What motivates you?
Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.
–Stephen R. Covey
Identifying the key motivators that “light your fire” makes it easier to choose work situations that will help you feel like you’re at your best. Think of motivators as your own personal compass – they point you to the clearest path to satisfaction and fulfillment.
For example…
If you’re most comfortable when you are surrounded by a friendly team of co-workers and you love bouncing ideas off others, collaborating with others is an important motivator for you. So, if you are offered an impressive assignment to work mostly by yourself, think twice, because you’re not likely to be happy. You’ll have to work much harder to do your best, and will experience less enjoyment in the process.
Or..
If you love to explore, try new things, and experience a variety of activities, but are being asked to do repetitive processing, no amount of compensation will be able to change the fact that under those conditions you may feel bored and underutilized.
REMEMBER: Not satisfying your key motivators can make what might be the best job in the world for someone else, just plain wrong for you
Try this 3-Step Exercise
Step 1: Find your Key Motivators
Scan this list of common motivators:
- Accomplishing goals / results
- Being a source of knowledge / expertise
- Being a leader
- Collaborating with others
- Competing to win / excel
- Developing new processes/systems
- Distilling complex ideas
- Doing something meaningful / worthwhile
- Finding efficiencies
- Learning continuously
- Prestige / reputation
- Solving problems
Pick your Top 3
The above list is not exhaustive, so you may come up with other motivators for yourself that aren’t on this list. The goal of this exercise is to zero in on your top three motivators, so that when you step back and look at them, you can say, “Yes, if these motivators are present, I will feel good about what I’m doing, and I will do excellent work.”
“Sit” with them
Put your Top 3 list aside for a few hours or even a day. When you pick the list up again, if the priority motivators still resonate with you, then you can feel confident about the validity of the list for you.
Step 2: Write down 2 new points of awareness
Write down at least 2 things that you’ve learned from this exercise. Some prompts:
- What’s surprising to you about your Top 3?
- Had you forgotten how important some of your motivators are to you?
- How aligned is what you currently do for work with your motivators?
Step 3: Write down 1 thing you’ll do differently
Given the new awareness you’ve gained…
Write down at least one thing you’ll commit to doing differently so that you the work you do is more aligned with your key work motivators.
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TOMORROW: Day 2 – Transformational Questions
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