I just finished reading the book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Dan Pink. Drive is a fascinating window into how our minds operate, especially in relation to doing work. Every idea in the book goes back to basic premise of motivation: internal and external. And of course, internal is always best.
What Pink goes on to discuss throughout the book is what science has proven. External motivation is rarely effective. It may be for a time, but ultimately it fails for the long term. People are happier, more productive and more satisfied with life when they are internally motivated to do something (self motivation). In turn the companies and organizations that people work for will also be more productive, profitable and effective at acheiving their goals.
For an excellent summary of Drive, check out this ten minute video:
As a total coincidence, Seth Godin wrote this on his blog recently:
“Self motivation is and always will be the most important form of motivation.”
If you read the entire post you will find that he was discussing motiviation by comparing yourself to someone else. This is a different form of external motivation than what Pink describes in Drive, but still an outside factor nonetheless. But as everyone has already said above and elsewhere, motivating yourself is best.
The question is, are you up to it?
Source:
What Drives Us?