Basic motivators
What drives people to do what they do? If we know the underlying reasons behind behaviour and actions, our own or other’s, it helps our understanding. All of us are driven by some combination of the following:
- Power. Power is about having impact, influence and control. Some people want control over their own lives; others want to control someone else or even everyone else. The human drive for power is often unrecognized and underestimated.
- Money, and all the things money can buy.
- Attention, recognition and acceptance. Human beings are tribal and need a sense of belonging. We want others to like and accept us. In our overpopulated world though, it is easy to feel unimportant and under appreciated. The attention and recognition of others makes us feel special and worthy.
- Winning. Competitiveness is part of human nature and the aim of competition is to win, which means surpassing, bettering or ‘beating’ others. The drive to win can also be about achieving, mastering some skill, or accomplishing some task.
- Love of the process. Some people do things primarily because they love doing them. Millionaires for example rarely give up the working when they become rich. Be it art, work, raising children, mountain climbing or whatever, many people get great satisfaction and joy in doing something, without too much emphasis on the end product.
- Love for others. Most of us want the best for those we care about and will do things for their sakes that we wouldn’t necessarily do for our own.
- Altruism. Doing good, helping others, and sharing, are thankfully, common motivations.
- Pleasure. Feeling good, feels good and we like to feel good as often as possible. But if we make the pursuit of pleasure our sole or major motivator we could find ourselves in trouble in other areas of life.
- Revenge. Revenge can be a positive, as in ‘I’ll show them’ (by making good) or a negative, as in trying to hurt others.
- Envy. When we resent someone else having something we don’t have, or being something we aren’t, it can be a spur for change and achievement. Or it can drive us to negative and destructive acts.
- Greed. Humans often have an insatiable urge to want more (of anything and everything) as though there is no such thing as enough.
- Fear—of loss, loneliness, change, rejection, abandonment, pain.
Some motivators are positive, others negative and the results they produce can be either. So what are your basic motivators? Are they getting you what you want and need? If not, perhaps consciously using a different, and preferably more positive motivator to spur you to action, might help.
© Ultimate-self.com
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