Beyond Passion - What REALLY motivates?

[Carol Cole-Lewis]

The discussion Rocky started about passion got me thinking.

What motivates people to accomplish anything? In my own life, I drove myself to achieve some status as a competitive bodybuilder because it was a way I could focus my energies into a creative and healthy endeavor, rather than destroy myself through drink or drugs due to the incredible pain I was experiencing at the time.

It’s been said that people are moved to action for two (and only two) reasons:

1. The fear of pain
2. The anticipation of pleasure

There are no other reasons. Or, are there?

Right now, my husband Clovice and I are involved in starting a new company. Its focus is to provide sustainable small temporary housing solutions (read: a green FEMA trailer replacement) “Why are we doing this?” I keep asking myself. I mean, “Why are we REALLY doing this? What is the core, the essence, the driving force behind us taking everything we have and are, and plunging it into this venture?”

Of course, I can only answer for myself, so I explored the following possibilities:

Is it because….

1. …It would be a really cool thing to be able to provide disaster relief housing to people in need? Nice, but not really.
2. ....if this thing takes off, we’re going to be fabulously wealthy? I’ve always been happy with enough, so, no.
3. ….if we don’t get this thing a bit higher off the ground, we’re going to crash and burn? No. I’ve been there before in my life and survived.
4. ….of the fame and recognition we’d receive from the success? Both Clovice and I are Myers Briggs “I’s” so it’s highly unlikely.

When I came up with all the reasons I could think of – all which ultimately had a pain or pleasure component associated with them – I honestly could say it is none of these that drive me (and I might even say “Us” at the risk of speaking for Clovice) to do this. It’s hard to put a word or a concept to it because it is beyond pleasure or pain. It is something we just HAVE to do. I can’t find a word to describe it.

It’s probably the same reason Maxx, my nephew, just signed up with the Marines. Ever since he was a kid in diapers, he would turn his stuffed animals into pretend guns because his mom wouldn’t let him have weapons as toys. The military is in his blood. He just HAS to do it.

This “HAVE to do” is beyond passion, beyond emotion, beyond any feeling.

The closest picture I can paint for you is that it’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You’ve tried hundreds of piece you swear should have fit in a particular spot, and you even leave one of those pieces in that space for awhile thinking it belongs there. Then, all of a sudden you have a piece in your hand you KNOW is the correct one – you remove the impostor and replace it with the one you are holding. Voilà! Eureka! Alleluia! It exudes rightness, correctness, truth and beauty.

We HAVE to bring our company into the world – Maxx HAS to be a Marine – because the doing in itself creates this deep Knowing of rightness at the depths of our beings. You may have well asked us the question, “Why do you breathe?” The answer is almost the same. There is no emotion attached to it. IT just has to be done.

So, I ask you:

Is there a word we could give to this state, this “IT”? Is IT the ultimate power behind any inspired goal, vision, action, whatever? Do we have to have IT to achieve true success – in the workplace, at home, wherever? If our managers and company executives have IT, would they inspire success from the top down? How can everyone find IT? Can you go your whole life without having IT and still experience real joy and happiness in life and at work?

[Terrence Seamon]

Carol,
The "Have To Do" that you are putting your finger on sounds to me like a calling

Yes, a calling is an old fashioned term, maybe outmoded some might say. But Kenny Moore and others are bringing it back and discovering that it may actually be the secret to true happiness.

Terry

[Carol Cole-Lewis]

"Kenny the Monk"! Loved his blog! Thanks for the reference - bringing sacredness into everyday life and making it accessible to the masses is a cool reason to leave the monastery.

Like the word "calling" too. Maybe "answering" is a better term :-) ?

[Kate Tudno-Jones]

I think you are searching for the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything here, so maybe we should just call IT a #42?

You are quite right though. I have transitioned through so many jobs, and like Tigger I was always enthusiastic for the thing I was doing - but I never felt that I had quite got there - or putting it another way, I still hadn't figured what I was going to do when I grew up.

Then my current job came along and Bam! Its like falling in love, but with a career rather than a man. I feel like I have landed, and when I view every other job I have held, they all make sense as preparation for the role I'm in now. I've found My #42!

[Carol Cole-Lewis]

Interesting. I just started a blog called forty-two. I agree with your definition!

What are you doing that is so "#42?"

[David Zinger]

Carol,

I call this a fantastic and inspiring musing on why we do what we do. This was an awesome piece and I will ensure that our members know about it in the next newsletter. I am in awe and inspired and moved to my own musing and curiosity.

Who cares what we call it as long as we live it. I remember these words from Richard Feynman a well-known physicist:

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

Thank you so much, this lifted me up at the end of a long week.

[Carol Cole-Lewis]

I wondered why I had to post this....Thanks for the venue!

[Rich Tomsinski]

The word may be vocation. I recently read some of Invitation to Public Administration, by O.C. McSwite, that discusses the concept of vocation. (This book is actually a work combining the writing of two associates, a man and a woman, both public administration professors.)

I concluded from my reading that the concept of vocation is that vocation is a specific calling of work to which one can devote one’s self, at some cost or sacrifice for the benefit of a greater good. A person with a vocation may be seen as a craftsman or an artist, connected emotionally or spiritually to the tools and the product of his craft or art. A professional or a laborer may not seek, achieve, appreciate or recognize this emotional or spiritual connectedness with the product or the work. This craftsman or artist status is what I humbly aspire to in my work and in our government agencies’ work.

If this concept of vocation is valid - then two people working side-by-side doing the same work might be defined differently, one a craftsman (with vocation), and the other an employee, or worker, or whatever - there in body, but not engaged whole-heartedly.

Whatever we call it, I believe that we can recognize it within ourselves and in the people in our organizations. More importantly, I think, we can help foster it throught the strategy of engagement.

[David Zinger]

Rick
Vocation is a good word. It used to be used all the time as in Vocational Guidance Counseling but I don't think they really got at vocation and focused more on jobs. I appreciate the use of vocation in this context.
David

[Carol Cole-Lewis]

I agree with David's comment, Rick. What a great idea to shake the dust off an old-fashioned term like "vocation" and restore it to its true meaning, while creating relevance for today.

I'll look up your reference. THANKS!

[Dean Fuhrman]

Just noodling around on this ... the doing is compelled by something that is:

- innate ... inborn, natural
- instinctive ... relating to or prompted by instinct; apparently unconscious or automatic
- deep rooted ... firmly embedded in thought, behavior, or culture, and so having a persistent influence
- basic ... forming an essential foundation or starting point; fundamental
- intuitive ... using or based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive

I have often wondered where a thoughts come from. In my mind I picture standing at what is essentially a portal on the other side of a great, deep and dark void. Thoughts it seems to me come generally unbidden from that void and are placed on context only by what we have so far experienced in life.

So perhaps this "have to do" thing is your life speaking/acting through you.

[Carol Cole-Lewis]

I'm more of an ocean person (you might have guessed from my avitar!) – thoughts arrive and disappear like waves. Void works for me, too, though.

This makes me curious about you, Dean, and inspires me to ask you a question: "How do you do decision making on a moment to moment basis?"

[Dean Fuhrman]

That is a fascinating question. I am not sure what exactly the answer is. I believe that things just start happening. What I know, have experienced, have some insight on seems to be a useful part in making decisions.

Little decisions are more ponderous for me than big decisions. An insight just comes to me now in thinking about this that the reason could be that on smaller matters, I am by far working more in my head and less in the "void" or "waves" than on bigger matters.

How about you Carol? It seems like you might be a very intuitive person.