We spend much of our time doing things we don’t want to do. If we are honest with ourselves, we prioritize our perceived obligations over things that could help us find fulfillment. We then complain about our struggles with doing work and activities that we don’t like doing. We have never formally learned how to look within ourselves to find the motivation to express outwardly what we feel inside. In other words, we spend way more time worrying about external praise and punishment rather than doing what our intuition and heart want. If someone asks for a favor we spend more time wondering how this person will treat us if we say more than pondering if we want to do it.

What if we acted without any external reward? I’ve been talking about detaching from the outcome of our work. This means not only detaching from any negative outcomes, but also rewards, recognition, and acknowledgment that come with performing the action. If we were to do this, we would need to replace it with something else. This is where intrinsic motivation comes in.

People are intrinsically motivated when they can act independently, feel that their efforts matter, and gain satisfaction from becoming more skilled. – Kendra Cherry, MSEd 

According to Daniel H. Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us, the three elements of intrinsic motivation are autonomy, purpose, and mastery. When I come to think about it, these three elements are very hard to come by in the society we live in. When it came to job searches at least autonomy and purpose were at the top of my list. I’ve yet to find both if I were to be honest. When I think about purpose, I ask myself why I do what I do. Even working at a nonprofit, I haven’t been able to answer this. Regarding autonomy, a manager can give me what is needed and explain why, but please don’t tell me how. I want that to be my responsibility.

The Outcome Means Nothing

With intrinsic motivation, we do the work because we enjoy it and nothing more. These are where we find our hobbies. I’m writing this because not only do I enjoy learning, but I enjoy teaching what I’ve learned. We might enjoy hiking, playing a sport, reading, watching television, and anything else that we love but find difficult to get paid for. And yes, they do come with rewards.

Enjoying gym sessions provides a healthy body, and traveling allows one to expand one’s perspective. However, if you truly want to be successful in these endeavors, these outcomes can’t be the reason why you act. A person who dislikes going to the gym but does it anyway will most likely give a lackluster effort, thus not seeing the desired results. How do we take this outlook and place it into the things we see as obligations?

Give Me Freedom…

Freedom and autonomy are the biggest factors we can find in creating intrinsic value for our work. Yes, we do have obligations, but we should be in charge of how we perform those obligations. There’s nothing more dehumanizing than another person telling one not only what to do, but how to do it. We were taught this way.

Math has an objective answer, but there are many ways to get to this answer. Yet, a math teacher will mark a problem wrong because the student did not get to the answer the way she was taught by the teacher. There’s this adage, “If you need something done right, do it yourself.” This is true. If you feel like something needs to be done “right” you should probably do it yourself. Giving this responsibility to another person should mean they have the autonomy to do it in their own way. If they miss the mark, it is only because the objective wasn’t clearly communicated.

The Dark Side of Incentives

This conversation about intrinsic motivation should also come with the paradox of incentivization. In my opinion, incentivization is a form of manipulation. If a person has to incentivize another person to do anything, it’s because the person does not want to do it intrinsically. This is the extrinsic motivation that tends to not work. Yes, maybe the goal is completed, but at what cost? When we extrinsically incentivize an action that should be intrinsically motivating, the action itself loses its value. If you donate to a nonprofit for no other reason but the benefits the nonprofit can offer in recognition and exclusivity, the donation becomes superficial. Do you really want to help the people you claim to help, or do you want your name on a brick?

What if?

I pose the question, what if all we did was intrinsically motivated. What if were able to find the inner benefits of the work that we do rather than leaning on external incentives? External motivation runs out. There are only so many pizza parties we can have until we stop caring. If we put our focus on the money we can make, or the recognition we can garner, we never stop to really look at why we do what we do. We start to become controlled by the manipulations of a free lunch, or a few handclaps.

The positive impact you have on another person never leaves. The confidence we receive when we accomplish something that was deemed difficult never leaves. We do the things we do because we can. Our outputs are nothing more than expressions of our inner values, thoughts, and dreams. Whether we succeed or fail doesn’t matter because our work is uniquely ours. When we help others, we bring our unique perspective to the project. How much better would life be if we only look at our work in this way?

Questions and Responses