Even the best leaders can fall into patches where they feel stuck or unmotivated. In the book, Drive: the Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink highlights that feeling lazy is a normal thing, but the way you view your “why” and “how” in achievements will change your drive completely. This November Book of the Month caught my attention because lately, I’ve been feeling unmotivated to do my work. Pink makes interesting points about the false assumption that external rewards will satisfy us enough to motivate ourselves. In reality, “it’s the deep human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world around us” (Pink 2009). These needs fall into three main elements of true motivation: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
While reading, I reflected on how I’ve used these in my own personal experiences. I’ve always considered myself an independent person when it comes to executing plans or creating goals for myself. A couple years ago, in my search for a concentration of study, I found myself constantly leaning towards areas of service workers and healthcare providers. Now that I’ve selected my major and gone through a handful of Speech and Hearing Science classes, I’ve identified the purpose I’ve been seeking in a profession- helping to improve the quality of life in others. Choosing the Speech-Language Pathology path on my own, learning what it encompasses and the range of populations I can help, and fully grasping an overarching purpose has driven my motivation through each hard class, each late-night cramming session, each minute-to-minute busy day, and each challenging job. I remind myself of the strong impacts I can make in working with patients to rebuild their ability to communicate. I remind myself how much I’ve learned about speech disorders, the human brain, and the audiology system in the past year and a half. I remind myself that I chose this career and field of study for myself and I have control of the path I take with it. This independency, new knowledge, and clear purpose surrounding my future career are what drive me through my obstacles.
While absorbing Daniel Pink’s breakdown of motivation, I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about both my short-term goals in other aspects of my life where I’ve applied these same concepts. In my leadership positions in RSOs, at work, as a roommate, as an older sister, I will work towards identifying a common purpose, directing myself through my self-designed goals, and learning new information about myself, others, and things that will help me accomplish my goals.
This book changed my mindset and transformed the way I view my future. Pink covers how to apply smart techniques for putting scientific research on human motivation into action in your own life. I’m grateful that I could adapt this driven mindset and plan to maintain these techniques in my life. I’d recommend everyone to check this book out (at the Cavenaugh Library in the ILC) if you get the chance!
Sources: Pink, D. (2018). Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates US. Canongate Books Ltd. (Original work published 2009)
