Purpose as a Motivator

I had a dip in motivation last week which has become rare for me these days. In fact, someone recently asked me how I stay so motivated all the time and I didn’t have a clear answer for her until that dip happened. The reason was that I had briefly lost touch with my purpose. It’s my purpose that really keeps me motivated.

There is a debate around discipline vs motivation and some like to argue that ‘discipline eats motivation for breakfast’. As someone that has a high level of self-discipline, I can tell you that I will do the task, but will I bring my best self if I am not doing it with purpose? Not always. You can be disciplined but you need to know what drives you.

We also need to be clear on what defines motivation. You can have extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The former is temporary and relates to external factors such as a deadline or that glass of wine you’re looking forward to at the end of the week as a reward for the hard work you’ve put in. Intrinsic motivation comes from within and you’re doing something because you inherently enjoy it or find it interesting – hence the link to purpose.

There are various ways to describe purpose. It could be what drives you, your ‘why’, your main goal in life, your life philosophy, or your meaning in life. However you wish to describe it, it is something that aligns with your values and interests. In Grit: Why Passion and Resilience are the Secrets to Success, Angela Duckworth adds a further dimension to purpose: “the idea of purpose is the idea that what we do matters to people other than ourselves” (Duckworth, 2017: p. 175). This could be to our friends, family, colleagues, or community. I think this element is the key to the motivation factor.

Duckworth found in her research that “grittier people are dramatically more motivated than others to seek a meaningful, other-centred life” (Duckworth, 2017: p. 178). Furthermore, she claims that “purpose is a tremendously powerful source of motivation” (Duckworth, 2017: p. 179). Having clarity on your purpose makes it easier to pick yourself up on those days when the going gets tough.

But how do you get to this point of finding a purposeful life? I know that I struggled for a few years. It was only after I read Dorie Clark’s The Long Game that things started clicking into place and it started with the concept of optimising for interesting. Clark suggests that when you are trying to find your purpose you should follow your curiosity and optimise for interesting. The same concept ties in with Duckworth’s research on ‘paragons of grit’ who all have a deep passion and love for what they do. For most of them, it all started out with exploring different interests (curiosity) and eventually fostering a passion for one of them.?

On my path to purpose, I started being more curious, looking at what I was spending my time doing and enjoying the most, i.e., what I really found interesting and brought value to my life. It eventually led me down a completely different career path and to my purpose. Now I can say I genuinely love that I get to do what I do.

The next step would be to do what Duckworth discusses in Grit around having a top-level goal that drives you. Duckworth limits this to a professional goal but it could be your overarching goal for life. If you can sum it up in a short sentence (Duckworth suggests ten words maximum), then you have identified your main goal or what I would say is your purpose. As Duckworth points out, by doing this “you’ll have a clearer sense of who you are, what you care about, and how to align your effort with your identity” (Duckworth, 2017: p. 339). Write it down somewhere and keep it in handy for those days when you need that extra bit of grit.

Now for an important element of purpose - how it matters to others. You can cultivate this no matter what you do. Start looking at your interests or work and ask yourself how this might benefit someone else in some small way – there’s always a way.

How can you be curious and ‘optimise for interesting’? Look at where you are spending your time and enjoying it. What is your ‘why’? How does this manifest in your life and for others? Write it down as your purpose statement. This is what drives you to lead a thriving life.

Book Recommendation:

Grit: Why Passion and Resilience are the Secrets to Success by Angela Duckworth

Grit has always been something I have admired in others and so when I first heard about Duckworth’s work, I was really interested in how grit was developed. Grit is structured around the four “psychological assets” involved in the growth of grit: interest which leads to passion; followed by practice; then purpose; and finally hope. I have only very briefly touched on two of the aspects but the book is rich with research on each of them and examples of ‘paragons of grit’ as well as Duckworth’s Grit Scale so you can measure your grittiness.

Quote:

“To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goal.” – Angela Duckworth

Podcast Recommendation:

Simon Sinek recently hosted Miroslav Volf on A Bit of Optimism to discuss Life Worth Living. It is based on Volf’s book and the course that he teaches at Yale University about what kind of life is worthy of our humanity. They discuss questions about what it means to live a good life. The subject piqued my interest because it’s ultimately a discussion about our life purpose.

As someone who used to work in higher education, what struck me about this conversation was when Volf pointed out that the university used to be the site where questions about how we should live a flourishing life were explored. He says that you don’t find the intellectual space in these institutions anymore for these questions to be taken seriously. I was left wondering but yet there is a thriving self-development and wellness industry that would argue there is perhaps a need for it to be taken seriously in these academic spaces.

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