by Coach Chuck Barnard
What is it that drives people to persist in the face of setback, to climb the highest mountains, run outlandish distances, to do what no man or woman has done before? Motivation is undoubtedly the engine that drives achievers. Motivation is also a complex subject. Countless psychological studies have been done on motivation. In psychology, there are four principle definitions for motivation and I will look at two of them here.
Motivation is defined by the American Psychological Association as “the impetus that gives purpose or direction to behavior and operates in humans at a conscious or unconscious level. Motives are frequently divided into (a) physiological, primary, or organic motives, such as hunger, thirst, and need for sleep; and (b) personal, social, or secondary motives, such as affiliation, competition, and individual interests and goals. An important distinction must also be drawn between internal motivating forces and external factors, such as rewards or punishments, that can encourage or discourage certain behaviors.” The other definition that is related to this is “a person’s willingness to exert physical or mental effort in pursuit of a goal or outcome.” In this article, I want to look at how external factors and your internal thinking lead to motivation using either of those definitions. Further, I plan to connect motivation to obedience.
Understanding both internal and external motivation becomes important. Clearly, individuals who are self-motivated tend to be people who are often considered driven. At the risk of over simplifying motivation, we humans run programs to perform specific behaviors. Motivation can be defined as the strategy that drives a behavior. When you act, you were motivated to act. If someone is having a problem with motivation, they are typically referring to the second definition given above. A person may struggle to find a willingness to “exert physical or mental effort in pursuit of a goal or outcome.” If someone isn’t feeling motivated to exercise or work longer hours or study more or take a risk, this is the definition of motivation they are generally referring to. Often, they need something external to trigger a different internal process for becoming motivated.
We all have motivation strategies. Our strategies follow the TOTE model or test (or trigger), operate, test, and exit. A person’s motivation strategy would have something that would trigger the strategy. It would then run through an operation stage and test. If you are motivated at the test stage you “exit” by performing the act associated with that specific motivation “program”.
Let’s look at an example. You have been given a particular task at work that will require putting in significant extra hours. The trigger for this particular example would be your boss giving you the task. Maybe you then picture in your mind performing the task and getting recognized by your boss. You then hear people saying, “nice work, well done.” You then feel motivated, so you perform the task. What I want to explain here is how you are ultimately in control of your motivation even for “external” motivation.
The operation stage is when the strategy goes internal. You will primarily create images or internal dialogue that will either motivate you to act or not. If you don’t feel motivated, you won’t act. Procrastination is really the opposite of motivation. It is a strategy for not doing. Fear can be part of the operational stage. That fear can be manifested entirely by your imagination such as fearing disappointing someone, fearing success, fearing failure or something similar. It can also be rational fear associated with real threats to you or loved ones.
Again, motivation can become quite complicated because there are so many different triggers that can cause a different set of operations to generate. Ultimately, you create an operation that will contain any combination of sensory inputs – visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory, or olfactory. Visual and auditory are the most common but it is very conceivable that a person might be motivated to spend a few hours preparing a nice meal by being able to imagine how good the food will taste and that imagined taste is an essential piece for getting motivated to work several hours on that meal. Another example might be a gardener who is motivated to cultivate a garden because they can smell the wonderful aromas of the garden they are planning. Generally speaking you will run the same sequence regardless of the content of the images or dialogue and will represent those steps in the strategy the same way.
Obedience and motivation are likely to be essentially the same strategy. You are motivated to obey. While the content of the imagery or dialogue, which are the two most common steps in any strategy, is likely dictated or triggered by the external “motivator” being applied, it is actually how you represent it that give it meaning. You can test this yourself by thinking about something you are not motivated to do – you procrastinate on – and notice all the characteristics of how you represent that internally. Now, imagine something you are motivated to do, you enjoy extending effort to do, and notice all those characteristics. If you change the representation of the imagery of the thing you aren’t motivated to do to be that of the thing you are motivated to do you will have a different feeling without changing the content of the image. This is the power of learning to master your mindset. It takes practice. It takes consistent effort. It takes self-reflection and awareness. It takes a good motivation strategy.
To regularly find joy and love in living requires a mindset where the trials and tribulations of life, no matter how severe, get put into their proper perspective. Psychiatrist Dr. Victor Frankl, who was a holocaust survivor and authored the best-selling book Man’s Search for Meaning, wrote “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” John Milton wrote in his classic Paradise Lost, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” The Apostle Paul wrote in the book of Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Buddha wrote, “The mind is everything. What you think you become.” I could go on and on taking quotes from great thinkers throughout world history on the power of the mind to find hope, perseverance, and even joy in the darkest of times.
How do people do it? They discover love, faith, and faithfulness. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, Paul writes, “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.” Notice that this bible verse separates hope from love, but in another verse hope is a characteristic of love. Faith is entwined in love. If we work on our ability to love, we simultaneously improve our ability to feel love. Feeling love brings joy. It conquers fear.
One question that often gets asked when discussing fear as a negative emotion is, “if fear is a negative emotion why does the bible say in Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” The simple answer is the word fear is not the best translation of the Hebrew word yirah (יראה, pronounced yir-ah), which is sometimes translated into ‘awe’ but is often directly translates into fear. Yirah can also be interpreted as respect, reverence, and worship. In the context of biblical teaching, any fear of the lord means you have such reverence and love for the lord you would fear disappointing him, so you try to do the right thing.
People can become crippled even by that kind of fear. Fear of disappointing people can be as problematic as any other fear. We always need to process the message behind the fear, no matter its manifestation, and then let it go. Learning to let things go, and control negative thinking is what our Growth Mindset Training programs are all about. Becoming a master of your mindset means becoming a master over your own motivation.
