What Is Your Motivation?

How Are You Motivated?

What is Your Why?

 

What is your Why? We are asked that pretty regularly when we start talking about goals. We really do need to know the Why. Until we know why we are doing something, our goals aren’t very important. We could accidently stumble upon goals that match up with our Why. But honestly, that’s pretty rare. Understanding your Why can mean the difference in success or failure. It’s that important.

When we’re talking about your Why with regards to Network Marketing businesses like Young Living or Wildtree, we often hear phrases like “to get out of debt”, “to be more comfortable financially”, “to be able to stay home with my children”, or “to bring my husband home from his job”. We even hear things like “to achieve a higher level of wellness and fitness”, “to share these awesome products with others”,

In order to find and clearly express your Why, you need to know what motivates you. What motivates you is often very personal and unique, but there are some motivators that many people share. This could explain why certain people are attracted to one another when they have seemingly nothing in common. But that’s another story.

There are two types of motivation – intrinsic and extrinsic, or internal and external. Intrinsically refers to motivation that comes from within while extrinsic is based on factors outside yourself.

 

WAIT! STOP! THIS ISN’T WHAT I WANTED TO TELL YOU!!!!!

 

What I really wanted to tell you is that everyone has an itch that needs to be scratched. What scratches your itch? For me it’s several things – the need to teach, my longing for deeper relationships – not a lot of relationships, but deeper, my intense desire to go to new places and experience new things, my need, yes, need to learn new things – not just facts and information, but how to do new things.

You see, all of those things are intrinsic. Usually, when you ask someone why they started a new business or new personal journey or whatever, you will hear things like “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired,” or “I want to be debt-free,” or “I want my family to be able to take long vacations.” And no, there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those reasons. But those are extrinsic. When it gets down to it, those things alone will not scratch that itch. I may well be that there is something about those things, buried and not on the surface, that is intrinsic and will scratch your itch. But discovering your itch makes it a whole lot easier to find what will scratch it.

I love Network Marketing. With Young Living, I have finally found the Network Marketing business that I am truly passionate about and can stick with so my itch will be scratched. I’ve tried others – Stampin’ Up and Close To My Heart, both stamping/scrapbooking businesses – and learned a little about network marketing and myself. About myself, I learned that I love – no, I LOVE! – colors and patterns and textures. Yeah, I kind of knew that on the surface before these endeavors. But after immersing myself in the colors and patterns and textures, I realized it was something I couldn’t live without. (By the way, Young Living doesn’t really satisfy that hunger so I find other creative outlets.) But what I learned through Stampin’ Up and CTMH is that when network marketing is done right relationship bloom. And you know I’m all about the relationships!

What I missed with Stampin’ Up and CTMH was the teaching, the learning, and the experiencing something I was passionate about. Yes, I could do all those things and it was a great learning experience. But it wasn’t something I was passionate about so I was pretty much just going through the motions. When you find that thing you are passionate about and it does scratch those itches, then you know you’ve found the place in the world that you should be.

To be honest, though. It wasn’t the fault of Stampin’ Up or Close To My Heart. I wasn’t in a place or time in my life to be passionate about anything except growing my family. I had two teenage step-daughters in jr. high and high school. I was living in a new state (even after several years, it was still new to me). I had left my teaching career due to my health and was really floundering and searching for what I should be doing. If I had been introduced to either of these companies in the past year or so, I have no doubt things would be different with them. As with all things under God’s care, when Young Living came along, I was ready.

When I was introduced to Young Living, it was by a dear friend in Arkansas who I met through Split Coast Stampers (a stamping/scrapbooking forum) years ago.  When I joined as a Wholesale Member, I had no intention of building a business. But when I received my starter kit and saw what the products did for my family, I couldn’t keep my mouth closed. This was something that I was passionate about. And I could teach. And learn. And I met more people and deeper relationships began to grow. And I began to bloom. Young Living was scratching my itch!

