Is your motivation internal or external

Do you know those people, who knew exactly what they wanted to do in life, have you ever wondered ‘how’ they knew, or what’s their decision process like, if you’re one of them, well done, if you’re one of us, keep trying. Nearly thirty-seven years old and still searching for “that one thing” that will bring me joy and make me jump from the bed in the morning and wake up without an alarm.

I’ve only started to think more about this around 2015 when I started to be around some brilliant minds, London is a great hub for learning and for opportunities, as well as meeting like-minded individuals, and very diverse, and one amazing thing I have noticed is, everyone is keen to help and that’s how I started thinking more about the journey of finding your “thing”, by working with and learning from some of the greatest minds.

But going back to finding “our thing” takes a lot of work, which I would say is more critical thinking rather than physical, going from job to job to find it, is, at some point exhausting for both your mind and your body, the body after a certain age does not give the same results as when you were younger, and the mind starts to get tired as well of the same results, our confidence will drop and with that both “our dreams and ambitions” will be put on pause or most or in ninety-five percent lost for good.

In the same year, I have noticed, that I had a trigger at work when I was asked to do more than my contracted hours or my job duties and to do something more than usual, I wouldn’t do it unless I was rewarded with something, whereas some of my colleagues would jump and do it without even thinking about it. But when the time would come for a promotion, ‘guess who would get it, also my colleagues, even in cases when I was considering myself smarter and more qualitative than some of them, which I was to some extent but clearly not enough to be promoted.

After I noticed that, I started looking into more dept and to narrow the things I really enjoy doing, it’s a continuous process of test and trial, what works and what doesn’t, I have also discovered that in order to get what I wanted, my motivation needed to change and to do that I have also researched how motivation works and more importantly how many types of motivations are and how do they work. Out of the many types of motivations a person can have or work on it I have found four major types of motivation.

Extrinsic motivation

As the word says, extrinsic motivation is an external influence, and it’s anything to do with our external needs and expectations, the example above is perfect, awaiting a reward just to complete a task, the problem with that, is, it’s creating a “condition”, and in order to achieve a goal or to complete a task, we’re always conditioned by the reward, therefore, when the reward is not there we won’t be able to get on with the task and pursue our goals unless we will be rewarded.

Intrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation happens when we are driven from inside to complete an activity for the pure pleasure and satisfaction of doing it or challenged to complete it, rather than looking for a reward, a great example would be competing in sports or engaging in activities that are according to a person’s values.

Introjected motivation

This form of motivation happens when we feel we haven’t done enough or we didn’t perform well at work or at school and it comes from negative feedback of non-action, it is also a form of intrinsic motivation, an example of introjection is a student who is learning for an exam over and over because if they do not get the exam people will look bad at them, again it is related to a negative trigger of guilt.

Identified motivation

This is one of the most powerful motivation influencers, it simply says I know what I need to do to achieve my goals however I am not acting upon it, but if I am to achieve these goals I know I have to do specifically follow these steps, as motivation it’s a step by step process, rather than acting only when rewarded or getting punished, the great Zig Ziglar said: “motivation it’s like washing your hands, it needs to be done often”.

In the journey of finding what makes us wake up in the morning with joy and fulfillment, and pursue our passions and dreams we have to stay motivated in order to achieve our goal, if you find this useful, please share and subscribe and leave a comment with an example of motivation that worked for you, in finding your passion or achieving your goals.

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