The aim of this essay is to describe the personal character, values and motivation of one of the most important persons of the Australian sports world namely Nova Peris. She was an Australian born hockey player and an Olympian. In addition to this, Nova was the track and field athlete who won gold medal in the commonwealth games. Recently, this particular individual has proved herself to be the political activist who is struggling for rights of the aboriginal people of Australia.
This essay will be interesting to read because here the various facets of Nova’s life will be analyzed and how she overcame all odds of life to reach the ultimate goal will be discussed. This can be motivating for the readers and they will gain the idea that life never stops but gives chances plenty of times but one needs to understand his or her potential and properly utilize this.
This essay will be discussing various factors in Nova’s life which had encouraged her to grow and reach the epitome of success. Along with this, the essay will also discuss the demotivating factors in Nova Peris’ life which sopped her from returning to her athlete life.
The character of Nova Peris is highly inspiring to every person who have known her past and present. Nova is an aboriginal from Australia who unlike other aborigine girls were expected to control her dreams and go with the flow. In case of Nova, this never happened. In her biography, Nova Peris has pointed out every detail of her life starting from her childhood to the present. In her life as she has admitted, the contribution of her stepfather and maternal grandmother was unbelievable. The character of Nova is interesting to be explored as she had faced numerous ill treatment in her life, from her father, stepfather and all of her husbands but she never bend to her difficulties. Overcoming all the difficulties since her childhood firstly for being an aboriginal and secondly a woman by her birth, Nova had to face numerous problems in life.
Starting with her childhood, in her biography, Nova has mentioned that she with her friend used to truant in her backyard and participated in every one of the sports in school but her stepfather wanted her to study. She used to be bitterly beaten by him and all her prizes from sports were broken by him. Nova has mentioned that in her childhood she used to feel that her stepfather did not have any affection for her but now she admits that this strict guardianship of her stepfather had made her to know the essentiality of education as the base of all knowledge.
In addition to this, Nova has pointed it the essentialist of life which guided her ad made her a strong woman in life is due her aboriginal background. In her life as she wanted to be a hockey player, pursued her dreams in every manner possible. She in her childhood or even in the sports academies, faced the bullying of being aboriginal and was tortured on the basis of racism. However, all her negatives and demotivating comments against her had supplied optimistic results. She proved herself to be the back to back Olympic finalist in two different sports. She was the first indigenous Australian and the first Territorial to win the Gold medal in the Commonwealth Games (Peris and Heads 2003). She had won the gold medal in the 1996 Summer Olympics as well as became the double gold medalist in 1998 commonwealth games.
Despite of being a star sportsman she had to leave her passion with sports due to her physical unfitness after bearing her daughter. Nova as had extensive community experience relating to the disadvantages of the aboriginals residing in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island of Australia, she has managed to take an active part in the social and financial development of these indigenous people of Australia. Nova being a political activist, had helped to deliver more than 100 health as well as education checks across communities in all over Australia. She has worked to establish the innovative NGPA or Nova Peris Girls Academy for the last three years that focuses on the keeping of the aboriginal girls engaged with study and gain support for the higher education (Australianoftheyear.org.au 2019). Hence Nova’s success is not only relates top her sports career but spread in the politics of Australia as he became the first indigenous Australian elected in the Commonwealth parliament of Australia.
As pointed out in the biography of Nova, the sportsman within her is not motivated externally or nobody in her family used to support her passion with sports. Therefore, the motivation factor that had manipulated her to reach the apex of success was completely intrinsic (Oudeyer, Gottlieb and Lopes 2016). According to the theory of intrinsic motivation, the feeling of motivation in the athletes of sports persons comes from the natural desire to overcome he challenges and enjoy their repetition of skills (Olafsen et al. 2017). The grueling practices of the athletes like Nova has been the motivating factors to achieve the ultimate goals in the sports. In addition to this, the athletes like Nova which had worn good medal in two different sports consecutively which is as much as impossible for a person who does not have the vitality theory of motivation (Reeve, Ryan and Deci 2018). She states, “‘nothing is impossible to those who see the invisible” (Abc.net.au 2013). This theory dictates that the feeling of vitality largely influences the capabilities of the athletes for their performance (Tummers et al 2018). Despite that fact that, the poverty which dominates the morality of the aboriginal people in Australia and reduced them to steal or engage in drug addiction as well as alcoholism, could not touch Nova Peris. Her grandmother used to be an alcoholic patient but Nova never followed her nor she was influenced by the immoral activities in her neighborhood out of poverty. Rather she has fought against all the odds in life and followed a moral and honest life to stand beside her aboriginal community in future.
In her career as a political as well as aboriginal activist, she never lost her motivation to present all the difficulties and tormenting social life of the aboriginal and Torres Strait islanders. The most important motivating factor was the history of torture by the white people upon the indigenous Australians who had captured their lands, water and mines and deprived them from every benefits of living. In the political campaigns she had expressed her contempt towards the constitution of Australia made by the white Austrians invading their land. She has stated that “You’ve all benefited from two hundred years of systemic injustices. This constitution is a whitefella rulebook” (Views, Features and Festival, 2019).
