Turning work into your passion. What are the drivers ?
If you can make your passion your work, you will never work a day in your life.
Easier said than done, I hear you say. So, let’s take it apart and see what exactly I mean.
To achieve something, you consider impossible, a few motivators must be in place.
There are two sets of motivators: extrinsic and intrinsic. In general, extrinsic motivators only get us so far. Motivators such as prestige or money, they are motivators that come from a place of control. You are seduced by both; they then lead to pressure in your role and from there your motivation wanes. This type of motivation seldom has the desired effect, produces the wrong behaviors, and leads to disengagement. You feel a lack of passion and curiosity. Seldom is there autonomy in your role, sometimes a lack of development and a feeling of diminishing competency or no development towards mastery of your chosen craft. In return, you have a sense of meaningless work, a disconnect from your core values, and this leads to anxiety and depression. It leads to dread of work. Consider this, according to the latest Gallup report, 51% of employees are disengaged in the workplace, while 13% are actively disengaged. Actively disengaged means feeling miserable at work and spreading negativity to colleagues.
According to a Korn Ferry Survey, 33% of employees jump ship because they feel bored in the workplace and want to find new challenges. They seek new opportunities for professional development, which motivates them to keep learning and become better at what they do.
According to the surveys, 64% of people in work do not enjoy what they do, have no engagement, and are sometimes actively disengaged. This is non-productive, unsafe, and unconcerned about the quality of your business services or offerings.
Whereas an engaged workforce can produce 21% higher profitability. Consider that in your company’s margins. If I told you a way of increasing profits by 21%, that is a no brainer for any company. As a basic taster, an understanding of some of the easy steps, do you know that quality communications are key to employee engagement at 85% and also recognition at 37%. Two simple things to improve. However, the secret is much deeper than this.
Let me break down what an individual really needs to be motivated. Then achieving the impossible, for instance, a 21% higher profit margin, suddenly becomes realistic. Let’s start with the individual, as your workforce is made up of individuals, and no two are the same.
However, as individuals, we do have a set of intrinsic motivators that, for the most part, are universal. They are part of our evolution, our very reason for surviving as a species. Now I say for the most part, as we must consider our mindset. There are two, fixed, and growth. A growth mindset is essential for talent to flourish and grow, and in turn, perform. What we should strive for as individuals and companies is peak performance, which I define as doing the best you can, with what you’ve got, where you are. A growth mindset is what you look for in your hires. Fixed mindsets believe talent is innate, leaving no room or desire for growth. However, if you hire growth mindsets, you had better be prepared to develop them, nurture them, and allow them to flourish, or you will lose them quickly because your values will not align with theirs.
And here we tap into what is required.
Growth mindsets have drive, goals, and grit. These are essential to being truly motivated and achieving our daily small goals or to-do lists to our massive life changing goals. The ones you believe will change your life and the lives of others. However, as we see today, put these people in the wrong environment and they can be ground down. They do one of two things: leave, or due to extrinsic motivators such as bills, family obligations, etc., they stay, becoming dissilousined, demotivated, depressed, anxious, and disengaged.
Drive is an emotional motivator, and for now, this is what I want you to work towards. As an individual or as a company trying to get that active engagement. These five things need to be in play, to create that motivation we all want in our personal, and professional lives.
Firstly, curiosity. This leads you to discovery, the finding of something that sparks your interest, something you begin to cultivate, align with your values, and turn to our next motivator, passion. You become passionate about something, which in turn stokes your curiosity, and you get the release of chemicals into your brain, dopamine, noradrenaline, which reward you for your small victories. You are ticking off your to do lists, your research, your creativity. All the little victories start to stack on top of each other, and you start to chase the sensation and develop habits. It leads to the number three motivator, purpose.
Purpose gives you a release of oxytocin into your brain. This sharpens focus, increases productivity, and builds your resilience. You become, happier, more creative, focused and in turn healthier. This brings us back to engagement; we now have it.
We have stacked, curiosity, passion, and purpose into something. The article is about making this something about your professional life.
If you already have that, or you want to encourage workers towards it, through a program of coaching, wellness programs, etc. It’s impossible to hold onto unless you add in the next two components of motivation.
Autonomy, people must have a sense of autonomy. Autonomous motivation is doing by choice, it spikes interest and enjoyment, and, in general, it aligns with a person’s values.
Now I don’t mean let a person come to work and do what they want, when they want. Autonomy is feeling a sense of ownership in your work, you have control and you’re not feeling micromanaged. Autonomy stacked on top of purpose amplifies your focus, causes better learning, better pattern recognition, faster problem solving, and more creativity. Is this not what you want from your workers or from yourself as an individual.
How much autonomy is always a hot debate. It doesn’t have to be much, unlike Google, which gives 20% autonomy. In other words, 20% of your time is focused on work projects of your own creation. This 20% time has given Google some of its biggest rewards, gmail, Google maps, to name a few. However, in a real sense, autonomy needs to be well deployed. It may allow for flexible start times, allowing for better control of a person’s sleep, work, and exercise habits. It might be the time to be creative. It might just be a sense of ownership in your role.
The final piece of the puzzle of motivation for now is competence or mastery. People have a need and a desire to improve their skills, and should therefore be given the resources to do so. It may be upskilling in their role, it may be time or support to learn. This leads to a sense of progress, and if this progress is in a meaningful way towards your work, you build momentum and a sense of drive, which is, of course, where we started.
Curiosity leads to passion, which converts to purpose.
Discover what your passions are and turn them into a purpose. The final part, would be to then turn this passion, and purpose into a profit. Find the autonomy to allow for productivity, creativity, and focus. Finally, become a master of what you do, and feel that sense of competence. These are drivers, motivators.
Most companies do not know how to tap into or create these motivators, so most people are disengaged, costing you in more ways than you know.
