Motivation is the reason, or reasons that make you act or behave in a particular way. In other words, it is your motive to take action.
You are motivated by many things. Some are external while others are intrinsic. There is volumes of research by psychologists and social scientists on the difference between the two.
Essentially, external motivation is when you do something to earn a reward or avoid some punishment. For example, the motivation for a kid to clean up their room is to avoid being reprimanded by their parents. Or, towards the end of the year, you muster up more energy to close in on your sales targets at work, because you want to qualify for the yearly bonus.
Internal motivation is when you behave in a way that is personally rewarding to you. I am, for instance, always motivated by travel. I discipline myself to take to regular vacations simply because it is an intrinsic source of motivation for me. I travel for the sake of travel, and it makes me happy. There is an element of a “reward” in this motivation, but it is an inner reward rather than something I would gain outwardly.
The question I get asked frequently in my coaching and training programmes is which source of motivation is better. I reckon they are both important, to some extent.
The rewards you are promised will stimulate you to take action. Knowing that if you meet targets, you will be given a financial incentive, or be offered a larger role in your company, may spur you. Or, attending a seminar and listening to an engaging and charismatic speaker will create enthusiasm in you.
And at times, you will need this. When you have a down-period, or if you find yourself losing your “mojo” and you are in a rut, you may need some external motivation to lift your spirits. The reward or the encounter with a charismatic speaker will help you.
However, external motivation is often short-lived. It has a finite lifespan and it is cyclical. Because it comes from an external source, you will need it regularly to give you boost. And this means you are dependent on someone or something beyond yourself.
Internal motivation on the other hand, comes from within.
Abraham Lincoln, the iconic 16th President of the United States once said, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be”. This is certainly a powerful statement that is centered solely on intrinsic motivation.
Your intrinsic motivation is driven by an alignment of your own vision and strategy.
When I am invited to conduct team development programmes, I focus on recalibrating this for the participants. If you are unable to align your personal goals with your organisation’s goals, you will struggle to find purpose at work.
The difficulty that many people face is when the rigmarole of daily work-life confuses the boundary between intrinsic and external motivation. Often, you get demoralised by external pressures and you lose sight of your internal motivation.
I recently had a very interesting session with a client whom I coach. She runs a boutique consultancy. Her specialisation is preparing non-financial reports for large conglomerates and multi-national companies.
In the course of my coaching session, we talked about whether her career goals supported her personal goals. To my amazement, she said that she felt they did not. I found this very interesting. The reason being; in my interactions with her, I could always see how engaged she was with her vocation. She took tremendous pride in her work product. Even as a smaller firm, she regularly beats larger consultancies to get work. This is because of the passion she displays in understanding the needs of her clients.
Therefore, when she declared that her career goals did not support her personal goals, I was a little perplexed. I prodded her for more insights on her personal goals. As we moved from her career goals to her personal goals, she spoke eagerly about focusing on her children. Her main intent was to educate and empower them to become well-rounded human beings.
However, she argued that her work-life was an impediment to this, because of the sheer volume of work she had to attend to on a daily basis. It weighed her down, and it did not give her the independence she needed to maintain a satisfactory balance with her home life.
Interestingly, as we continued to workshop these ideas, in the end, it turned out that both her work and personal objectives had a common denominator. She was motivated by her clients when they felt her work inspired and empowered them to take steps to improve their business processes. Similarly, she was hugely motivated in her personal life when she saw her children being inspired and empowered to improve themselves.
This was the point of convergence. It was the awareness that in fact both her career and personal goals were similar but just expressed differently. The problem was simply that the load at work was so heavy that it created an imbalance in her work-life equation. This was demotivating. The issue to resolve was not one of goal alignment, but to ensure that her team at work was reinforced to deliver more efficient results.
The secret to continuous motivation is when it is internally sourced and properly directed. If you look for someone or something external to provide you the energy to go forth, you will only grow sporadically.
Do you know what motivates you?
Shankar R. Santhiram is managing consultant and executive leadership coach at EQTD Consulting. He is also the author of the national bestseller “So, You Want To Get Promoted?”