I'm fascinated by what makes people tick, aren't you? Given my long battle with lack of motivation, I've been studying Daniel Pink's take on the subject. It's great content.

In his book, "Drive – the surprising truth about what motivates us," Daniel talks about 3 motivational operating systems. Motivation 1.0 is the basic motivation we know as animals. We have hunger, we have thirst, and we like to get together to make more members of our own species.

Motivation 2.0 is what has run business, schools, and government for centuries – the carrot and the stick, reward and punishment. The idea is simple – if you do what we ask, you will get pleasure; if you break the rules, you will get pain. An assumption made is that work is not satisfying and so we need incentives to keep doing it. This belief is logical. Punishment and reward should work. However, it doesn't work often enough any more...

The truth is we are all motivated at a much higher level – Motivation 3.0. This is what we call 'Intrinsic Motivation' – where the activity itself is its own reward. What we do doesn't seem like work – it seems like play. You and I can discover what satisfies this drive by answering a simple question: "If money was not an issue, and if you had all the time in the world, what would you choose to do?"

I asked a group this week to answer that question and the results were inspirational. Here's what they wrote: "Spend time in my garden," "Spend time sewing, which I love." "Sing every day!" "Motorcycle trips." "Teach my son how to pedal/ride his bike :o)" "Understand what my parents enjoyed before I came along." "Exercise more." "Sleep." "Baking and making! :0)" "Quilting." "Walk more and be more healthy." "Write more poetry." "Spend more time with my children." "Bake a cake!" "Travel to South Africa." "Take my children to Snowdon." "Time to read." "More time with the kids." "Spend more time with my Dad." "Travel with family." "More sex*" (*Motivation drive 1.0) "Take some long weekend breaks!" "Spend more time with my partner walking the dogs." "Create my own Christmas gifts, would do a lot of baking and spend time with my family." "Personal health and fitness." "Spend time with my Mum and Son, and to find time for me!" "Give time to another rescue charity." "Would like a holiday." "Wildlife Holiday Photography."

Yes, you guessed the question I'm going to ask you. It's the same question! What are your answers?

Katie, my niece, also inspired me. We were talking about Bucket-Lists and she suggested it would be great to have smaller buckets – lots of them. The idea would be to have regular motivating activities scheduled into shorter time-frames. I'm going to suggest you answer the question for yourself and then plan to take some action on your answers within the next season of 90 days. This builds hope, drive, and motivation.

As always, I'd love you to share your answers! Sharing them publicly can lead to a 10x increase in the likelihood of you actually engaging in these activities.

Lex

A Moodscope member.