When I wrote my blog last week, Getting to the Why, I was merely writing my reflections based on the experience with my clients and how they come to understand the process of discovering the “why” as they continue to reach within themselves during the coaching process with me. Although this discovery is pivoted mostly around their career needs it intimately ties to their broader existence, because the work we all do is so central to how we live our lives. Anyway, I was not expecting a torrent of emails, discussions during my coaching sessions, and comments on my blog from those who dared to raise the issue publicly.
The burning question almost everyone was asking after reading that blog was: How do we get to the why (a’ la, how we increase our engagement in what we do so that we find meaning in it?)?
Great question!
In my work I find that a great majority “engage” in what they do merely for the “what.” By that I mean they are primarily in it for the material rewards: money, title, status, responsibility, and acknowledgement or validation. These are extrinsic motivators. Studies have shown that extrinsic motivators do not have a lasting value or deeper meaning in our pursuits. Besides, they create a vicious cycle of spiraling demands on you for even greater material rewards. If, on the other hand, you can find a deeper meaning in your pursuits then you are getting closer to answering the “why” in what you do. If you want to reflect on this more watch the TED video by Dan Pink, The Surprising Science of Motivation.
Does it mean that you can find an easy answer to the “why” in anything that you do?
This is a tough question to answer. But, rather than wondering what else can give you a better insight as to the “why,” I’d like to suggest that you try finding a greater meaning right where you are, doing what you do. It is tempting and easy to dismiss out of hand something in which you are currently participating (I do not want to use the word “engaged” deliberately to make my point) as not meaningful in favor of pursuing the unknown that perhaps is more meaningful. I think that embracing this strategy is a mistake. I can speak from my own experience and from that of my clients. Unless they are able to find greater meaning right in what they are currently doing, they’re likely to be chasing an endless mirage looking for greater meaning in something that they do not yet know what it is.
One way to find greater meaning in what you do (which will lead you to answering the nagging “why” question) is to shift your mindset about your work and to try to articulate the greater meaning in your own work through some verbal exercises. In my work I call this a SIMPLE exercise. Although it is an acronym for telling your leadership story in a compelling way, it can be used to describe what you do regardless of what the acronym really means.
What I am getting at is the leadership story that describes how you approach a challenge to create an Aha! in your otherwise banausic work. This Aha! comes about when you are engaging your genius in your work. By doing some deep introspection most are able to find greater meaning in even their most mundane assignments and uncover their genius in the process. Once you verbalize your genius, you, at once own it; and once you own it, you are hooked on finding greater meaning in almost everything that you do!
What I find is that once clients are able to find greater meaning in their work—even the work that they have already done—they have shifted their mindset to engage differently in even their work that they felt was boring and repetitive. Once they unleash their genius and find a way to verbalize it, the process of finding the “why” in what they do become more tenable.
It is easy to graduate from what you are doing to what you want to be doing through this process of uncovering your genius and by verbally branding it. In many cases clients find it much easier to engage in pursuits that gave them a much deeper sense of ownership in their work and a sense of getting closer to answering the “why.”
I am not proposing that I have found the silver bullet to get to the “why” question in our everyday pursuits, but trying to discover your genius in what you do is a very good place to start to uncovering what you are all about. Once you have a handle on that the rest follows. I hope that this algorithm works for you!
Good luck!
Shubhangi Kapatkar
Wow! Very nice article describing in depth about the motivation behind any work/task that an individual takes on or completes. From my experience, I can say that answer to why is very close to your thoughts and something that motivates a person to do their work irrespective of the external influencing environments. For example, a dynamic person like me loves to take on new challenges, even though it means that I may not get any materialistic gain out of it, but the mere satisfaction of achivement of doing something that I was not able to do before, is motivating. Every individual has different answers to why, so I would definitely suggest that taking personality tests or reading more on motivation factors to understand the strengths and weaknesses and planning to improve on weaknesses with the help of actions associated with it.