I will use the key intrinsic motivators

Daily Keys to Success

These daily excerpts from Randy Kay's book Daily Keys to Success will show you how to grow your potential while expanding your personal success to lead a life of significance. You will benefit from 365 topics with ideas, tools, and tactics for living life fully.

Telling people, “You’re just lucky you have a job” certainly does not qualify as motivation. Neither does using intimidation. Good leaders help people motivate themselves, as reinforced by Daniel Pink in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (Riverhead Hardcover, 2009). Pink notes research about what’s called the self-determination theory, which “…argues that we have three innate psychological needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness. When these needs are satisfied, we’re motivated, productive and happy. When they’re thwarted, our motivation, productivity and happiness plummet.”

The old paradigm is to offer rewards in order to create motivation. The new paradigm is to pay attention to what stimulates a person to be their best, and then give that to them. Sure, not paying someone enough money can de-motivate him or her, but it’s more than money that turns people into self-motivators. Self-motivation occurs when we give someone the tools they need to succeed and when we involve that person in decisions. When rewards are given, they should be based on achievement of realistic performance goals that stretch the person’s ability using both verbal and non-verbal praise such as, “I believe in your ability to take on this assignment even though it’s a challenging, and I’ll support you all the way.” When someone feels totally involved and supported in an activity they run on autopilot, and there are certain factors that leaders can give a person to help them reach that readiness state. Those would be a sense of control, a level of challenge together with the skills to succeed, an elimination of competing goals (allowing the person to focus), and the freedom to move at will. The self-motivator also needs to feel positive about their team, and anything that gives him or her a good feeling about their performance and confidence will ignite their mojo.

Competence is an intrinsic motivator, and leaders can instill this feeling with positive feedback that tells them specifically what they are doing well and why, by giving them tasks that play to their strength, and by conveying to their followers that what they are doing is important and meaningful. They will respond by becoming the “go-to” person for their mastery, which will motivate them even further.

“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender… There is no greater investment.” ~ Stephen Covey