Who’s in the driver’s seat? Learning and leveraging your motivations

In sessions with new career coaching clients, I’m often reminded of the concept of the "hedonic treadmill," which refers to the quickly waning satisfaction we often feel after experiencing a big achievement. The thrill of landing that new job? It’s gone faster than expected, and familiar, negative feelings of unfulfillment return. Once again, work becomes something to endure rather than enjoy. 

It’s not your fault! The human brain is wired to adapt and strive for greater forms of success. And the treadmill can be beneficial – it can fuel ambition, inspire us to seek out new and novel experiences, and combat complacency. That said…it can also create long term jadedness and burnout, and that’s what I want to talk about addressing.  

The key to diminishing the negative impacts of running on this proverbial machine and experiencing longer term satisfaction in work is understanding your personal drivers: the motivations that keep you engaged and fulfilled.

For example, I recently met with a client who told me that he was generally driven by the vague idea of creating positive social impact. This felt like something that he was “supposed” to care about, and so he centered his job search around something that seemed aligned in theory: high level policy change. Through our work together, we discovered that he is most motivated by the opportunity to create visible impact – he wants to see the effect of his work in his community, in the people around him, and in the institutions he interacts with regularly. We decentered impact on huge systems that affect wide populations, and narrowed his job search to localized roles that would impact his direct surroundings. This kind of role, we reasoned, would keep him motivated long after the initial rush of securing a job wore off.

Drivers, or motivators, are the foundational building blocks of intentional action. Let’s walk through how to identify your own, and use them in career planning.

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What are drivers, and why do they matter?

Drivers are the underlying motivations that influence our decisions and actions. They represent the "why" behind what we do. They’re fueled by desired outcomes, both emotional and tangible, and are usually informed by our values, previous life experiences, and core needs. Most people are influenced by a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic drivers. 

Intrinsic drivers are fueled by personal interests, and include:

• Personal growth and the pursuit of new knowledge and skills

• Deep love for a particular subject, activity, or field

• Purpose, meaning, or impact 

• Challenge

• Connection with others

  
  

Extrinsic drivers are more connected to outside factors, like:

• Financial reward

• Recognition

• Progressive status

• Competition

Understanding motivations can be supportive at any stage and inflection point of one’s career. By aligning your choices with them, whether during a job search or when creating goals and action plans, you can make more informed decisions that support what you’ll want long term, rather than just what seems practical or appealing in the moment. 

Put simply, to execute a vision, it’s important to understand why you want what you want. These underlying forces will sustain long-term satisfaction.

How can I identify my drivers?

One way to identify drivers is to reflect on your past positive work, volunteer, or academic experiences – moments when you felt proud, accomplished, or joyful – to understand what intrinsic and extrinsic factors pushed you to create those outcomes. Take this simple exercise:

1. List out accomplishments

   • Start by writing down five professional accomplishments that you’re particularly proud of. These can be big wins or smaller successes, as long as they made you feel good about the work you produced and the outcome it created.

2. Think through moments of Joy

   • Now, do the same for moments in your career when you experienced joy. What were the circumstances? What specifically generated positive feelings? 

3. Mine these experiences for motivators at play

   • Next to each accomplishment and moment of joy, note the forces that inspired you to act. 

Once you’ve completed the exercise, it’s time to look for patterns. Do certain drivers keep showing up? Do you consistently feel proud of work that allows you to develop a sense of mastery in your field? Learning might be a core driver for you. Did the potential for public recognition push you towards excellence? Visibility, reputation, or status might be important motivators in that case.

I like to share with clients the trends that I observe from our work together and ask them to respond. Often, they can speak to whether a particular driver was fleeting or tied to a specific project, or a more consistent, years-long theme – these are usually the ones that will be most impactful in the future. 

How can I use drivers to guide my career planning?

Once you’ve identified your core drivers, you can use them to inform professional actions of all kinds:

• If job searching, center jobs that leverage your motivators; develop thoughtful questions for your interviewers to evaluate if your drivers will be well utilized 

• If action planning for your current job, allow your motivators to influence the types of goals you set and projects you take on; use them to structure an effective day and decide what relationships to invest in internally

• Use your drivers to practice professional mindfulness; when you feel frustrated, ask yourself: am I satisfying my motivators? If not, how might I do so? 

• Bring drivers to the table to better understand the people that you work closely with; ask your manager, direct reports, and teammates what motivates them to illuminate ways to productively collaborate  

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If you want to get off the treadmill – maybe in exchange for an invigorating walk through a park – look into your drivers. They’re critical for understanding how to move intentionally towards fulfillment, whether in your current role or while strategizing your next move.  

If you’re looking for support as you navigate this process, let’s chat. I’m here for you. :)