Internal Motivators in Career Planning
When there is ADD or other LD present, it is absolutely essential that we know our inner motivators. When you think about inner motivators they answer the question, “What causes you to take action and do something that results in joy and satisfaction?” It brings us into that flow experience, conductors or writers describe it as losing track of time and an athlete would describe it as getting in the zone where they fly through the air effortlessly. Even if we aren’t great writers or athletes, we can still find our own zone. A window into this zone is discovering and dancing with our key motivators.
Key motivators may include things around the love for intellectual understanding; the knowledge of how things work in the current state. It may also be a love for following a tradition of ideals or beliefs; including cultural or family traditions. Another motivator can be about noticing and enjoying the aesthetic beauty of things from flowers and trees to the artistic creation of sculptures, architecture. You may notice beautiful voices or music. Some even notice the beauty of a mathematical formula or a scientific theory. Social motivators come from the perspective of wanting all that one does to be a benefit to people, person, family or humanity. The sense of satisfaction comes from knowing that your time, energy and money are being used to benefit others. Another key motivator is the sense of utilitarian value. It’s a more tangible benefit to you, a cause or loved one. This is where practical benefit, money, health or some other practical benefit to be generated from your efforts.
You might be able to discover your inner motivators by going through your day and noticing what gives you deep satisfaction or joy. You may notice how you come to decide to do one thing over another. Or if you find your motivation missing, you might explore, in your imagination, what might bring it back to understand where to put your attention, time or energy.
These are the steps required to build a foundation to make effective career planning decisions. If you are looking to understand your career planning process, there is a one day seminar that I will be speaking at in Minneapolis, MN hosted by www.ldaminnesota.com and co-sponsored by Ch.A.D.D. Twin Cities. There I will take you a little deeper into building your foundation of values and inner motivators in my presentation ADHD in the Workplace ~ Navigating the Career Planning Process. Taming ADD is also offering a class on key motivators. Click here to learn more.

Decisions based on Values

Decisions based upon Values

Once we are clear on what some of our values are, we can use them to make decisions. Some of our toughest decisions are what job to seek and accept, what projects to complete and what volunteer opportunities we should say “Yes” to our involvement. We simply have to notice how each is related to our values. Can we express our values freely in each environment? Do our values match up so we can fully engage them to create success? Once we are clear on our values we can use them to determine the best way to utilize our time and weed out that which would be unproductive for us.

For example, one client taught me that he chooses volunteer opportunities based upon qualifications. He found that he was receiving a multitude of volunteer opportunities, so many that he couldn’t accept them all. He leveraged his value of making the biggest impact to determine where best to put his time and energy. He would first determine if he was uniquely qualified to fill the role asked of him. He would determine if there was something unique that he could give more than others. If the answer was “No” then he would pass however, if the answer was “Yes” he would further consider the possibility. His next step was to look at the time commitment, the schedule and energy needed to fulfill asks. If this all meshed then he would take the volunteer opportunity. This was a win for both the client and the organization because both got “the best” for the efforts.

In my life, I recently uncovered that appreciation is a very important value for me. This actually surprised me. However, it has led me to make decisions based upon whether the opportunity creates a space for me to give appreciation and receive appreciation. Since my volunteer time fills quickly, I may pass on an opportunity that doesn’t allow me to utilize this value in some way.

We must all think about how to best use our time and energy. This week let’s work on using our values as the starting point to make decisions about opportunities that arise. First make a list of your values so that when an opportunity arises you are prepared to run down your value list to see if it’s a good fit for you. Say “Yes” to those that are and “No” to those that aren’t.