What's Your Motivation?: Identifying and Understanding What Drives You

What’s Your Motivation?

Identifying and Understanding What Drives You

Annette R. Johnson

What’s Your Motivation: Identifying and Understanding What Drives You

Annette R. Johnson

Copyright Annette R. Johnson 2013

Published by Allwrite Publishing at Smashwords

All rights reserved.

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Learn more about the book and author at

www.whatmotivation.com

ISBN: 978-0-9744935-1-0 (book)

ISBN: 978-0-9844931-6-6 (workbook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010914671

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the motivation for most of my choices.

Table of Contents

Motivation, Not Purpose, ix

1 What is Motivation?

What Determines Motivation

Motivation vs. Motives

Why Determining Motivation is Important

Principles of Motivation

2 Understanding Your Motivators

Body: Drives

Mind: Thoughts

Heart: Feelings

Spirit: Supernatural Forces

Soul: Conscience

What’s Your Main Motivator?

Motivators and Values

3 God’s Holy Temple: The Body

Your Health

Your Diet

Your Appearance

4 God’s Great Gift: Children

Discipline

Education

Entertainment

Character

5 God’s Holy Union: Marriage

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Fools in Love

Separation and Divorce

Discern Your Motivation

6 God’s Angels on Earth: Friends

What’s the Meaning of This?

The Needy

The Networker

The Neophyte

The Nurturer

Why Try?

7 God’s Greatest Commandment: Love

Sex

Can You Love Too Much?

Lopsided Love

Loving Others

Loving God

True Love

Love as Motivation

8 God’s Curse: Work

Those Who Do Work

Those Who Don’t Work

A Woman’s Work

A Man’s Work

The Spirit of Work

9 God’s Property: Wealth

Giving to Others

Giving to God

Credit

Entrepreneurship

Money’s Value

10 God’s Delight: Worship

Worshiping at Church

Worshiping at Home

11 God’s Channel: Communication

How We Communicate

Perception

Listening

Gender Differences

How God Communicates to Us

How We Communicate to God

Motivation Through Communication

12 What’s Your Motivation?

Identifying Your Motivator

Changing Your Motivation

Understanding Motivational Factors

Achieving Your Goals

Living With Motivation

Discovering Your Motivators

Discovering Your Motivation

References

About the Author

Motivation, Not Purpose

Everything God made has a purpose and is part of the circle of life. A person’s purpose has to do with fulfilling his or her role in our interdependent existence. Thus, your individual purpose is connected to something beyond you. In other words, your purpose is never merely about you; it’s always about others. Of God’s creations, mankind is the only thing that has free will, meaning the ability to chose his or her own course. Everything else carries out God’s purpose instinctively or automatically. Because people have free will, identifying and understanding what drives their choices becomes critical in fulfilling their purpose.

This book was written to help people uncover their motivation, not their purpose. The One who created us established our purpose, so we can only get that understanding from God. He gives us all a divine assignment, which is our purpose. Our assignments are based on what God already knew we would choose or do. He knew Judas would betray Jesus, and Peter would deny him. They both fulfilled their purpose although for different ends. God used each man’s shortcomings and choices to carry out His ultimate plan.

We see people all the time who we may believe live without purpose. They seem unmotivated and unwilling to do anything other than basic life functions, such as sleeping, eating, having sex, and perhaps working. What we fail to realize is that they are carrying out their purpose. These seemingly purposeless people are here for us to minister to in various ways. In fact, our purpose may be carried out through them. If, for example, your purpose is for literacy training, then the uneducated become part of your divine assignment. Essentially, we will all fulfill our purpose through action or inaction. People who seek to discover their purpose and decide to perform it will do so through some type of active function. Meanwhile, those who do not care to discover or acknowledge their purpose will carry out their assignment as objects of someone else’s assignment. Remember, every action or inaction will bring about God’s plan.

Our purpose is always about others, not us. It is for the benefit or destruction of humanity. This is different from using a natural talent or gift. God gave us talent to benefit us, not necessarily Him. Sometimes, though, we will be able to use our talent while carrying out our purpose. If a person’s talent is singing, he or she could use that gift to make money or become famous. Some people will make lots of money or get major recognition for their talent while others will only benefit marginally. Either way, our talent serves us.

