Understanding Motivation

Motivation is a massive area in our personal development but also understanding what motivates each of our team members helps us to nurture the right environment.

Personal Motivation comes from two places:

• Intrinsic Motivation

• Extrinsic Motivation

What’s the difference?

Intrinisic Motivation: you are motivated to do the activity because it is internally rewarding.

• Going for a run because it makes you feel good.

• Reading books because you want to improve yourself.

• Working in a team because you enjoy collaboration.

• Focusing on being a good leader so you can inspire others. 

Extrinsic Motivation: you are motivated to do an activity in order to gain an external reward in return.

• Going to work to bring home a salary.

• Helping others because you want recognition.

• Doing voluntary work because it looks good on a CV.

• Going to new places because you want to post it on social media. 

What has been uncovered by extensive research is that extrinsic motivation does indeed work to a point, but humans are largely intrinsically motivated. Extrinsic Motivation will have a short-term influence or is useful for straightforward tasks, but what has a lasting and more meaningful impact on humans is Intrinsic Motivation, an inner drive to take action.

Intrinsically motivated people are looking for fun, challenge, or satisfaction involved with an activity, not for the outside outcome, pressure, or reward.

What are the 4 common areas of Intrinsic Motivation?

1) Purpose - this is the feeling that what you’re doing matters and has a higher meaning. You’re dedicating yourself to a cause beyond yourself. This might be to serve your team, provide for your family or improve things for your business and customers. It’s the reason you get up every day, it’s the reason you work through tough times and keep going. It’s why you do what you do, it’s your calling.

2) Mastery - this is having an inner drive to master your craft or be the best within your field. Continuing to learn and focus on improvement will be very rewarding for you. This will involve continuing to grow your knowledge and sharpening your skills to a point where you become a subject matter expert.

3) Autonomy - this is where you crave a sense of control, safety, and flexibility within your role, you’re aware of what your goals are but have the autonomy to decide how you get to the destination. An autonomous environment will have resources and a support community on hand and available for when you need it. We’re shifting away from office environments to more remote working, and having more autonomy within your team will leave them feeling extremely satisfied within their roles. Autonomy provides a ton of benefits, ensure it’s part of your team’s experience.

4) Progress - we need to be growing to feel alive. Humans all want to feel like they’re moving forward and up. Progress and growth are huge contributing factors to a general sense of satisfaction within any workplace. If you’re learning, growing and developing yourself personally and professionally, you’re going to feel great. Everyone should be focused on moving forward and becoming better. What are you doing to further your team’s careers?

Intrinsic Motivation is long-lasting. It’s about doing things because you have an inner drive, whether that’s a Purpose for why you do what you do, excitement for the Autonomy within your environment, an appetite to master your craft or a sense of progression that you’re going places.

True motivation must come from within, it must be Intrinsic. You’re going to have days where you are up, then you’ll have days when you’re down. Being able to tap into your inner drivers will help you to keep going.

All the best

David

Resources Of The Week

• Book - Daniel H. Pink - Drive - in the spirit of motivation and meaning, Daniel’s book deep dives into why intrinsic motivation beats extrinsic motivation over the long term. Also covering the surprising truths about what motivates us.

• App - Blinkist. Do you ever read books and think there was a lot of fluff in there? Blinkist saves you hours with its premium book summary app which condenses hours of reading down into a 10-15 minute summary for you to read or listen to. Try this app to save you time and learn quicker.

• Ted Talk - Behrouz Moemeni on Intrinsic Motivation: Revolutionize Education, Work, and Life - Behrouz shares his innovative approach to leveraging the power of intrinsic motivation to open new doors. Behrouz is passionate about helping people find the path to success that best fits their inner motivations.

Quote of the Week

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