In its simplest form, motivation is a choice between two outcomes. In your brain, you balance the short and long-term costs and rewards of various options, and make a decision. And oftentimes short-term interests win out over long-term interests – it’s why checking email for the 100th time and getting out one more social media update wins out over writing that proposal (that will actually bring money in the door). The dopamine hit from the short-term win is just so powerful!
The rationalization process then starts in our brain: I promised that proposal to the client by the end of the week. But it’s 4 o’clock now and I don’t want to get sucked in and be here all night doing it. It’s going to be take more than two hours. I know, I’ll just start it tomorrow after my 10 o’clock tomorrow and work through lunch. Yep, I really should go through and answer those tweets and get one more update done to our Facebook page.
So then we put off the proposal.
The Drive Approach to Motivation
If you’ve never read Drive by Daniel Pink, I can’t recommend it highly enough — especially if you are interested in what makes people tick. The Cliff’s Notes version is that he believes that for true intrinsic motivation (which is the only kind that works in the long run) you need three things: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. And if you can combine those three things together, then you have the winning combination — which means that the proposal will win out over the social media updates.
Autonomy
When you have autonomy over what you do, you are considerably more likely to do it. In this case, there is no question that our industrious businessperson has autonomy over what they are doing. But, autonomy is only one-third of the equation.
Mastery
We all like to be good at stuff. But I have yet to see an instruction manual for running a business (or writing the perfect proposal) so it’s hard to know what to do – and what not to do. The 10,000 hour rule tells us that it takes 10,000 hours (or about 10 years) to develop mastery of any one activity – and while deliberate practice can help us cut that time in half, there is simply no substitute for doing the work.
But, this is where surrounding yourself with smart people – in the form of an awesome team, supportive peers, excellent coach, and a strong community – will accelerate your road to mastery.
If our proposal-writer doesn’t have a lot of proposal-writing experience, he’s almost certainly going to pick social media over proposal-writing until he no longer has a choice.
Purpose
To me, this is actually the most important component – buy-in. Understanding why you are doing something gives us the motivation to power through the 10,000 hours of learning. It can even help in situations where we don’t have the autonomy that we might otherwise want. When you have something you believe in, with your entire heart, you are willing to overlook a lot of other things.
The Magic of the Trifecta
Now, imagine that you have all three. What sort of magic can you create?
Image credit: Martin Whitmore
About Jen Waak
