Passionate One-Person Business Owner, but Having a Hard Time Getting Motivated? This Might Be Your Solution…
I have been digging deep into the self-determination theory by R. Ryan, and E. Deci. I find it corresponds nicely to my own experiences as a one-person business owner for more than a decade with multiple different businesses under my belt.
If you are passionate about what you do and love the core message of your business, but still struggle to get stuff done, this blog post is for you. I am going to write about motivation and different types of motivations. Your WHY might be strong, but that is not the primary motivation that will help you get the day-to-day stuff done. So, keep reading if you see yourself in this…
Before we go further it is important that you know that there are two different kinds of motivation — intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic is when you are motivated by forces outside of yourself. Studying hard to get good grades to satisfy your parents — but studying hard to get good grades to get into your dream college is also extrinsic (which most people get wrong, but that’s for another blog post). Working on your business because you want success and money, is extrinsic. Working on your business to help other people — also extrinsic.
What’s left is intrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is when you do something for the pleasure of doing it. It is writing, because you LOVE writing, and it feels good both during and after. Eating ice cream because you like ice cream.
Intrinsic motivation is not better than extrinsic per se, but it does last longer and is generally the way to go for passionate business owners.
We are going to get a little sciency now, but don’t worry I will get back to how you can use this information in your life to get more stuff done in your business.
In the self-determination theory there’s a continuum, on one end is extrinsic motivation, and on the other is intrinsic. In the middle of the continuum is extrinsic motivation infused with some degree of intrinsic motivation. Check out the figure below.
What is interesting from our perspectives, is the 2 columns furthest to the right. Integrated regulation and intrinsic regulation. The first one is still based on extrinsic motivation, the last one is purely intrinsic.
Integrated regulation is based on extrinsic motivation but is infused with intrinsic factors. I believe that this is where your motivation lies if you are a one-person business owner who is passionate about what you do and why you do it. Integrated regulation is when the task at hand is externally motivated, like writing a newsletter to grow your business and help more people with the thing you love. The reason behind writing the newsletter is to be able to do more of what you love. That is intrinsic. The act of writing the newsletter is extrinsic, it is not something you enjoy doing just because it’s something you do to achieve an intrinsic goal. So, writing the newsletter is extrinsic but it is based on intrinsic motivation. Do you see the combo of intrinsic and extrinsic clearly?
Intrinsic regulation is something you do because you love doing it. Something you truly enjoy the process of doing. For me, that is writing this blog post right now.
A lot of one-person business owners work in integrated regulation. The reason why they are doing a specific task is rooted in intrinsic motivation, but the task itself is extrinsic. They don’t love the task itself.
I have worked in the integrated regulation space for years, and it was tremendously difficult for me to get stuff done. I berated myself for not doing it despite loving my business’s core message and loving helping people find their passion.
When I wrote my book on How To Find Your Passion & Purpose, it clicked for me… I loved the subject of passion and purpose and helping people find their way in their work lives. I also loved writing. A powerful combo of two intrinsic motivations.
A not on real life: Just because something is intrinsically regulated (like writing a blog post), doesn’t mean there is no form of extrinsic motivation involved. I write because I love writing, and I write about subjects I am wildly interested in. I write because I want to educate people on how to solve their problems — because I care. I write to grow my online presence and get clients (earn a living). Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation can co-exist. (sidenote: Studies show that putting extrinsic motivation on top of something you are intrinsically motivated to do can decrease intrinsic motivation. Like when you start a business around your hobby, suddenly it becomes work instead of play. But, this is an entirely different blog post).
The Intrinsic Double Whopper:
What has worked well for me and lots of my clients, is tailoring our business to be more aligned with our intrinsic motivators. You are already doing something you love. Most likely you love what your business is about, your products, and your overall messaging. But do you truly enjoy doing the majority of tasks in your business?
To get the intrinsic double whopper you must love the overall message of your business AND truly enjoy doing the tasks.
Back when I was a Passion and Purpose Mentor, I loved the message of the business and coaching people to find their passion/purpose. I did not love (or even enjoy) doing social media, accounting, website creation and updates, creating and managing Facebook ads, creating webinars and freebies, etc. The only thing in my business I truly enjoyed doing was coaching my clients. The rest was boring at best. I had a hard time getting all those tasks done — tasks that were crucial to getting clients. Today I understand why. 90% of my workload was based on integrated motivation. You know the type of motivation that is extrinsic with a hint of intrinsic motivation (core business message).
Today my business looks a little different. I have mostly put the passion and purpose mentoring behind me and moved on to productivity and procrastination. The fire within me, my why and the love for my messaging remains the same. The difference lies in the everyday task I do in my business. I discovered my love for writing when I wrote the passion book, and I have taken that knowledge with me in what I am doing now. Most of my time is spent writing blog posts. As mentioned earlier I don’t particularly like posting on social media, however it’s difficult to get an online business up and running without social media presence. So I base 95% of my social media posts on the blog posts I write. This makes creating social media content much faster and easier. Instead of webinars, I host workshops. I thoroughly enjoy teaching, so workshops are so much more fun for me than a “standard webinar” of me talking about my story and telling people about the importance of my message. I still don’t enjoy accounting or managing ads, so I spend as little time as possible on it and look forward to the day I can outsource it.
The intrinsic double whopper is amazing and makes work-life much more fun and easier. If you have the courage to change things up in your business and build a new strategy with your intrinsic double whopper, here’s how to start:
- Write down every task in your business.
- Give each task points for how much you enjoy doing them. 1 point for no enjoyment, 5 points for full enjoyment.
- Underline all your 4–5-point tasks.
- Write down other things you enjoy doing in your spare time. This can be everything from skateboarding to organizing your closet.
- Set a timer for 15 minutes and brainstorm on whether you can incorporate some of those tasks into your business (or make them a larger part of your business.)
- Set a timer for 30 minutes and figure out how to implement some of the tasks.
- Start implementing!
Recap of buzzwords:
Intrinsic motivation: Stuff you like to do for the sheer joy of doing it (eat ice-cream, writing etc.)
Extrinsic motivation: Stuff you want to do because you want the benefit from doing it (good grades, healthier body, thriving business)
Integrated regulation: Extrinsically based motivation infused with intrinsic factors (like you are passionate about your business and core messaging, but you don’t like doing social media. In this case the social media tasks are integrated regulation).
Intrinsic regulation: Pure intrinsic motivation (eat ice-cream, writing etc.)
The Intrinsic Double Whopper: Business and core message is something you love and find important, the everyday tasks in your business are enjoyable. So, you are intrinsically motivated from the top-down and the bottom-up
Originally published at https://mariaskaarup.com on August 3, 2023.
