What really motivates you?
I can’t be 100% sure that this is true, I lost my source on the matter, but I heard that Rhesus monkeys perform tasks worse when motivated with food. I can’t be bothered to google it at the time, and it’s not really that important for my point. That being for you to reflect on what gets you going.
I used to work for a sports organisation, working with Basketball in the region that I live in. I applied to the job because I really needed a job, just as well as I’d be managing a really exciting project. After some hassle, I got it, but the role had changed slightly to more of an assisting one. I was fine with that, but we didn’t have a proper leader for it.
Anyhow, when we met with the chair of the organisation 2,5 months in to the job, we started talking about my continuing engagement in the project. My contract was for three months, and he seemed eager to keep me further. The problem was that I’d already gotten an another job at that time. I told him that I didn’t want to stay, and he was really confused. He couldn’t for one second understand why I wouldn’t want to continue. He told me so. He asked me about all the progress we’d made and even pushed on that it had been a real investment from the organisation to hire me. I just nodded, and we all left.
Now, what he didn’t understand was my motivation for getting the job. My biggest passion isn’t basketball. I’ve never played it other than in school. My motivation wasn’t even to get kids in shape, which was the aim of the project. It was to have a stable income. That was my main motivation.
Nowadays, I can’t really be bothered with economics in that sense. I got that covered. So I’ve had to find other sources for motivation.
I encourage you to reflect upon that. Because how well you perform might be in correlation with that motivation. If someone is trying to motivate you in the wrong way, it’s nice to be able to tell them how it’s not helping. Just like motivating some species with food is going to make them perform worse.