or because we want to, we often find that we tend to be more interested in what we are doing and we get more benefits.

• Now think about what it would be like to feel “not very interested” all of the time in your leisure? How do you think people would feel?

Debriefing Points: Unfortunately, many people feel “disinterested” during a lot of their free and leisure time. If that is the case, we need to think seriously about our reasons and that feeling of being disinterested. The feeling of disinterest should be a signal that you are not getting the most out of your free time.

Final Summary Statement:

Being unmotivated, feeling disinterested, or doing things to please your friends can be a pathway to making very unhealthy choices. Remember, unhealthy choices can result from how you are feeling, whether it is bored, stressed or anxious about fitting in. When we talk with students about smoking, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs, they often say they do it because they are bored or want to fit in with their friends. Always ask yourself – why am I doing this? It is a good way to check in on your motivations.