Search Inside Yourself
Chapter Six - The Art of Self-Motivation
Ok so here we are, Chapter Six of Search Inside Yourself, with the hot topic of self-motivation. Cheng talks to us about three easy steps to self motivation:
- Alignment - Ensuring that what you are doing lines up with what you value most in life.
- Envisioning - Once you are aligned, envision where you want to be. What is your ideal future?
- Resilience - When your values are aligned and you can see your ideal future, resilience will help get you there.
Cheng references Tony Hseih, a man who has acheived great things at a young age, including leading Zapos from 0 to $1bn+ in revenue through creating outstanding staff culture and excellent customer experiences. To do this Tony identified people have 3 different levels of happiness:
- Pleasure - The least sustainable form of happiness. Things we do to make ourselves feel happy outisde of work.
- Passion - More sustainable than pleasure. Things we do where the actual work makes us happy.
- Purpose - Most sustainable form of happiness. Things we do in service of something bigger than ourselves.
At Zapos, Tony created a culture where his employees are happy at work through a greater purpose by creating meaningful work in serving customers. Happy staff = Happy customers. Passion and purpose are two things that I strongly believe in; chase your dreams and find what makes you happy. There is a saying which love and think is attritutable to Katharine Whitehorn; "Find something you love to do, and then find someone who will pay you to do it". The ironic thing is, the form of happiness we tend to chase the most is simple, fast and easy pleasures, then we try to squeeze in a little bit of what we are passionate about, and very rarely do anything that has any real purpose.
As we are in the mood for listing things in 3s in this article, here's another; the 3 most intrinsic motivators which drive people to do their best work:
- Autonomy - The ability to direct our own lives.
- Mastery - The desire to become better and better at a craft we really enjoy.
- Purpose - Here it is again, being a valuable part of something greater.
Research shows that these 3 motivators are more effective in motivating better work and greater creativity than an increase in pay alone.
So how do we find our passion and our purpose? The secret lies in self-awareness and specifically self-assessment. What are we good at? What are we not good at? What do we like to do? What do we not like to do? This is interesting as these are questions I have asked myself alot recently, and ultimately what have led me down the path to do this course. I love innovation, collaboration and being part of a productive, exciting culture. I want to enjoy my work and for me, that means being part of something that is ever-evolving. My aim through this EDA course is to land a job in a modern tech company, with an innovative working environment, creating some of the coolest new apps and websites.
Another great point Cheng touches on is how failue is the beginning, and the most important part, of success. Essentially, if you are always in your comfort zone and don't feel confused, intimidated or stupid, then you will never be able to succeed. In order to succeed, you have to tackle the unknown, and in doing so we all risk facing failure. The real measure of success is not being able to never fail, but in how high we bounce back from failure.
Onwards and upwards,
