About a year ago a friend of mine invited me to attend his marketing group. I was getting ready to publish my book, and I figured it would be a great idea to find out how to market it. I knew no matter how good the book is, if it wasn't marketed correctly, it wouldn't sell.
So I attended a meeting and, spurred on by the great energy from the members, I joined. At about my fourth meeting the group leader, a salesman, told us that during a lean period he and his family were living in the back of his station wagon. It got so bad, he related, they didn't know where their next meal would come from. He shared with us that the memory of that period in his life continually motivates him, even to this day, some ten years later, at which time he was making in the low six figures, to strive and always be thinking of ways to make more and more money.
When it came to my turn to talk, I related how I came from a working class family, my dad was a janitor and my mom was an attendant (sort of like an orderly) in a state mental hospital. There was six of us, so as you can imagine, we didn't have a lot. But even though I knew that other families always at meat at their dinners, and we didn't (lots of pasta) I never felt deprived. Later, after dropping out of college, I became a hippie, and even though I worked just enough to support myself, I knew my standard of living was my choice. Eventually I grew up a bit, put myself through undergrad and law school (thank you, student loans) became a lawyer and lived a somewhat modest, but comfortable life. I told the group that what motivated me was a desire to be the best that I could be, to act in accordance with the desires of my mom, who had always accused me, when I was a child, to not acting up to my potential. I was motivated by my desire to be exceptional.
The group leader didn't find that an acceptable motivation, and asserted that type of desire would never motivate me to great accomplishments. One of the other members spoke next and he shared with us his motivation poster. He cut from magazines pictures of the things he wanted, and posted them onto poster board and hung it above his work area. His motivation poster included a MacMansion with a pool, a German luxury car, a huge home theater system, and a picture of a large, decked out, fishing boat.
When I got home that evening I created my own motivating board. It was similar, but the house was a home in the woods with a stream running through the front yard, there was a sportier German car, wide screen TV with surround sound, a picture of camels in Monaco, where I wanted to travel, and a picture representing weekly massages. But even though I posted it over my desk where I worked, it never really motivated me. It became clear to me that what motivates these two men were very different than what motivates me.
And therein lies an important lesson: our motivators are unique. What motivates you is as unique as your personality, your history, and what is going on in your life.
A good way to understand how unique we each are is to look at the hierarchy of motivation created by Abraham Maslow that explains the different stages of motivational drives.
Maslow hypothesized that people are motivated by five different classes of needs. Here are the needs in ascending order of complexity:
- Physiological: Physical needs such as food, sex, drink, sleep;
- Safety: Needs such as the security of one's body, having secure employment, having a safe and secure place to live;
- Love and Belonging: The need to have friendship, family, sexual intimacy;
- Esteem: The desire to have self-esteem and the esteem of others; to have a sense of competence and be regarded as useful;
- Self-Actualization: The desire to grow as a person, to achieve one's potential, to be spontaneous and actualized.
For me, possibly because I have never been in a position of not having enough, I am not motivated by level one, since the needs in level one have always been met. Instead I am motivated by 4 and 5, which are related. I, like the group leader, want the esteem of others and myself. I also want to satisfy my need for self actualization. In the words of my mother, I want to work at my potential.
As you can see, motivation is not quite as simple as just listening to a motivational speaker or hanging up a motivational poster. Nor is generic motivation going to be effective as a motivator for you, or for anyone. This why you need to be in charge of your motivation, and not rely on anyone else to tell you what is, or should be, an effective motivator for you.
If you have a dream, and you are not pursuing it, or are not sticking to the path you have created that you know will get you there, you aren't motivated. Maybe you are using the wrong motivators. What ever the reason, you can learn how to motivate yourself. And when you do, the world is your oyster.
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