Last week on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, there was an interview with Sting that struck a chord with me. Jon asked Sting about the wide variety of musical genres that he works with implying that he is kind of all over the place. Sting replied that he liked experimenting with different things to see how they’ll turn out. He only likes about 1 out of every 10 attempts, but that’s OK because he’s driven by curiosity.
Driven by curiosity. What a wonderful way to be. And it fits when you look back on Sting’s career. Someone else who is driven by achievement or perfection might find his approach frustrating. It’s all about your attitude. The lens through which you view your current situation depends a lot on what motivates you, and what motivates you influences how you view your current situation. It works both ways.
When there’s an underlying driving force, you feel pulled forward versus the feeling of pushing sand up a hill that you get when you’re working outside or against what motivates you. The specific circumstances become secondary. If you’re motivated by learning, you can follow that urge in all aspects of your life – at work, at home, in your hobbies, with your family. However, if you have a job where you’re not learning and you don’t create another outlet to express that part of yourself, you’ll feel bored, disconnected, frustrated, and bitter.
Money is a surface-level motivation and it’s just not enough. Dig deeper and you’ll find a motivator that speaks to who you at the core as a person.
I’m motivated by self-expression. When I took up ballroom dancing I didn’t have any illusions about becoming a great or even good dancer. What I enjoyed was learning a wide range of ballroom and Latin dances and then exploring the character of each dance trying to bring forward those aspects of myself. It sometimes took some digging, but it was part of the fun for me.
So, what drives you? What motivates you? Is it: adventure, discovery, curiosity, achievement, having an impact, solving a problem, bringing order to chaos, security, creating, inspiring, teaching?
I have a client who is a senior manager for a large company. After many years successfully managing her line of business, she was offered an opportunity to join a team to develop a new system to replace the core infrastructure of her company. It was a prestigious position. They wanted an ‘A’ team, and she would be representing the core business stakeholders’ interests on the ‘it’ program. She was ready for a change and was passionate that the new system meet the needs of her internal clients. After the initial learning period she didn’t like her job but couldn’t figure out why. She was frustrated and worse still, she was losing favor with her management.
We started at square one: what are you motivated by – what drives you. Working together we determined she's motivated by achievement. She’s a ‘get it done’ person with a really strong sense of responsibility and the discipline to go with it. It's been a key contributor to her successful career which started in sales. But she soon discovered that activities like sitting in 4 hour roundtable status meetings drove her nuts and brought out the worst aspects of her ‘get it done’ drive. Turns out that working on a job where ‘done’ was five years away, regardless of the money and prestige, was not the job for her. Once she recognized this disconnect, we developed coping strategies for those situations she found particularly frustrating, and she started looking for another job inside her company. She’s now in a different position which she is crafting around her motivations and strengths.
Understanding what drives you, what pulls you forward, is a great first step in creating a life you love. I use an assessment to provide a 10,000 foot view, and it’s a great tool to begin the discovery process. What would your assessment reveal about you and what could you do with that information? If you’d like to find out, call me.
