As a young professional who's actively working on his career while juggling the responsibilities of being a student, I often meet many others in the same boat. In these conversations, topics like aspirations, careers, involvement, and professional development are frequently discussed.

But the one topic that I’ve found constantly re-emerging is motivation.

“What are your sources of motivation”

“What leads you to feel demotivated?”

“Do you find that your productivity shifts depending on how motivated you are?”

Of course, there are different sources of motivation depending on the application. For example, music may motivate me to exercise and work-out, but curiosity is what motivates me to learn something new. It's interesting to see how individuals have found their own unique ways to optimize motivation.

From my scope, you can look at motivation like looking at renewable energy.

1. It is infinite.
2. You can invest in it.
3. It fuels your capability to fulfill quality work.

The power of optimizing motivation is an easy concept to understand, yet a hard practice to perfect.

My main source of motivation is seeing growth in the performance of my friends. By understanding this, I’ve undertaken a new passion towards professional mentorship, and helping others optimize on their sources of motivation.

Moreover, with this knowledge, I’ve now built an ecosystem where 80% of my energy goes towards productivity, and 20% goes towards re-investing in my sources of motivation. Follow these 3 steps to learn how to optimize motivation.

Here are 3 tips on how to optimize motivation like harvesting renewable energy:

1. Evaluate Your Experiences and Identify Your Sources of Motivation
2. Identify How to Control Your Sources of Motivation
3. Invest in Your Sources of Motivation

1. Evaluate your Experiences and Identify your Sources of Motivation

We’ve all had experience working in different environments with different teams. Surely, somewhere within that realm, something must’ve motivated you to continually put in hard work. This stage relies on a lot of introspection, but like all good consultants suggest, the most important question to keep asking is “why?”.

When it comes to the fulfillment of deliverables, I often find myself reaching out to friends to work on it together.

“Why?”

Although completing my work could be done independently, by working on it with my friends, I get to familiarize them with my work processes and provide professional mentorship. This often results in helping them glean inspiration on how to perform tasks more efficiently.

“Why do you want them to learn?”

I believe in investing in the team, and if I can help one individual improve their work productivity, or help inspire them to learning something new, then everyone benefits. It motivates me to see others crawl out of their comfort zones and surpass new challenges.

2. Identify How to Control your Sources of Motivation

Controlling your sources of motivation may seem difficult to grasp. When you analyze the context of your motivation, you can find creative ways to manipulate it, such as:

1. Enhancing your touchpoints with your sources of motivation.
2. Increasing the frequency of engagement with your motivation.
3. Increasing the volume of your motivation.

Let’s use my experiences for example. My motivation is helping others in their personal development through professional mentorship.

One of the main channels I use to do this is working with Conseil étudiant Telfer Student Council. One of the things I love about student council is that everyone is always working to improve themselves.

Because I know this mindset exists here, I can enhance my motivation by providing deeper mentorship, beyond the academic scope. Instead of teaching others on how to improve work processes, I also dive into why they should take on more opportunities and how to do so.

I can increase the frequency of engagement between my motivation and I by planning more work sessions with my colleagues.

I can increase the volume of my motivation by meeting more people. Since my channel is a student-based environment, and I am an incoming 4th year student, there are always more opportunities to meet younger students and to help them in their career development.

3. Invest in Your Sources of Motivation

When it comes to our motivation we understand what our sources are, and how to control them. Like renewable energy, we can’t continuously reap benefits if we don't invest in its infrastructure. This means putting in work and time to ensure the security and stability of your motivation.

Questions to ask are:How can I ensure that this source of motivation can last?

How can I spend more input to foster more output?

What are some risks that can occur and how do I mitigate them?

By answering these questions, you can find ways to optimize motivation.

Since my main source of motivation is the growth of my friends, I actively invest in them by spending time helping them with school, with extra-curriculars, with their careers, and with their university experience. I motivate others to take on more challenges and interests, and this motivates them to do more, which motivates me to work harder.

By optimizing on my relationships with my friends, I’ve learned how to create an ecosystem where everyone benefits. On top of this, I’ve created an environment where others feel open reaching out to me, making this system sustainable.

By following these steps, you can gain a better understanding of your motivation, and how to navigate it to get the best outcomes. Whether it's a successful career, passion, or money, all sources of motivation can be optimized with the right mindset and technique.

We can all learn from each other, and I'd love to hear your side!

What are your sources of motivation?

How have you worked to optimize your motivation?

Thursday 11th, June 2020