Motivation Programming

What is the difference between a motivation program and motivation programming? As I dive deeper into the world of positive psychology, motivation, identity creation and the concepts that drive us as humans to achieve our ultimate goals, I have focused on a few terms at a time to break down and discover. Today, I simply wanted to learn a little bit more about motivation and its uses.

Defining Motivation

Wikipedia probably has the best explanation of the term motivation.

“Motivation is a driving factor for actions, willingness, and goals. These needs, wants or desires may be acquired through influence of culture, society, lifestyle, or may be generally innate.”

So through this definition we have ourselves two versions of driving factors that influence our lives – intrinsic motivations and extrinsic motivations. Intrinsic is something we desire internally. Extrinsic is something that externally rewards us. You can tell if it’s an intrinsic motivation or an extrinsic motivation by asking yourself from where the desire stems and what you’re getting in return.

Motivation is something we use every single day. We may not even realize that most of the actions we take are just results of motivations pulling and pushing us in different directions. The greatest thing about motivation though is that you can use it to your advantage when you realize how to manipulate it on your own accord.

Using Motivation

You wake up any given day and you have to “motivate” yourself to get moving. Maybe it’s the idea of getting a paycheck at the end of the week that motivates you or the desire to get that next promotion. Some people are motivated by the desire to want change for their family. Others are motivated to seek a better physical condition whether that’s internally or externally. Whatever these motivations are, they usually are inherent in our actions. We sort of let the motivations unconsciously take us through each action.

Unsurprisingly, due to our need for immediacy and value, we expect motivation to just work when we really need it. Otherwise, there isn’t a single thought we put around what is motivating us to do one thing over another.

This reminds me a lot of people who talk about praying only in situations when they need God. They say they are regretful that they neglect their relationship with God most days, only reaching out to Him when needed. Motivation is very similar. We tend to forget that we need motivation to accomplish our goals. So, we only rely on it when we think we really need it.

Needing Motivation

When I looked up “motivation program” in my web browser, I found a really interesting search results page. Every single item on the first page related to “Employee Motivation”. Why do we only think about motivation when it comes to work – work in the physical sense or work in the mental sense – athletes and employees?

And, it’s interesting to me that you can find countless articles about how employers can alter your actions by influencing your motivations. Think Google’s incentives to give all employees a reason to stay at work for longer hours. Think about maybe some of the benefits and incentives your employer gives you to stick around.

So, instead of letting others externally influence our motivations to do what they want, I thought about why we really need motivation in each day – to accomplish what WE want. The reality is, you can’t get where you need to go if you don’t get the motivation. That’s what your employer knows and they’re using it to their advantage!

Let’s then reframe this idea and think about “Motivation Programming”. Motivation programming is the new way to go about achieving your goals and accomplishing more in your day. It’s all about seeking the right motivation each day and programming your brain to crave it, seek it and follow it.

Daily Motivation Programming

Any new habit or routine is going to be difficult at first. You’re going to despise it for a little while and will even find yourself annoyed at the whole thing and ready to give up. However, you have to fight through it. Again, I’ll preach that our brains are constantly trying to get us to go back to what’s comfortable. Constantly deceiving us, our brains are tricky things, focused only on getting immediate satisfaction.

To get into a new frame of mind, try waking up every day and watching a motivational video or listening to a motivational podcast. Do this for a week straight and see how you feel. Do it when you don’t want to, then keep on going. Here are few great options to get started:

Ben Lionel Scott’s Weekly Motivation on Spotify

The Motivate App on the Apple App Store.

Motiversity on YouTube

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