Motivation, Meaning, & Burnout
Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist best known for creating Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. He said people are motivated by five basic categories of needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization.
There was a time when people worked in order to meet their physiological and safety needs: food on the table and a roof over their heads. But is that still the case? Let us turn to Greek Mythology for a moment.
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Sisyphus was a mythical king, who was punished by the gods for his avarice and trickery.
Before he died, Sisyphus, knowing that he was headed to the Underworld, made his wife promise to refrain from offering the expected sacrifice following his death. Once he reached Hades, Sisyphus convinced kindhearted Persephone, the queen of the Underworld, to let him return to the upper world, so that he could ask his wife why she was neglecting her duty. Of course, Persephone had no idea that Sisyphus had intentionally asked his wife not to make the sacrifice, so she agreed, and Sisyphus escaped the Underworld, refusing to return.
Eventually Sisyphus was captured and carried back, and the angry gods gave him his punishment; for the rest of eternity, he was forced to push a large rock up a steep hill, in itself a miserable task. Every time he neared the top of the hill, the rock would roll backward and he would have to start over.
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It is likely we have all experienced the Sisyphus effect at work, where we feel like our effort has not been utilized. A common version of this is having to rework our original effort, sometimes multiple times.
If you were only collecting a paycheck to put food on the table and a roof over your head, you would be very happy with a work arrangement that had the Sisyphus effect, because you would be getting your basic needs met. Who cares what the work itself entailed?
But we aren’t okay with Sisyphus. It’s because most of us also work to meet our need for self-actualization, where we can achieve our full potential.
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Behavioral economist, Dan Ariely, conducted a series of experiments to test the long-held belief that workers would exert the least amount of effort possible for a reward, or a paycheck. What this belief failed to consider is the role of motivation and meaning in productivity.
Through his experiments, Ariely found that our ability to find meaning in our work, and be acknowledged through the feedback of others, plays a significant role in our motivation to work and our productivity.
Try this for yourself. Use the table below to identify a task, activity, or role you play on a project. How motivated are you for the task?
After completing the table, what do you notice? Is your motivation high or low? Has the project been broken into many small parts where you lose visibility? Or do you see how your efforts contributed to the final product?
Does your manager or team acknowledge your efforts and contribution? Do you know what outcome the final product generated within the larger context of the teams’ or organizations’ goals and can you articulate the outcome? Do you feel a sense of ownership?
How does this impact your overall job satisfaction?
If you rank low on motivation, can you pinpoint why?
To press in even further, can you articulate what would help increase your motivation? This will be an important clue for you if you choose to take action to increase your motivation.
Daniel Pink notes that the three factors that most influence our motivation are autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Does this resonate for you? Or maybe it is something altogether different for you.
Now let’s look at meaning. Do you see how your effort contributed to the organization’s goals? If not, why? How can you have a greater sense of the impact you helped to create?
What one tiny action could you take on Monday morning to increase your meaning at work?
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Research shows that one of the major causes of burnout is a lack of efficacy, or feeling incapable of making an impact.
Here are a few ways you can increase your motivation and ability to see your impact, thereby increasing your sense of meaning and purpose:
Remember your why. What does this job mean to you and the people around you?
Find an extracurricular activity that will give you a stronger sense of impact. This boost in meaning will translate into your motivation for your day job.
Look for small wins at work that will help you stay connected to your purpose.
If you lead others who are experiencing burnout, here are three ways organizational psychologist Adam Grant suggests you can help:
Reduce the demands of the job (enabling their mastery)
Give people more control over their work (increasing their autonomy and connection to purpose)
Provide more support to help people cope (showing you care)
What is your overall job satisfaction score? And what tiny action will you take to increase it?