To carry out His purpose, God often uses people we think lack any discernable talent or qualification for a particular task. This is why purpose supersedes talent in terms of life fulfillment. For instance, God told Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, but Moses complained that he lacked oratory skills to lead a multitude (Exodus 4:10). God knew that Moses’ purpose had nothing to do with talent, only faith. God didn’t need Moses’ talent; He needed Moses to trust Him. Likewise, God’s purpose in you will be done through faith, not necessarily natural talent. God also used a prostitute, Rahab, to carry out His plan in Jericho (Joshua 2). She did not have to use her skill; she merely activated her faith in God, who she was not serving at the time. In fact, she ended up being in the lineage of Jesus after marrying a man from the tribe of Judah. Without faith, not talent, you will never carry out your purpose in the active form.

Some may argue that gospel singers, for instance, have found their life’s purpose through using their singing talent. The truth of that lies only in their motivation for singing. This brings us closer to the topic of this book. If a great singer would sing without ever being paid, his talent would then usher in or be a vehicle for his purpose. If this singer will only sing for remuneration of any kind (i.e. money, accolades), his talent will have nothing to do with his purpose. The former singer’s motivation may be to bring people enjoyment, and the latter singer’s motivation may be to get wealthy. This is why we must understand our motivation. We may all dance, but we will do it for different reasons. Some people will dance at a party to please someone else (i.e. a date), some want to showoff, and some simply like a particular song. Thus, our motivation to dance is as varied as our ability. Similarly, we all go to work, read books, watch a movie, get married, have children, or even attend church for different reasons. Therefore, we should never rely solely on people’s observable actions or even inaction to define who they are. Our motivation and motives, however, do say who we are.

God judges us on the motivation for our actions. The Bible reminds us that some so-called preachers and prophets will end up in hell (Matt. 7:21-23), so do not allow religious garb, affiliations or speech to fool you. With this in mind, understanding yours and others’ motivation becomes pivotal in defining who we really are. Our actions should not be the sole gauge that defines us but, rather, who truly benefits or is harmed by our actions. This is how we are to determine our underlying motivation, as well as our purpose.

Annette R. Johnson

Chapter 1

WHAT IS MOTIVATION?

When actors ask a film director, What’s my motivation? they want to know their characters’ goal, desire or objective. Actors must constantly be aware of their characters’ motivation to determine, among other important reasons, how best to deliver their lines or make gestures. In fact, the main character’s motivation drives the entire storyline and determines the plot in a film. In the famous movie ET, the alien’s motivation was to go home. All the action and dialogue in the movie was based on this objective. Likewise, people’s motivation in real life will determine their decisions, actions and attitudes.

We discover what drives our decisions and actions when we understand our motivation and that of others. Knowing what motivates a person improves our interactions, giving us the greater advantage to consciously assist or resist an individual. For instance, a philanthropist may decide to donate to a charity if he or she knows that the administrators are sincerely interested in using the money to help the needy. However, the philanthropist may decide against donating or donate less if he or she learned that most of the money would be spent on administrative salaries.

God judges our motivation, not simply our actions. The book of Proverbs states, People, do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving (6:30). Stealing is wrong, yet according to this verse, it is tolerable depending on the motivation for it. A person who steals a loaf of bread because he or she is hungry should be pardoned. Essentially, to avoid potential starvation is a tolerable motivation for stealing, but thrill-seeking or greed is unacceptable. God made a similar designation between actions and motivation in the first chapter of Isaiah. He told the Israelites to stop singing and fasting because they were corrupt and only acting out of religious custom and not sincerity (Isaiah 1:11-15). Throughout the Bible, we are reminded that God seeks sincerity and, thus, searches our heart for its motivation (1 Sam. 16:7).

Motivation is whatever someone hopes to accomplish or something that causes someone to act in a specific way. In other words, a motivation is something that motivates. To motivate means to produce or cause a response. People use stimuli to try to motivate others. Motivational speakers use words. Teachers use grades. Parents use punishment or encouragement. Employers use money. An attractive, single man would be a stimulus for a young woman whose motivation is to be married.