According to the self-determination theory, a person can be motivated by multiple sets of factors hence motivation is multidimensional. In the case of Nova Peris it is not about the torture and misbehave she had experienced during her career but also the injustice and deprivation of rights of the aboriginal people. She never remained silent against the humiliation of her aboriginal identity but took important step against Athletics Australia for terming her ‘Nigger’ and now she is playing the part of representative of these deprived “Stolen Generations” of Australia. She states “I don’t want to be an Aboriginal politician going out there…and begging whitefellas to recognise us. Because you’re killing us! You’re killing our spirit.” (Views, Features and Festival, 2019). This theory of self-determination means to act within the sense of choice and self-direction. The athletics as well as politicians participate in the sports and public relation as they find those enjoyable and interesting that values the benefits of the sports participation. After Nova was impregnated with a child in her age of 18, her stepfather advised her to get the child aborted and continue with sports career but she chose her child and perfumed well in sports with her self-determination as well as motivation. In addition to this, after she had been undergoing tremendous psychological pressure from all her husbands, never felt to escape her path but faced all of those difficulties directly without any help from anyone in the world.
The best advice that one can give to Nova Peris is related to sports. She is working with the aboriginal people and fighting against the government to bring these people under the coverage of social wellbeing. Most importantly, this celebrity sports man has the capacity to speak against the honorable constitution of Australia by terming it to be the rule of the white people. Thus she also can take initiative to amend or add social special regulation for the welfare and promotion of sports in this Aboriginal and Torres Island area. In this regard she can also speak for making such legislation base on which the government will be funding the sports academies in this area. With the economy help from the Australian government, the aboriginal children can get through such sports academies where they can get the chance to be promoted to be sports persons. This government funding will help the people of Torres Island in two ways. First, this will give an exposure to the sports in Australian aboriginal children and many children can pursue their dreams to be an athlete and secondly, the most important issues of immoral activities like criminal offence, drug abuse, household violence, alcoholism will be definitely get reduced. With the exposure in the spots, the houses of every neighborhood will get the funding for admitting their children in the sports academies which will reduce the risks of the young generation to follow the path of alcoholism or drug abuse which lead s to depression and ultimately death.
The worst advice to this personality given can be the situation of the girls in her community. Despite the fact that Nova has been trying to provide all types of guidance and support to the aboriginal girls, they will not be able to utilize the support properly. It is due to the traditional mind setup of the aboriginals. The gender role in the society where the women are for keeping household and raising children will definitely be prominent in the community. Despite the fact that Nova is giving them around support, the girls will be leaving their studies and choose marriage over career just as she did at the age of 18. How much she does for the girls in the Aboriginal and Torres Island, she will not get support but be accused for discriminating girls from the boys.
Therefore, it can be concluded that Nova Peris is a shining star in the world of sports where she was the first aboriginal woman in the active politics and was awarded with the honor of ‘Australia of the year’. She is a hockey player and an Olympian. In addition to this, Nova was the track and field athlete who won gold medal in the commonwealth games. Recently, Nova has proved herself to be the political activist who is struggling for rights of the aboriginal people of Australia. Nova believes that she was a subject of racism in all her life. Both in sports career as well as to be a politician. Despite she has left her sporting career in the middle and led a frustrating time for long span of life, she has successfully motivated herself to be the successful person in every way. Initially I used to think that motivation is only extrinsic factor and people get motivated when they see others to get success in life, after knowing the life and struggle of Nova Peris I have understood that motivation is all about intrinsic understanding and feeling or urge to get success or overcome all the hurdles of life. Therefore, I need to be more focused on the achievement of goals I have set in my life and do not bother about the difficulties in between. I need to be able to absorb all the native factors of life only to answer those properly in future. I need to be overcome my inabilities so that I myself do not be a hurdle for myself.
References:
Abc.net.au (2013). ‘Nothing is impossible to those who see the invisible’. [online] ABC News. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-14/peris-nothing-is-impossible/5092108 [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
Australianoftheyear.org.au (2019). Australian of the Year Awards. [online] Australianoftheyear.org.au. Available at: https://www.australianoftheyear.org.au/alumni/connect/nova-peris/ [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
Peris, N. and Heads, I. (2003). Nova. Sydney, NSW: ABC Books.
Olafsen, A.H., Halvari, H., Forest, J. and Deci, E.L., 2015. Show them the money? The role of pay, managerial need support, and justice in a self?determination theory model of intrinsic work motivation. Scandinavian journal of psychology, 56(4), pp.447-457.
Oudeyer, P.Y., Gottlieb, J. and Lopes, M., 2016. Intrinsic motivation, curiosity, and learning: Theory and applications in educational technologies. In Progress in brain research (Vol. 229, pp. 257-284). Elsevier.
Reeve, J., Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L., 2018. Sociocultural influences on student motivation as viewed through the lens of self-determination theory. Big Theories Revisited, 2, pp.15-40.
Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L., 2017. Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Publications.
Tummers, L., Steijn, B., Nevicka, B. and Heerema, M., 2018. The effects of leadership and job autonomy on vitality: Survey and experimental evidence. Review of public personnel administration, 38(3), pp.355-377.
Views, N., Features, N. and Festival, F. (2019). Five best quotes from Nova Peris’ appearance at the Garma Festival. [online] Daily Life. Available at: https://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/news-features/five-best-quotes-from-nova-peris-appearance-at-the-garma-festival-20140805-3d6dd.html [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
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