Motivation is such a fascinating thing as everyone finds motivation from different places.
I am no different to anyone else and see my motivation rise and fall from time to time. Sometimes I throw myself into my online work and start making great progress, other times I am content just keeping things ticking over as it means I have more free time to do the things I love.
Tom Malone, who is a Professor at MIT’s Sloan School and the co-author of the book “The Future of Work” touches upon this in the video below.
In the video Tom notes that you can motivate people to do more physical work by offering them more money or cracking the whip harder. However, doing this rarely works when the work is intelligence based. He notes that the worker has to gain some reward from the work itself.
What Motivates You?
I believe what Tom says in the video above to be true.
My motivation for working online does not come from a desire to make money. I could earn more money by returning to financial services if that was the case.
I always enjoyed working online because of the freedom is gave me in life and because it gave me full creative control over what I do every day.
One of the reasons I have been producing more YouTube videos despite not making money from them is because I enjoy doing them. Likewise, my internet marketing community Rise Forums runs at a loss as I have not implemented advertising yet, but I enjoy hanging out there and helping others and interacting with other internet marketers and website owners.
The bottom line is that it is important to me that I enjoy what I do. Sure, there are times when I need to do boring tasks in my job, but by and large I love what I do and do not experience the dread that others do on a Monday morning. I enjoy my job and that motivates me to continue doing it.
What motivates you to work online?
I’d love to hear what is driving you to work build online success :)
Kevin
As for me, money can be good motivation only for short periods. If you spend a lot of time per day, week, month doing work you dislike, you feel more tired comparing with work you do with pleasure. Even if it takes more time.
That’s the good thing and bad thing about working online. In general, having this flexibility really helps my life. There are times, however, that fixed hours would suit me better due to me keeping a bad schedule etc. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. :)
Personal satisfaction is a big driver. After having children and a husband who travels for work I couldn’t return to my full time job as a Project Manager, as it would mean the children didn’t see a parent from 7.30 am-7pm. I couldn’t do that. With the encouragement of friends I launched my own business, techtoniclife.com. Its my consultancy, my hours and the service is about organizing and helping people achieve calm from their technical chaos. I work most days and 2 evenings but I get to take my children to school every day, I pick them up 3 days a week, and I get to sneak in a workout after drop off a couple of times a week. Its not perfect as income is sacrificed for time at home but time with my children is very precious and absolutely worth it.