Know Thy Reason
When I looked up “motivation” in the dictionary, the most descriptive definition I could find was this: Something that motivates; inducement; incentive.
This is a horrible definition. The words incentive and inducement imply that motivation is a single act or a temporary condition, but to me it’s so much more than that; it’s the thing that forces us to rise above our most basic urges; a mysterious force that drives us to act with purpose; it’s what makes us human.
In my mind there are two parts to motivation: long term & short term. Your long-term motivation is the bigger picture, The Reason that guides you - made up of your goals, your dreams and your aspirations, personal and professional. And your long-term motivation drives your short term, day-to-day motivation – the choices that drive each small success and bring you closer to the bigger picture.
This big picture can help to direct and guide every action in your day and every facet of your projects. For when your motives are clear, your choices become simpler for having something to measure against – so, if your only motivation is to succeed at your career, then the choice to work 20-hour days for a promotion is simple; but if spending time with family is your ultimate goal, then the thought of not seeing your children grow up will probably guide you a different way.
The biggest block to motivation is disorganized thinking and poor planning. Even the most enjoyable projects can get delayed and sidetracked if the plan is not clear or the next step on the path is muddy and confusing. I often get bogged down with the busy day to day stuff at work and lose track of the bigger picture. Here’s a good example: a strange but considerable problem with my hobby, winemaking, is what to do with 30+ bottles that need to age, when I live in the average NYC apartment (that is to say, it’s tiny). One day I decided to build a cabinet but didn’t have lumber. So I thought, “Ok so I need to get lumber,” which led to, “Ok so I need to get a car to go get lumber with.” So I signed up for a zip car, but my application was denied due to a glitch in the DMV system. So at this point in time, having initially planned to do something as simple as make myself some storage space, instead I have spent 4 weeks working to get my driving record cleared (still working on it by the way – and hating the DMV more every minute). This is just one example of how poor planning can lead to little pesky jobs that drive you farther and farther away from your purpose, if you don’t plan ahead.
One thing that has really helped me guide and direct my short term motivation, has been David Allen’s book Getting Things Done. My last article on inspiration went into detail about some of the tactics form this book, that I use to get all the stuff in my life under control, so I wont reiterate that here. The short of it is that I organize my thoughts and tasks into lists, which allows me to keep my mind clear in the present, at all times. Then I am able to focus my energy on getting things done one item at a time. I get a little motivational boost each time I knock something off my list cause I am 100% sure it is bringing me closer to a larger goal. And that boost helps drive me onto tackling the next item on the list, so it’s a self-propagating cycle.
As my job description got more complex I used to get really tied up in the immediate needs of my work, so much so that my project planning suffered. My projects got sloppy, my behavior was increasingly reactionary and my wife got angry because she could never count on me to be available more than 24 hours in advance. I never had any mental space to think about why I was doing what I was; my motivation wasn’t clear and, as a result, both my personal and professional lives were shitty.
Now, I know this sounds a bit like an infomercial but after reading the first two chapters of Getting things Done, I started to make some lists. And once my obligations were all down on paper, I finally had some space to look around. I was able to breathe and think clearly for the first time in ages. I realized that my real motivation was balancing a happy marriage and a fulfilling career, and that my current attempts at achieving this were counter-productive.
It took a lot of organization and a drastic change of attitude (I have to admit), to really figure out the right way forward, but I can finally see the bigger picture, so my motivation is clear enough to affect the majority of the decisions I make in my daily life – and in this way it guides me, hopefully toward happiness, like it should.
comments
Hmmm. Now I'm full of questions!!! Do our reasons lie within reason? Or are they lurking somewhere under the surface, beneath our conscious grasp? See, Freud says that our motivations are our most basic urges- those secret instinctual things that propel us to satisfy our surly little IDs. It's our brilliant EGOs that protect us from the dirty truth- that we want what we want when we want it and we'll do anything we can to get it... within a socially acceptable framework, of course. And all this work happens completely outside of our awareness!
On the other hand, maybe "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Maybe our motivation does spring from our beliefs about what's important versus just an unconscious desire to get our needs met. It's sort of a comforting idea- that it's possible to know Our Reasons better than they know us. If so, then you're absolutely right, Douglas- motivation might just be what makes us human. Humans seem to have the ability to rise above the instinctual and make a clear choice, even when they don't feel like it.