Your Motivators and Interests

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What moti­vates you to do things: to develop rela­tion­ships, inter­ests, hob­bies, skills, careers, and talents??

Some pow­er­ful moti­va­tors tend to be gen­er­ated by exter­nal fac­tors from both work and per­sonal envi­ron­ments. These exter­nal moti­va­tors include things like get­ting a pro­mo­tion or a raise or bet­ter ben­e­fits or more power at work. Or meet­ing impor­tant dead­lines, like want­ing to lose weight before an impor­tant event, or hav­ing a project done at a spe­cific day and time.

Other pow­er­ful moti­va­tors tend to come from inside our­selves and involve things like:

• being chal­lenged, either men­tally or physically;
• expe­ri­enc­ing vari­ety in our lives;
• enjoy­ing cre­ative self-expression;
• hav­ing a close net­work of friends and rel­a­tives to sup­port us;
• a sense of achieve­ment, ful­fill­ment and/or excitement.

When we design our per­sonal, unique authen­tic life, we should focus on find­ing activ­i­ties that com­pli­ment our per­sonal motivators.

So what are your moti­va­tors? The fol­low­ing exer­cise will help you dis­cover your per­sonal motivators:

Think of at least four instances in which you felt highly moti­vated to do an activ­ity, whether in a job, school, a hobby, or some other type of sit­u­a­tion. List them below:

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Now, con­sider what each of these activ­i­ties have in com­mon. Were you in a sim­i­lar set­ting? With sim­i­lar types of peo­ple? Doing a par­tic­u­lar kind of task you gen­uinely enjoy? Did you feel a cer­tain way (e.g. chal­lenged, proud, etc.)? Were you being cre­ative? List those com­mon threads:

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These are some of the things that will moti­vate you as you develop your authen­tic life. Can you thing of oth­ers? Add those to your list. Finally, list the five most impor­tant moti­va­tors that get you excited and/or ded­i­cated to doing something.

Now that you know what your moti­va­tors are, look for inter­ests, activ­i­ties, hob­bies and/or careers that con­tain activ­i­ties that ful­fill your top 5 moti­va­tors. This will bring you one step closer to design­ing your authen­tic life.

The next post in this series will look at the fourth key ele­ment nec­es­sary for design­ing an authen­tic life: Tal­ents and Skills.

Return to the begin­ning of the 8 Key Ele­ments That Make Up An Authen­tic Life series.