On Self Motivation

The Jakarta Post, Features, July 15, 2007
Published as "How to maintain self-motivation"
Kayee Man & Dewi Susanti

Oka, our coworker, recently asked Kayee: what keeps you going when you're motivation is low?Specifically, he was referring to work. Off the top of her head, Kayee answered that it was a vision of her future that keeps her going when it gets tough. She also answered on behalf of Dewi -- it wasn't that difficult. Dewi prefers working to socializing, so when she's in the office, work is her only option, really.

We're surrounded by people with varying levels of motivation. We hit a trough in the office when the configuration of people with low motivation resulted in what appeared to be more like a plague of the unmotivated. We are a small team and the phenomenon recurs periodically. At times, it really does feel like a chronic disease that is incurable.

Money can only motivate people so far: We can always dangle a carrot in front of people to edge them along, but the carrot doesn't seem to stretch that far along the path of motivation. Goals and challenges are useful as motivators if they are meaningful to individuals.

We, being idealists, believe that the key to a successful organization is to have a team of intrinsically motivated people. That is, people who work because they get self-satisfaction from what they do and because they want to do what they have to do. Which brings us back to our coworker's question: What enables us to keep working when we're not really in the mood to do what we have to?

Kayee has already suggested looking to the future. When confronted with a task that she'd really prefer to leave until tomorrow (ideally, for all eternity), what boots Kayee into action is the big picture she has in mind for what she wants to achieve.

Also, seeing how a task, which she'd love to see disappear by the wave of a magic wand, actually fits into the big picture. When the dreaded task realizes itself as a necessary piece of the jigsaw of one's vision of life, one would or should just get on with it.

Of course, this requires one to have a strong vision of oneself in the future. Lets call it a self-vision. Martin Luther King set us a great example when he said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'"


Self-discipline strategies

Even with strong self-vision, to crank out the work that is the bane of one's life requires self-discipline: "I shall not leave my chair until this piece of writing is done. I shall reward myself with a long chitchat with friends when the 50 powerpoint slides are done" are just a couple of strategies Kayee uses. Kayee's biggest motivator for being self-disciplined in getting work done is the image of an evening at home without a laptop on her bed.

Dewi does not think that she is as self-disciplined as her brother who would wake up early on weekend mornings and run for an hour and do weightlifting for two hours in the afternoons (she would rather sleep in or lounge), or like her architect friends who would enter competitions just to entertain their minds. So Dewi's strategy for being self-disciplined is to set goals that have externalities to them. These can come in several ways.

The first is to be mindful that missing a deadline will affect other people. Being immersed in a team means that if she (or anyone else) misses the deadline, it will affect other people's work and the progress of the team. Dewi just would not want to bear the responsibility of dragging the whole team back and being on the blame.

The second externality is to align some of her work with goals that are set up by external institutions. In anything she does, she likes to think how doing one thing can serve more than one goal.

For example, while teaching an architectural studio, she would combine it with researching on how students learn, what modules tick them off more than others, what motivates them, etc. While doing this, she would think of how what she has learned could fit into a theme for a conference or seminar somewhere with set deadlines for submission of abstract and paper. If one goal fails to motivate her (for example students being lazy), then she has another to look forward to.

But apart from these externalities, like most people who challenge themselves to do something, Dewi would incrementally raise her own bar in doing things.

Like her brother who would incrementally add either time or weight or speed to his exercises, Dewi would incrementally challenge herself to do better training (albeit using the same underlining module), not to repeat what she has done before or the way she has done it, to aim for more prestigious conferences or seminars, etc.

Now, self-discipline calls for self-control. Kayee must confess that, at times, it takes nothing less than being handcuffed to her laptop to control herself from moving away from her work space to the point of distraction.

We see it a lot happening in our office: the inability to control one's body and mind to physically be at a work station and mentally be focused on some task. If being strong-willed isn't your forte, we suggest the following: Lock yourself in an empty room and give someone the key.


Learning from our mistakes

What we have witnessed over the years is the tendency to apportion blame when work doesn't get done. The problem with this is that we tend not to blame ourselves when things don't go as planned at work. We blame others: The system, the policies, the process, the management, the leadership are common victims of blame.

Our contention isn't that the above are never the cause of work failures, but that a lack of self-management is often as much to blame as external forces when things go wrong or do not get done at work.

After sitting down with a number of coworkers for a chat (read: "tell me why your work isn't done"), Kayee can conclude with some authority: A big contributor to why workers don't get work done is because they cannot manage their time and tasks. Which leads us to our next point: we need to self-reflect.

Self-reflection is a very uncomfortable process, because it often means admitting to our own shortcomings and failures. Perhaps in Kayee's cases, these have been so blatantly clear that attempting to lay blame on others would just be a waste of energy. Now, we know better than to get into self-defense mode; when things go wrong, we ask ourselves how and why did things go wrong and what was our role in the failed process.

Having a sense of humor helps, as does accepting the fact that we can't be perfect and as the cliche goes ... we can all learn from our mistakes and failings and be better workers. Self-reflection deflects self-defense. We really should start doing some serious thinking when everything and everyone else is at fault except me.

Finally, self-reflection should lead to self-adjustment. What have I learned? What did I do well? What should I do differently in the future? What should I do to do better next time? are only some examples of what we should expect from productive self-reflections. In short, a future self-image can drive us to be self-disciplined in our work. This can keep us going when our motivation is low to complete tasks.

Being self-disciplined requires self-control and self-management. Self-management requires one to self-reflect so that we can self-adjust. What is the result of all this?

Harry Emerson Fosdick said it best: "No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined."

Admittedly, it can be very tiring mentally to have to be on top of all things at all times. What does our friend Oka do when he has reached this point? He watches movies and reads inspiring books. Dewi signs up for yoga retreats. It's called self-rejuvenation!