Motivation

It's funny how things work out sometimes. A few days ago, I came across this article on by Matthew Syed the BBC website. And today, for the first time since I shared their Transactional vs Inspirational Leadership series, I visited the Lead Change Group blog. There, I happened to chance upon this account by Deborah Costello.

Both pieces are, if you like, different perspectives on the same issue - motivation and hard work (or rather, motivation to work hard). Costello ends with an interesting sentiment:

You are a leader in your work whether you have that title or not. People see you do your job. Do you do it joyfully or are you working for the weekend? Do you do your best or are you just checking the boxes? Look around you. Can you help create and be a part of a culture, a company that changes how it thinks about the work? What if hard work wasn’t really work at all? And if it’s not work, is it really hard?

She may be talking about work but really that is applicable to every aspect of life; to life itself in fact. As Syed rightly points out, we need to move away from traditional thinking that states that we're good at what we do because we were simply 'made that way'.

I feel the most important thing is to identify what we are passionate about and let that be our motivation. It's difficult to achieve your full potential when you're working in an area you have no interest in. Difficult, but with the right attitude, certainly not impossible. As students, it becomes easier to deal with subjects you have been 'made to do' with that in mind.

At the end of it all, the world is your oyster.