FOR US to be smarter, faster, and better in our work or profession, Charles Duhigg says, you have to see your job as a choice not a chore. Charles Duhigg is the author of the best-selling book, “The Power of Habit” and he followed it up with another excellent book entitled, “Smarter, Faster, Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business.” The first book was about replacing bad habits with good ones. His second is about motivation.
A strong motivation is what
makes us smarter, faster and better according to Charles. And key to
motivation is having that sense of choice or freedom. He says, “The
choices that are most powerful in generating motivation are decisions that do
two things: They convince us we’re in control and they endow our actions
with larger meaning.” I agree with him, having freedom is an essential
part of what makes us humans. Animals and plants don’t have
freedom. They are driven by instincts. But we humans are driven by
rationality. We have an intellect and will that makes us know things and
makes us choose things. If we don’t have that freedom in anything that we
do, it lowers our motivation, like seeing our profession as a kind of slavery
that we are forced to do because we have a family to feed.
In my seminar on “Loving
Your Profession: How to Inject Life into Your Daily Job”, one of the
things I point out there is to see your job (whatever is your job) as a choice
and not as a need. It makes a world of difference when you see it that
way.
Charles Duhigg says you
need to put a sense of choice and meaning into your job to increase your
motivation, no matter how small they may be. While working for example,
have a sense of choice in: (1) Where to work (office, conference room, coffee
shop, etc.), (2) How long to focus on a particular problem (work intensely for
20 minutes, 30 minutes, 50 minutes?), (3) What to do while working (listen to
music, have a cup of coffee, drink a cup of tea, etc.)
Putting meaning into our
work is another factor that lifts our motivation. It is seeing the
benefits of doing our task, even if we were ordered by our boss to carry it
out. Being told to do a certain task by a superior might go against one’s
sense of freedom. Some people don’t want that and start their own
business and be their own boss.
The key to this paradox of
obeying and still having a sense of freedom is looking at the benefits of
obeying. U.S. Armed Forces are trained to have this mentality when
obeying commanding officers. They reframe the orders they receive as
something that will lead them to being a better soldier, getting promoted, make
the war strategy work, win the war on terrorism, and make the world a better
and safer place. Applying this principle in our jobs means seeing the
meaning between what you do and how it benefits you and the others.
Examples of the benefits of our job are: it feeds our family, increases our
skill level, service to society and puts our talent into good use.
(ECC)
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