Motivation is the force that pushes or prevents you from doing something. It is a combination of the “Why” behind your action(or non-action) and the feeling associated with the “Why”.
Motivation does not stay constant across different tasks. And the answer to this lies in the motivation matrix.
There is always a why behind anything we do (or don’t). Understanding your own motivational drivers will help you achieve higher performance, prevent procrastination and move forward on your goals.
There are ways to classify motivation:
- External-Internal
- Towards- Away
- External: Motivation arising from external gains like rewards, money, recognition, etc.
- Internal: Motivation arising from within self like feeling successful, satisfied, sense of happiness, etc.
- Towards: When you want to move towards something that gives you a positive feeling.
- Away from When you want to move away from pain.
Everyone responds differently based on which of these works best for them.
For e.g., Taking the purpose of why people do well at work:
- To win the best employee award(Towards-External)
- To feel good about what they have accomplished(Towards -Internal)
- To avoid a bad appraisal or losing their job (Away from- External)
- To not feel like they haven’t done enough (Away from- Internal)
We may also be motivated by a combination of these.
So someone may work really hard at their job to win the best employee award and feel great about their contribution.
Which of these are your key motivators?
When you find yourself not motivated enough to do something try checking if you have the right drivers in place. If not try to replace the drivers with new more useful drivers. You may find a huge shift in your outcomes.