As human beings we have certain human needs, not in terms of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, but emotional needs. Two of these needs are growth and contribution and, in my opinion, they are important drivers of our behaviour.
When we don’t feel like we’re growing we can feel stuck, stagnant and in a rut. This can lead us to lose both motivation and focus, in particular motivation to keep showing up and doing the mundane things throughout the day.
When we lose this motivation, the days seem longer and we can easily slip into bouts of low mood and depression. It’s vital to our mental well-being to have a growth mindset, one where we can see the opportunity to improve ourselves and our own lives. Even the smallest of growth challenges can steer us back on track.
Learning a new skill or pushing ourselves to improve an existing skill. Learning a new subject or improving our knowledge in an existing subject even just beginning a new project that requires our existing skills and knowledge can jump start out motivation.
If you’re feeling particularly de-motivated right now, have a look at the different areas in your life and see where you may have become stagnant, where the challenge has gone or where you feel unmotivated. Identifying a specific area can give you fresh insight into creating new growth and rekindle your motivation.
The second area I mentioned was contribution. Contribution is hard wired into us as human beings we need to feel we are contributing to society in some way. When we feel like we’re not contributing, life feels empty and pointless. Again, motivation deserts us and we can feel rudderless and adrift.
Finding ways to contribute are vitally important to us as a species as it’s what binds us together as a society, when we don’t contribute, we feel like we’re a burden to others and when we see others not contributing it’s easy for us to become judgemental and dismissive.
We also become easy targets to our own inner critic, which left unchecked can become devastating to our self-esteem and how we see ourselves both in society and our personal circles. In order to combat this, it’s useful to ask yourself regularly how you are contributing or why you are doing the things you are doing.
If you don’t receive a satisfactory answer, start to look for ways you can contribute. Start small, doing small things for friends or family, exercise your contribution muscle, and most importantly recognise yourself for doing it.
The two human needs illustrated above are key to our ongoing survival as a species, they keep us moving forwards and remind us that we’re stronger together. When you feel your motivation or self-esteem slipping, they’re a good place to begin looking for a solution. They’re also really easy to do.
So go out, challenge yourself to grow and contribute and see your self-esteem and motivation begin to soar.
