Week 1: Your "Why"

As you heard in the 6FA podcast and in the opening video, business and professional growth can be extremely complex. Whether it's finding the time to think critically about who you are, where you want to be, and evaluating your success thus far, we know that the real world and the ideal always seem to be in conflict. Beginning with small steps, let's start unpacking what you desire, how you define success, and how you can get to a place where the ideal and the real converge in your own life.

Beginning with your "why" we now turn our attention to motivational profiles. Explored in your first podcast, we now know that people are motivated in two separate ways - intrinsic or extrinsic. Whether your starting your own company or work a 9 to 5 in a larger organization, the importance of understanding your own "why" cannot be understated.

Exploring these two profiles in greater detail, we will start with intrinsic motivation:

Let's look at a short example of this specific motivational profile from CFI (2021):

"Intrinsic motivation refers to the stimulation that drives adopting or changing behavior for personal satisfaction or fulfillment. Such motivation drives an individual to perform an activity for internal reasons that are personally satisfying, as opposed to being motivated extrinsically – that is, by the prospect of obtaining some external reward, such as money.

In other words, with intrinsic motivation, the incentive for engaging in a behavior or completing a task is performing the task itself. For example, when someone decides to eat ice cream, typically their motivation is to enjoy the pleasure of eating the ice cream. They are not doing it for some external reward."

In the example given, no one is paying you to eat ice cream or promising some tangible reward for doing so. You eat the ice cream because you genuinely want to enjoy it.

Now let's look at extrinsic motivation in a short excerpt from Very Well Mind (2021):

"Extrinsic motivation refers to behavior that is driven by external rewards. These rewards can be tangible, such as money or grades, or intangible, such as praise or fame. Unlike intrinsic motivation, which arises from within the individual, extrinsic motivation is focused purely on outside rewards.

People who are extrinsically motivated will continue to perform an action, even though the task might not be in and of itself rewarding—for example, doing something at your job that you might not normally find enjoyable or rewarding in order to earn a wage."

In this example, individuals who are extrinsically motivated care more about the reward they receive for completing an activity than actually engaging in the activity alone. Think about our ice cream example, an extrinsically motivated individual might choose to eat ice cream because they receive some type of award for eating it (think of an ice cream eating competition), or they believe that going to a specific location - where their regional manager frequents - will allow them the opportunity to move up in their organization as a result of having increased face time with "the boss".

Neither is better than the other. However, understanding your motivational profile changes the trajectory of your personal and professional life. It is critical that you understand what motivates you, how you experience success, and how you can use this understanding to grow and prosper in all aspects of your life.

To frame your thoughts and better understand these concepts, listen to the 6FA podcast:

Episode 1: "Why" Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivation

&

Complete the Motivational Profiles Worksheet for Week 1

To Infinite Success,

The Biz Doc

References

Intrinsic Motivation - Definition, Examples and How to Benefit from (corporatefinanceinstitute.com)

What Is Extrinsic Motivation and How Does It Work? (verywellmind.com)