It’s about rewarding yourself. You have to want it first. You have to have the right enthusiasm. You have to have incentives. When it comes to motivation, there are many ideas about how we get it, what we need to get it, and how we keep it going.
But for all of our ideas, motivation actually consists of only three ingredients. That’s right, three. So what are they?
Mastery, autonomy, and purpose. I call it the MAP of motivation.
In his groundbreaking book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink found study after study that demonstrated that external rewards, like money, material gains, and promotions, didn’t increase motivation, and in many cases, even decreased it (Pink, 2011).
What did increase motivation, Pink found, were experiencing a sense of mastery, such as learning to do something better, perfecting a skill, or learning a new one, feeling autonomous, such as being able to choose how, when, and where you pursue your goals, as well as what those goals are, and feeling as if what you are doing has a purpose, such as creating a product, program, or system that directly affects and improves the lives of others (Pink, 2011).
Pink gives numerous examples of companies such as Google, Tom’s Shoes, and Patagonia that have embraced his approach, with profound results. Gmail, for example was the product of Googles’s 20 percent rule: employees can choose what they work on for 20 percent of their time as long as they present their work at regular scheduled intervals (Pink, 2011).
The difference between companies like these and those that simply pay more in monetary or promotional gains is that they tap into a person’s internal motivation. Paying someone more is an external motivator. Giving them choice, that’s an internal one.
And when people are internally motivated, they look to themselves to solve problems, find strengths they might not know existed, and connect what they are doing to something beyond themselves. The result? They don’t need external rewards. They have all the motivation they need.
Related Online Continuing Education (CE) Courses:
Motivation: Igniting the Process of Change is a 3-hour online continuing education (CE/CEU) course that explores how we can tap into, ignite, and harness our motivation to create lasting change. Motivation today is one of the most coveted traits, thought to underlie our business success, athletic prowess, and even weight loss. But just how do we motivate ourselves? How do we ignite and harness our own motivation to achieve our goals? How do we call upon our motivation when we need it the most? And how do we keep motivation alive to create the lives we want? This course will explore these questions, and many more. We will begin with a discussion about why clinicians need to know this information and how this information can be helpful in working with clients. Next, we will look at the research behind motivation, decipher between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and explore the roots of what keeps us motivated now, and over time. Lastly, we will learn the powerful skills needed to create a spark – that is to teach your clients to ignite and harness their own motivation to face fears, make decisions, take action, and create lasting change. Exercises you can use with clients are included. Course #31-03 | 2018 | 46 pages | 20 posttest questions
Motivating Children to Learn is a 4-hour online continuing education (CE/CEU) course that provides strategies and activities to help children overcome their academic and social challenges. This course describes the various challenges that can sidetrack children in their developmental and educational processes, leaving them with a sense of discouragement and helplessness. Such challenges include learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, behavior disorders, and executive functioning deficits. Left unchecked, these difficulties can cause children to develop the idea that they are not capable of success in school, precipitating a downward spiral of poor self-esteem and – eventually – school failure. The good news is that much better outcomes can result when parents, teachers, and therapists engage children in strategies and activities that help them overcome their discouragement and develop their innate intelligence and strengths, resulting in a growth mindset and a love of learning. Detailed in this course are multiple strategies and techniques that can lead to these positive outcomes. Course #40-44 | 2018 | 77 pages | 25 posttest questions
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Professional Development Resources is a nonprofit educational corporation 501(c)(3) organized in 1992. We are approved to sponsor continuing education by the American Psychological Association (APA); the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA); the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR); the Alabama State Board of Occupational Therapy; the Florida Boards of Social Work, Mental Health Counseling and Marriage and Family Therapy, Psychology & School Psychology, Dietetics & Nutrition, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, and Occupational Therapy Practice; the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker & MFT Board and Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology; the South Carolina Board of Professional Counselors & MFTs; the Texas Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists and State Board of Social Worker Examiners; and are CE Broker compliant (all courses are reported within a few days of completion).
Target Audience: Psychologists, Counselors, Social Workers, Marriage & Family Therapist (MFTs), Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs), Occupational Therapists (OTs), Registered Dietitian Nutritionists (RDNs), School Psychologists, and Teachers