While reading all this, I hope you have been thinking about what scratches your itch. You may or may not already be involved in a business or activity that satisfies your intrinsic needs. If not, please take a few moments to think about activities you’ve been involved in in the past and how they satisfied you. What was it about the activities that kept drawing you back for more? What about them did/do you feel you couldn’t live without? What would you be doing right now if money was not an issue?

When you find what scratches your itch, your WHY, then you will find your Purpose.

 

From Psychologia:

Intrinsic motivation comes from within, i.e. intrinsic factors are responsible for one’s behavior. Here are some good examples of intrinsic motives:

• fun
• desire to achieve
• challenge
• social contact
• sense of competence
• mastery
• sense of progress
• social status
• curiosity
• learning
• pride
• fulfillment
• power
• fear of failure
• anxiety

I’m not really sure that I would include Fear of Failure or Anxiety on my list, but there is no doubt they can both be strong motivators. “Money” isn’t listed by name on the Psychologia list. But it, too, can be an intrinsic motivator. Some people simply enjoy making money and seeing the numbers grow. I suppose that would come under the category of ‘desire to achieve’.

My assignment for you this week, if you choose to accept it, is to sincerely look at your intrinsic motivators and to let this lead you to your purpose. I have included a worksheet, below, that I found online with no link back to the source. If anyone knows where this comes from, please let me know so I can get proper permission to use the worksheet and give proper credit. Go ahead and print out the worksheet so you can mark it up and change your mind and then change your mind again. (As I was working through this, I realized I could just go ahead and scratch numbers 1 and 9 off the sheet. They didn’t apply to me at all!)

Since there were no specific instructions with the worksheet, I’ll just tell you what I did with it. I read through the list of 9 motivators. I filled in the blank in the first statement, listing 3 motivators I thought I would respond to best. Then I used the chart and circle the number of the two in each set that I would respond to better. After going through these, I counted how many times I circled each number and came up with my top 3. Two of my 3 were the same as those I predicted above. They were Autonomy, Affiliation, and Creativity. That was a little surprising in one sense, but not really. The teaching and learning that I expected (‘Search for Meaning’ is the closest motivator on the list) were not there.

And what about numbers 1 and 9? Well, even though accomplishment and achievement are important to me, status is nowhere on the radar. And Security? Who doesn’t want security, right? Well, I guess there are different levels of security. In my life, I have security in my Lord, Jesus Christ, and in my husband and his unwavering love. No other security can even compare to that. At the same time, I love changes and am willing to take chances and risks to respond to my other motivators. In fact, not knowing the end result is part of what motivates me.

But . . . in relation to my business, these were pretty much spot on. I am not in business for status, power, security, material rewards (though that is always nice!), or several of the others you might expect. I have a network marketing business so I can be the one making the decisions, to build relationships, and to express my creativity. The creativity comes in the opportunity to do things my way. Even as I am attempting to lead my team with duplicable examples, I’m always free to ‘do my own thing’. I can try something new and see what happens. I can even follow in the steps of those who have gone before me, but infuse the activities with my own personality, including what ‘scratches my itch’. What you do in your business may not work be what I do in mine. But if it gets us to the same place, why not?

But back to the assignment. Where does this lead me with my purpose? I think this pretty much says that I should have my own business and not be an employee of others. Right now I feel like my part-time job is killing me. Not just physically due to the inactivity required for the job – sitting at a computer, checking emails, sending messages, working on reports and data, etc. – but also for the soul-stifling work that it is. There are others who bloom in this setting. I’m just wilting. But that all goes back to the intrinsic motivators that make each of us unique and different.

So, what do you think? What are your intrinsic motivators? What scratches your itch? Tell me about it in the comments.

 

By the way, this was supposed to be an article about Intrinsic v. Extrinsic motivators. But it’s all about Intrinsic. And I’m OK with that.

 

Intrinsic Motivation Worksheet