Motivation
Motivation is the drive to satisfy needs. Most people tend to give their best when they feel good about themselves and have a sense that the organization of which they are a part is working with them to meet their needs for growth and development. ~Reece and Brandt, Effective Human Relations in Organizations
Why do we do what we do? Why do we want what we want? When my children were preteens, I had a talk with them about the things they wanted. I shared with them I would not work to get the money to buy things they wanted because others had them. That was tough but, I wanted to help motivate them to want things they wanted because they wanted them. When they were passionate about things they wanted because they wanted them for themselves, I was open to going over and beyond the call of a good father to help them acquire those things they wanted.
I have always been interested to know why I like the activity I enjoy. I wanted to know why I was motivated to pursue the jobs I pursued or the travel opportunities. I could not always answer the question but I continued to examine my motivation until I arrived at clarity.
Master Motivation Expert Tony Robbins teaches us that there are two primary motivators to all human behavior, pleasure and pain. At the time, my wife Bonnie was leading a weekly recovery program providing recovery services to men and women suffering from self – destructive hurts, habits, and hang – ups.
Robbins’ work proved to be extremely helpful as a visual aide. Using the letter V, the word pleasure would be placed at the right top of the V and the word pain on the left top of the letter V. What participants learned was their self – destructive behavior had begun as an activity of pleasure but had ended in the avoidance of pain.
Sports activity draws men and women motivated to compete with the desire to win. Politics draws men and women motivated to become elected public servants. Entertainment draws men and women with talent to be on stage performers as musicians, actors, and models.
Some are motivated to serve in the military while others become doctors, lawyers, and clergy. Some are motivated to sales for its opportunity to make money faster than working jobs.
Some are motivated to college and university study through graduate and post graduate degrees, while others are content to start their own businesses. Motivation is different to different people.
Men and women are motivated to mate and marry as a result of our biological prompts. Where motivation affects relationship, men and women discovering they share interests in activity and feelings for each other, they are ready to negotiate the future they can build together. Most are motivated to marry and give birth to children to create and raise families.
When motivation fails to satisfy, many discover their motivation was not sufficiently strong enough to continue. Divorces happen. People quit jobs and give up on their dreams.
When those futures are negotiated in detail, all interests and non – negotiables are taken into consideration. Agreements for how the relationship will proceed are arrived at from lengthy negotiations. Then, couples significantly enhance the probability of their long-term relationship success.
Motivation is not created equal. Some forms of motivation light a fire under us faster than others. For example, persons discovering medical conditions that threaten their lives are passionately motivated towards their own healing. How much more might we pursue our healing from trauma if we believed our lives depended on it?
People that need money are motivated to find ways to earn it quickly. Where I walk, I pass a building that hosts a pay for blood plasma unit. People line up there very early in the morning to make $25 - $40 for each time they come. When I interviewed some of the gathered, I learned some were homeless. Others were in school. Others still simply found it an easy way to make quick money.
The film industry works to produce films that speak to human motivation. They show us films of surviving war, earthquakes, terrorist events, or end of the world scenarios.
It also produces love stories infamously characterized as the chic flics. The hero is so locked in the human collective consciousness they continue to work. The hero or heroine survives hell to stand and have vengeance on their enemies. Traditionally, this themed work ends with a man getting the goods, getting the girl, and getting to go. For the film industry that always means there will be a sequel.
No one invades the human mind in more irritating ways to motivate action than the developers of television and radio commercials and their jingles. The pornography industry has captured human motivation in the rawest form of expressed sexuality in video viewing format.
Taken to its extreme, the most motivated people walking the earth might well be considered the living dead, violent drug addicts. Drug addicts are known for stealing from their family and friends, pawning their things, and breaking into the homes of other people to find things they can quickly turn into cash to buy the drug their bodies and minds passionately burn to have.
In many ways, we humans are the dogs of Pavlov. The internet has made us all such an easy case study and prey, the prepared predatory marketers perch to unleash the next wave of things we will crave we never knew we wanted or needed. We are easy targets. We are going to learn about boundaries in a coming session.
What are your primary motivations and what do they prompt you to do or to want?
Where do your passions lie and what do they motivate you to do?
Are you clear on why you want what you want?
Do you want what you want because others might like you more if you pursued something they approve of?
Are you motivated to want what you want solely because it is something you want?
However we answer these questions, we alone must live with our answers. The good news is there is no law against changing our minds about what we want. As long as we are honest with ourselves, we can live in agreement with ourselves and pursue our interests as we see fit.
Our motivation answers the question of why we do what we do. What we do, we do as a result of giving ourselves permission to seek pleasure or to avoid pain.
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