What Determines Motivation

A European toad catches and eats worms. Even outside of their habitat, these toads will attack anything that is shaped and moves like a worm. If, for example, a toad sees a rubber band, it will likely attack it or start swallowing as if it has caught a worm to eat. Just seeing an object that looks like a worm naturally triggers these toads to simulate the process of catching and eating. The rubber band or any similar object that mimics a toad’s typical prey acts as a stimulus.

A stimulus is something that can cause a response. For human beings, stimuli range from external forces like noises and tickling to internal forces like hunger and fatigue. The same stimulus causes many different responses because our motivations vary. The smell of fresh baked bread is a stimulus, but it will affect each person differently depending upon when he or she last ate, or the love for bread or for food, period. These differing responses are based on our motivation, the thing that actually causes a specific response or action to a stimulus.

A stimulus is a general or basic motivating force, but a motivation is a specific or complex motivating force. For instance, all people experience hunger, a stimulus, but not everyone will steal to satisfy their hunger. A slightly hungry person may purchase a loaf of bread, but a starving person with no income may steal it. A hungry person from one culture may ask to work for the bread while another hungry person may beg for the bread. If all human beings always responded exactly in the same manner to the same stimulus, then the concept of motivation would be useless. Because we may react differently to the same stimulus, we must understand our unique motivation.

A high school coach can motivate his team to try harder using any number of methods, or stimuli. Not everyone on a team, however, will respond to the coach the same way because each player has a different motivation. For one player, his motivation may be to get a college athletic scholarship. For another person, the motivation may be to become more popular among his or her peers. Another person may simply be playing to please a parent. Obviously, the team members who merely care about being popular will require a stimulus that speaks to that end. However, the players who believe they have a personal stake in the game for their future will respond fully to just about any of their coach’s methods. Similarly, a business networking event is a stimulus. However, people who attend will behave and even dress differently depending on their motivation for attending.

One reason we do not respond the same way to the same stimulus is because the strength of a tendency varies. A drive is strong physiological need or tendency, such fear and aggression, that prompts us to act. Drives such as hunger, thirst, fatigue, sex, and pain avoidance are called primary or innate drives, which are based on human need for survival. Of these, pain avoidance is considered the strongest. The level of a person’s need or desire determines a drive’s strength, or tendency to respond to a stimulus. Thus, the hungrier people are, the less discriminating they will be about food.

While a drive measures the strength of how a stimulus will affect a person, a cue determines the kinds of stimuli that will affect an individual. For instance, people with a high sex drive may be drawn to pornography to satisfy strong urges, but they will not be inclined to all forms of it because only certain cues prompt the drive. The smell of fresh baked bread, for instance, may repulse a pregnant woman, but the smell of sautéed onions may excite her. However, the intensity of her hunger (drive) may cause her eat a piece of bread (cue) despite her aversion to it. A coach’s positive assertion (you can do it) may motivate one person while that same coach’s negative spin (you haven’t been able to do it) may motivate another. Thus, different cues motivate different people toward the same goal. Cues are based on our values, tastes, and personality.

So, motivation is based on the type (cue) of and tendency (drive) toward a stimulus. Put another way, motivation is based on what is able to trigger a response and on how badly a person may want it. Used throughout the book, here is the motivational model:

MOTIVATION:

Strong Desire* + Distinct Prompt** = Response

*Drive

**Cue

Motivation vs. Motives

All motivations have a motive, which accounts for the intent behind an action. Motives are based on emotional or psychological desires, so they explain why people act or respond as they do. A motive is the because of an excuse or the reason for a response. Motives also provide the reasons why people respond to specific stimuli and not to others. For instance, a person’s motive for quitting smoking could range from health concerns to financial savings.

Motives represent our attitude, or the spirit, in which we do something. Motives include pride, jealousy, power, fame, recognition or respect. In one situation, a person can have multiple motives, so studying motives can become an intricate exercise. Motives are best explored by examining human motivators, which comprise the body, mind, heart, Spirit, and spirits (Chapter 2).

We can detect people’s motivation by observing their actions, but we must also listen to uncover people’s motives. Thus, a motivation is a tangible or material expression, and a motive is intangible or immaterial. Fear, which is learned, is the motive for avoidance behavior. For instance, fear of rejection