What Motivates You?

I want to start with a simple analogy, comparing momentum with motivation

Momentum [moh-men-tuhm]

1. Force or speed of movement; impetus, as of a physical object or course of events:The car gained momentum going downhill. 
   Her career lost momentum after two unsuccessful films.

Motivation [moh-tuh-vey-shuhn]

1. The act or an instance of motivating, or providing with a reason to act in a certain way:
2. The state or condition of being motivated or having a strong reason to act or accomplish something:

Motivation is a lot like the momentum of a ball.  As long as the path is flat and smooth motivation will keep things rolling for a long time.   If there is enough of it then you can overcome any bump or a patches of friction.  Eventually you slow down and need another push of energy.

If we stretch this analogy out further then what is our energy source? What pushes us into being motivated?

The energy for the at motivation comes in the form of our own motivational reinforcements.  The best motivational reinforcements are positive ones (+MRs).  These can come in the form of passion, self-belief, excitement and a plethora of other feel good factors. The key to these positive reinforcements is that they have to come from yourself. Someone can say “You’re great!” and “You can do it!”, but you have to believe it yourself before it becomes energy for your productivity.

People can also be very motivated by stress or anxiety.  Those days as a student, frantically finishing an assignment with little sleep and minutes to go can testify to that.  A sharp boost of adrenaline motivating you to act or else.  But does this make for a good motivational response?

Let’s pretend that two people have been given a task to run 500m. The first person is super confident that they can do it.  They believe in themself and cannot wait to start.  The second person is told that they will be chased by a lion and is full of fear and anxiety towards the task.

I would end up blaming these small external distractions for my long day of procrastination.

Each person is motivated and that motivation will probably get them to the finish line. But how are they going to feel during and after the task is complete?

When you look at motivation in this way you soon see that not all motivation reinforcements are equal and that negative motivational reinforcements (-MRs) can drive productivity. But at what cost to our mental health?

When I look back at my own productivity in the first few years as a homeworker. They were a rollercoaster of productivity.  I would have periods where I’d procrastinate for most of the day.  As the day rolled to 3:30pm and the kids would come home from school, which would induce a sense of anxiety and self-realisation of my fruitless day.  My adrenaline flooded brain would motivate me start focusing on any task to hand.  The problem now was that any distractions from the kids or barking dog during this adrenaline fuelled productivity would become an amplified annoyance and I would end up blaming these small external distractions for my long day of procrastination.

While stress and panic spurred into action it had a knock on effect. It changed my mood, my interactions with others and eventual lead to an adrenaline crash leaving me mentally lethargic for the rest of the evening.

Things will not always be rainbows and moonbeams and -MRs will occur. It is impossible to completely cut out tight deadlines or stressful workloads.  What we need to try and do is maintain and balance our motivational reinforcements.  This can only be done if are mindful  and reflect on what type of MR contribute to our productivity and how often.

If you find your productivity is mainly influenced by anxiety or stress then you may need to uncover causes.  When I looked at my own, I realised that the catalyst was me. My insufficient organisation of my day’s actions was causing a lack of focus and procrastination.  When I finally realised this, it was a lightbulb moment and I starting learning techniques to organise my days and reducing my anxiety.

It can be hard to identify our own stresses or anxieties or resolve them, especially if the source is an external one  – like your own lion. It may help taking with someone else to help understand and move you towards a more positive push of productivity.