External vs. Internal Motivation

At first I thought that the birthday card activity was just kind of a way for us to help learn how we affect others through our actions but after participating it was so much more than that. This activity was sort of a light bulb moment for me because I realized that I am truly driven by external motivation. I do have some sort of internal motivation in taking action to get what I want from life but at the same time for homework, studies, and some daily life tasks I realize that my environment really has a lot of effect on my motivation towards that. It does make me wonder though, where our preference for external or internal motivation comes from. At first I had thought that maybe it had something to do with being an extravert because being such a social person can allow you to possibly feed off of others as your motivation and since Sam and I had felt the same way I had begun to that maybe that was related in some way. Looking back I think its more of a correlation not a causation because, I believe Katie was also an extravert but she had a preference for internal motivation. This is a question that maybe I would like to do a little more research on. Any ideas?

Finding out that I am motivated by external factors really allowed me to be able to make sense of my last couple years at Iowa State. I always loved life here in Ames, and I felt like it was my home away from home which is the exact reason why I wanted to stay, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I am generally a good student but when I am studying things I have no interest in or don't want to be studying, my lack of motivation really goes out the window and I lose all sight of related goals. So for me switching majors left and right really made me feel like I had made a decision that might not have been right for me even though I love Iowa State. I had always wanted to do nursing or something with that field but I had not pursued it because I knew I wanted to be at Iowa State and since there are so many majors at Iowa State I could find one that I would eventually like and could be happy with. I am still kind of in this struggle with what I want to do with my life but I know that whatever path I choose I am dead set on graduating at Iowa State. Honestly speaking, if it wasn't for Debra, Allie, and Chelsee I probably would have left at the end of my freshmen year here. I am glad I didn't but it's hard for me to go through all of these motions without having an ending goal besides graduating of course.

Recently I have decided that after college and once I get things settled in, I would like to become a part time EMT and eventually work my way up to being a paramedic along with a full time job I can hopefully receive after graduation. I would possibly like to be a full time paramedic but we'll see when the time comes because I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. It is all apart of God's plan for us. :)