How people are motivated....

Every day, in the life, you face the motivational issue. There are lot of discussion on how to motivate people. Common complaint is people are not motivated to do something, People are self-centered, they are not proactive, they have to be pushed. When you try to motivate that doesn't always work. The question is how to motivate? How to make them to do the job which you want. I think, this is the fundamental question in life of parents, teachers, managers…  

How people are motivated???

People are motivated for two reasons,

•        To get the pleasure…
•        To avoid the pain…

When you project the pleasure in the task, they probably will work hardly to achieve the task.  You can also project the pain, in case the task is not completed and they will still work. People who are motivated to get the pleasure are “towards” people and people who are motivated to avoid the pain can be called “away from” people.

You have to give an appealing emotional reason to feel emotionally good. If the person compete the task, he will fill  better and his boss as well and perhaps he may get the good feedback during annual performance review. This is associated with the pride. “I did this because, I am proud to do this” should be the feeling.

You need to find in the people what makes them feel good. You have to care and be interested in them. Think of the benefits, to yourself or another of doing something and use benefits rather than obligation to motivate the people.

“Away from people” or pain avoiding people will have different strategy. You have to use the different strategy while dealing with them. They are motivated by avoiding pain. You can motivate them by telling about the pain, they will avoid by doing it. It’s like the same proverb which says, “one man’s meat is the poison for another.”

Here, you have to give an appealing statement, where if the person performs the task, he will avoid lot of problems and pains in life.    

You can use both pleasure and pain statements to motivate the people. Most of us are motivated to pleasure self or others, however sometimes, avoid pain/problem is also required.

Choose the appropriate statements to motivate the people based on these two strategies. By the way, how are you motivated? Motivate to pleasure or motivate to avoid the pain?