All of us are born with motivation. It’s embedded within us. In fact, all of us have our own unique style of motivation and are driven by it each day. However, pop-psychology along with the sales training industry has decide for us what motivation is and have done so based upon their own biased research. We’ve all paid a price for the confusion, but employees and their managers more so. The reason, managers expect that these emotional seminars to create long term life changes within their employees. Most of the time, these seminars come at a high cost with only temporary results. What they have done is confused enthusiasm for motivation. What is enthusiasm?

Enthusiasm is defined as fervor, zeal, explosive eagerness, rapturous intensity, and intense conviction or worthiness. It is a temporary emotion. Temporary in the sense that it can only be sustained for a brief period of time until it is either replaced by another emotion or a sustained feeling. (See the article: “The Difference Between Emotions and Feelings” for more info.) Think for a moment about how long can you sustain laughter, or how long can a temper tantrum last? For how long can you cry? How long can one remain in a excited or thrilled state?

That is why you can go to any number of so called “motivational seminars” get really “pumped” only to have that enthusiasm and energy fade away after just a few days. A form of social hysteria is what you’re really experiencing at such seminars, albeit in a positive form but never the less very transient.These events should be more accurately called “Enthusiasm Seminars.”.

Employee Motivation

The workplace is one of the main areas where motivation becomes a case of discord. It begins with the gross profit numbers. When profits are down, the company usually looks for an internal cause. Upper management gets pressured and pressures middle management who then pressures lower management who in turn pressures employees to “Get Motivated!”.The solution is usually a motivational seminar, workshop, or other program to get everyone fired up and back up to peak performance.

And because of that, motivation is managed as if it were a learned skill of “doing”(See the article: “What is Motivation” for a more in depth discussion of true motivation). With such training however a process of failure begins, littered with stress, confusion and self-sabotage. As stated above, programs like “Motivational (Enthusiasm) Seminars” only result in temporary effects. You can only sustain your enthusiasm for just so long. Your enthusiasm will eventually diminish. As this occurs, you’ll usually ask: ‘What’s the matter with me?Lack of confidence and doubt follows as the stress builds. Does this sound familiar to you? Understand that there is nothing wrong with you and there is nothing to fix. You are actually behaving within the parameters of mental health. The complication rest with our cultures inaccurate view of what motivation really is. Motivation can’t be a learned skill. It is naturally present. It is the expression of your state of “being”. Natural motivation drives you to leave your bed each morning. There is a significant need for you to express your unique existence to the world.

Anyone who teaches motivation as a “learned skill of doing,” exhibits their lack of knowledge on the basic functions of motivation. This is the reason why so many people are confused about motivation and why pop-psychology continues to design inherently flawed testing methods, books, seminars, and workshops which sadly point people down the wrong path. That being said, some will find value in the information but only uniquely motivating to them.

Westernized cultures (Particularly Americans), live in a capitalistic society that cannot afford to define motivation as simply a state of “being”. That is why Motivational Gurus, do not use Mother Teresa as an example of what it means to be motivated even though she is a fine example of natural, authentic motivation. From their viewpoint, there is no profit in using her as an example motivation.

The Ultimate Answer to Employee Motivation in the Workplace

The key to employee motivation in the workplace is honest and consistently effective. If you like what your work, it is beside the point to seek out motivation because it is already present. If any professional feels the need to attend a “Motivational Seminar,” they should seriously consider another profession. Imagine for a moment that your surgeon is running late to your pre-surgery consultation because he or she has yet to return from a “motivational seminar”. How might you feel? For that matter, what might you do? Would you put yourself in jeopardy~Would you still go through with the surgery with this person at the helm}?

Motivation comes naturally to each of us from a deep level within. No one should have to go out and find their motivation. Your motivation is not somewhere out there, it’s intrinsic, It’s within you. Ask yourself why plumbers, carpenters, electricians, doctors, computer technicians, and in fact most professionals do not have a desperate need to attend motivational seminars in order to get fired up to do their job.

The real secret to all this, is to discover the exact style of motivation you already posses. We call this “Your Life Theme“. It is as though you view the world through a unique set of prescription glasses. It is this prescription which dictates how you should live life and what career you should pursue. Discovering it and learning how it guides you is vital in creating meaningful, sustainable change in your personal and business life.

It is through discovering who employees are at their very core that management will be able to generate natural and effective motivation in the workplace. Managers who discover their “Life Theme” as well as that of their employees, are capable of building dynamic, highly productive and profitable teams where everyone has a greater sense of fulfillment and sustained cooperation. Management will also know which projects should be delegated to which individuals in order to attain the highest level of productivity. Each person will be able to maximize their self-expression with each project, completely by-passing the typical, costly debating and negotiating process. No longer will ego-battles slow down production and cause inner-office struggle. This is the future of business. Discover Your Life Theme.