Spring Break is winding down and the final book in my queue that you might want to check out is Drive by Daniel Pink. The book focuses on our human motivations. Traditionally, science had identified two drives that powered our behaviors. First was the biological drives (eating, drinking, copulating). The second was external drive, rewards and punishments from external forces. In his book, Pink looks at a third possible drive behind our behaviors, the intrinsic reward of completing our tasks.
The book also has a toolkit with a variety of strategies for you to apply. One of the chapters that is a good for most people to check out is on your personal motivations.
9 Strategies for Awakening Your Motivation
Pink’s book lays out 9 exercises for you to help examine your motivation:
- Give Yourself a “Flow Test”
- First, Ask a Big Question… (What’s a sentence that summarizes you?)
- … Then Keep Asking A Small Question (Were you better off today than yesterday?)
- Take a Sagmeister (A year-long sabbatical)
- Give Yourself a Performance Review
- Get Unstuck by Going Oblique
- Move Five Steps Closer to Mastery
- Take a Page From (Alan) Webber and A Card From Your Pocket
- Create Your Own Motivational Poster
As with most books, the list is a good start, but you need to read the chapter to get the full context…
