“Motivation: … the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior.” (Source unknown)
In my last post, I highlighted three main areas where I would like to improve – self-motivation, perseverance and connection. In this post I’ll continue my exploration of motivation.
All too often, the word “motivation” has a positive connotation. After all, how often do you hear public speakers or other leadership types exclaim “Be Motivated!” Because of this, how can one not assume that being motivated is always the right thing to do?
In contrast to public opinion, I believe that being motivated to do something isn’t always the right decision. Why? Because you could be motivated to do the wrong thing – i.e. something that is misaligned with your core values and/or for the wrong reasons. In the above definition, it’s easy to assume that the goal or “reason for the action” is clearly known, but in many cases it may not be.
In thinking about this concept, my belief is that truly understanding what motivates one to do something can ultimately help one achieve a particular goal faster than if that level of awareness is left unchecked. Along a similar path, gaining this understanding early on can also highlight whether the goal should be abandoned entirely – i.e. is being motivated truly the right path in a given situation? In short, I think one needs to have a clear understanding of the goal (and the reasons why achievement of that goal is worth the pursuit) before being motivated to act.
Let me share a personal example to illustrate this concept in more depth.
I grew up in a family where education and success went together. Over time, I started to believe that my success (the goal) was primarily dependent upon my education. Not withstanding my desire to learn, even after my master’s degree I continued to take classes in the hope that I would eventually acquire enough knowledge to be “successful”.
My business coach challenged this long-standing belief late last year when I started formulating the basis for Big Generator. Up until that time, I never thought that I was truly ready to move forward. Did I know enough? Did I have enough experience? The answer is that I’ll never know enough. Thus, I consciously decided to accept this fact and the rest would need to come with more experience.
This example is relevant because being motivated to continue with my education vs. moving forward with my business could have been the wrong decision over the long-term. Thus, being motivated to carry out the wrong goal for the wrong reasons doesn’t make the activity right. Instead, being motivated to advance the business while continuing to gain knowledge is the right decision for me at this time in my life.
Formal education, while deemed worthy in nearly all contexts, is actually the direct opposite in this example. In essence, formal education was employed as a “motivator” to help me meet a goal that I call “success”. However, “success” takes more than being well-educated. Thus, taking inventory of what I wanted to do and identifying the right motivators allowed me to break out of this cycle and make alternative decisions.
This isn’t to say that there will not be times when the mantra of “get motivated” doesn’t have value – particularly in situations where you aren’t excited about the path you’re on, but there really isn’t any choice but to use an alternative (positive) perspective and go ahead with the task at hand. However, in the grand scheme of things, it’s important to understand what it is that you want and build a motivation framework to help you achieve that which you are seeking.
In my next post in this series, I’ll go into more depth about this framework and show some guidelines to make sure that you are motivated for the right reasons.