Day 29: The Best Realisation I've Had About Motivation

When I was 10, my softball coach gave me a profound piece of life advice. He told me, success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Catchy and it rhymed; a great parcel in which to give life advice to a youngster. Anecdotally, he was trying to communicate the importance of effort and sustained work towards our goals. Without the work, inspiration or intention on its own would not be fruitful.

Indirectly or not, I've marinated with the concept for the last 20 years, and in reflection, have been largely influenced by it and other similar sentiments. I've forced productivity and allowed external factors (reputation, accolades, recognition, monetary incentives) motivate me to keep doing the consistent barrage of work, without taking time to truly find inspiration, purpose and alignment behind it. Of course, that sort of motivation wouldn't last.

Here's the issue with that well-intended piece of advice from my softball coach. Besides helping craft a good work ethic, it is not realistic nor sustainable for pro-longed motivation. It doesn't foster the idea that internal motivation is valuable. It posits that inspiration is not a vital part of motivation (only 1%?!), and it encourages us to do the work without taking time to find alignment with our values. Doesn't it make sense that if we are inspired by something, our behaviours would work to achieve it? That is motivation, no?

Like the universe, we are no where near close to understanding the parameters of the human mind and what drives our behaviour. But to the best of our ability, motivation can be explained as an extremely complex psychological construct that refers to the driving force behind our behaviour.

While there are many factors that contribute to change our behaviour, nothing is as sustainable as internal motivation. This can only come about when our actions align to our values. Contrary to the sentiment behind the advice, valuing both inspiration and perspiration can help us to retain a sustained level of motivation that lasts. Being aligned to our values allows us to stay positive, create sustainable systems which amplify our successes and reframe failure as a natural part of the learning process. Knowing the inspiration behind the work, will encourage us to be resilient and keep going. Now, that’s motivation.

My major realisation is this, we should learn to harness the power of internal motivation to reach our full potential.

Internal motivation can only come about if we believe what we are doing matters. Instead of trying to fit our values around our work, we should strive to do work driven from our values. This is how we can harness motivation and remain on the path to live a fulfilling and purposeful life. It might take time for this to fall into place as we start and shift our careers, but envisioning what our ideal lives and jobs look like and finding purpose in it, is the most motivating flywheel we can create for ourselves.

The most beautiful sight in the world, is a person who is living with purpose and making their mark in the world, no matter how small.

I want to be clear, I don't mean someone loafing off from contributing to society and seeking creature comforts. Nor do I mean the person who is employed at a large firm for benefits only to self sooth through alcohol and fancy restaurant visits. I mean an individual doing the hard work and finding joy and purpose in their chosen profession.

When I am served by a waitress who truly cares about customer service, or when I meet a scientist who would endure any level of mundane lab work for the one tiny advancement they may or may not achieve after 40 years, or the sales specialist who feels alive in their fast paced environment and shows respect to their stakeholders by doing the right thing and believe in what they are selling - That gives me hope in the world.

Stop trying to find motivation, we can be motivated if we are taking time to introspect and find inspiration that fuels why we are doing our work. Motivation is a powerful force that can help us to overcome obstacles and challenges. We can keep trying to generate the unsustainable kind, or harness true intrinsic motivation that lasts us for our lives.