“Forward, of course!” I hear a lot of people say. That might seem like a trick question to some, but think for a minute before you answer. Look at the results you’ve been getting.

Do you find that you get started on a task with a big burst of energy, hit an obstacle and while it might knock you back a bit you keep going, then hit another obstacle and find that your motivation has deflated quite a bit? And as time goes on your motivation starts to dwindle more and more and what had originally seemed like a brilliant idea is now more like an albatross around your neck weighing you down and you’d just like to shed it and quickly, so the task that the motivation was applied to is done, but not with half as much effort or quality and you feel a bit guilty about that?

Or maybe you started with a big burst of energy and the more you apply yourself to the task the more energy you have for it, it’s as if it is a self-charging task, you just don’t run out of energy and taking a break from it is harder to do as you get further along with it and you also get a great sense of pride in completing it well?

For some people their motivation is “towards” and for others it is “away from” and knowing in advance which yours is will make a huge difference in how well you do the task.

Let’s take two employees, John and Jack, for example. Both have been hit with redundancy. John absolutely loves the job he does and he does it really well, day in and day out. He keeps working at his best despite the redundancy, and still manages to find time to job hunt. Jack however fell into his job and it’s just a job, it brings in a wage. Now that the redundancy has been announced he is job hunting and taking a lot of time off work and his performance has declined noticably.

The difference between the two of them is John’s motivation is “towards” and whether he going to lose his job or not he loves doing it, while Jack’s motivation is “away from” it is to keep him from the pain not earning and once his earning capacity has been threatened his motivation to do his job well has also been seriously dented.

So think again, which way is your motivation pointing?