There is nothing more personal than motivation. Motivation means ’inner or social stimulus for an action’, and no other thing or person is responsible for that, but you. You are the one who knows what moves you, what makes you take action in order to achieve your goal, and what stimulates you toward action. Having motivation, being motivated, having the stimuli is an essential element for a balanced, enjoyable and successful personal and professional life. Still, we have many questions and issues centering around motivation.
Inside out
If you are an entrepreneur, you might have experienced the lack of motivation by this time, or the incongruence that lies between your personal motivations and your team’s or company’s. You might have had cases when you were not able to communicate your motivation clearly, so that it was more difficult to stimulate others in their achievements. As a free-lancer you can easily forget your motivation if you find yourself running after your clients and accepting most of their offers that do not actually challenge or inspire you. But it can also happen that you are not aware of what motivates you, and what has to be done in order to regain your drive, focus and motivation.
When it is about business or profession, it is difficult to talk about personal factors and emotional connections, but the real motivation lies inside you and it acquires your wants, needs and desires to be discovered or uncovered.
My 200% focus program is a good fit for you if you wish to go deeper and focus on your real, emotional-driven, passionate motivation that helps your business and career flourish.
Move forward
Motivation has its roots in the Old French motif meaning ’will, drive, motivation`, while the Latin motus refers to ’moving, motion’.
It implies both emotional and behavioral engagement: having control of motion, causing motion, having power to move someone or something, willpower, enthusiasm and passion.’
Motivation can be seen as the process or method that initiates, guides and maintains the capability of acting and achieving. Motivation is the engine that energizes your behavior and directs you towards your goal.
But where does this power and appeal lie, and how can someone lose motivation?
Mind the gap
There are two types of motivation. The source of extrinsic motivation is external rewards and reinforcements, such as money, praise, or awards. This form of motivation is not what I am looking for when working with a client, as I believe in the long-lasting emotionally driven motivation that helps you reach self-fulfillment. Though when people lack external rewards they can feel demotivated and discouraged.
The source of intrinsic motivation is internal rewards and reinforcements, like joy, relief, achievement. This is the case of acting, doing, being moved for a personal reason. However powerful this form of motivation is, it can have its dark side, too. The individual might believe that his/her sense of self worth depends upon accomplishing a thing or he/she might find it difficult to make the personal motivation a common thing, worth sharing, and they feel like a fraud or have a sense of guilt.
What moves you? Curiosity, earning, belonging, mastery, autonomy, sense of competence or money, rewards, praise, competition, fear of failure, recognition, fame? Is it negative motivation, personal self-fulfillment, external feedback or money that mostly triggers you in your professional life?
Emotion in
There are many things that motivate us, but the most powerful motivator is fear, which has followed us throughout the whole history of humanity until the present time. The fear of failure, disappointment, loss, instability, and risk helps us move forward and create a ‘safe space.’ The other great motivator is the claim for survival. This is why we accomplish higher results and we become more creative when we face changes.
Changes make us adapt in order to keep up and resist, and through the cycle of change and adaptation we discover new possibilities, new ideas, and we experience a whole new way of living and creating. The good news is that we don’t have to wait for changes to happen but we can initiate changes by taking action, making hazardous decisions, stepping out of our comfort zone and familiar environment.
Change-maker
Setting a goal or having a mission is the greatest motivator but only if you are emotionally engaged with it. It happens many times that entrepreneurs, free-lancers, and professionals lose the initial flame and after a while they do their business mechanically. Their motivation hasn’t changed, but it became more invisible and hidden by the monotonous everyday problem-solving, routine and external inputs.
Where does that genuine fever lie and how can it be brought back? The answer is simple: by figuring out or rediscovering your message and the ‘why’ of your career path, why you started doing what you do and why you would love doing it for at least one more decade.
Would you like to have a powerful conversation on that?
love, d.
dorialbert.com 