Motivation & Flow in Business
What IS ‘Motivation’ anyway?
In today’s article, the Divas explore the concept of motivation. Is it a mysterious and powerful feeling that randomly strikes us and gets us moving? Is it something we have the power to generate? Or does it lie somewhere in the middle ground?
Jennifer was reading a book recently by New York Times bestselling author Daniel Pink. Now, Daniel has written five books and they're all about human performance and capability. But the one that really stuck with her was called ‘DRIVE - The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’. The book impacted Jen because she knew deep down that it made sense to her when she thought about her own intrinsic motivation to become an entrepreneur or to undertake certain projects.
We all have ideas about what we THINK motivates us, but Daniel Pink narrowed it down to 3 main criteria that MUST be present for us to be motivated to take action or to stick with something.
The first one is AUTONOMY. That means being in control or feeling as if you are in control of your path or the activity you’re involved in, in some small way. It could simply be the knowledge that you’re in control of HOW you get from point A to point B, even if point B is pre-determined.
The second factor is MASTERY - really knowing your stuff or having a high skill level in something.
The third key factor of motivation is PURPOSE - having a strong ‘why’ or reason behind the action that you're taking or the path you're going down.
One of the first exercises we take our clients through in the 90 Day Business Blueprint Programme is called ‘7 Levels Deep’, and it’s a fantastic guided reflection that really helps our clients zero in on their ‘why’ in business and life.
Because tapping into your why helps you move forward on the days when you’re not ‘feeling it’. It’s that feeling of motivation that builds on itself and can generate this powerful thing called momentum!
Let’s take a quick look at the first factor – “Autonomy”. You’ve likely worked in a situation where you were micro-managed. Perhaps early on in your working life. How motivated did you feel in that job? Probably not very! Because you had very little sense of control or autonomy over your work. When we’re encouraged to use our creativity to complete a task or to take a project forward, we feel much more energised and motivated.
So how can we build a little bit of autonomy into each day? Even when we run our own businesses, each day can quickly begin to feel just like the last and we may feel as if we’re simply reacting to things. Let’s decide now to go into each day being proactive and in control of at least a small portion of that day.
Carol had a great story around key motivational factor #2 – ‘Mastery’ – and she told it in our latest podcast. The story was about a salesperson for a real estate company. He was always extremely messy – from his desk to his car – there was paperwork and mess everywhere. He was a messy guy, BUT he was a brilliant salesperson. One day, he was talking to a business coach about his messy tendencies and said, ‘that’s really something I should sort out.’ The coach just turned to him and said, ‘Your strength is in your sales ability. If you want to work on your weakness, that's going to pull away from you going and getting that next sale and working with that next client. So how about you delegate your paperwork? Let go of trying to fix that. Don't keep fixing your flaws, because you’re wasting energy that you could invest in doing the stuff you were born to do!’
Working to our strengths plays heavily into the concept of mastery. Doing something we really enjoy that we’re really good at helps us build confidence and motivation and get into a state of ‘flow’. You know that feeling – when you’re engaged in a task that makes time fly and worries simply disappear? That’s being in ‘flow’. That’s when you know you’re engaging in what you were born to do!
Lucy says, ‘As business owners, we think we need to do everything ourselves. So the whole day we're trying to just go, go, go. And we don't actually realise what is robbing all our energy. We could be conserving our energy by letting go of the things we’re not great at. And that takes a bit of courage to do that, but it will definitely have a positive impact on your motivation and your flow. Because if you're not flowing in business, you're not going in business!’
This discussion led us to think about other ways we can support our motivation, and one of the BEST ways we all agreed is to get great routines in place. Create habits that we engage in each day that support us to stay focused, to stay healthy and to stay IN MOTION. Because once we’re in motion, it’s easier to stay in motion – as researched by Isaac Newton!
Carol then shared a concept around something called Keystone Habits – or foundational habits that we can build upon. For instance, first thing in the morning perhaps you listen to a song that makes you feel energised and gets you out of bed. Maybe you follow that up with a few affirmations that you like to say – ‘Today’s going to be a great day!’ or ‘I’m in it to win it!’ or ‘I’m here to serve my clients to the best of my ability’ or whatever it is you like to say. Perhaps then you follow that up with listening to a certain podcast while you shower (maybe ‘Blueprint Bosses by the 90 Day Divas’?). What are some Keystone Habits you can form to support YOU to get moving each day? And then you’ll be ready to tackle that first task on your priority list for the day! Once you accomplish that task, you’ll gain a sense of achievement that will spur you to want to tackle the next thing, and the next thing.
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