Motivation is a complicated thing. Think about how many people have abandoned their New Year’s resolutions by February. How do you use motivation in your own life? For your kids? For yourself?
Daniel Pink’s book Drive famously explores motivation. In it, he says extrinsic motivators like carrots (dangled rewards) and sticks (threated punishments) usually don’t work. A large body of scientific research says that the results are nearly always better when we are intrinsically motivated.
Okay. But how do we get intrinsically motivated? What happens if you lack the internal drive to develop or deliver presentations, but you are required to do so as part of your job? If that’s the case for you, collaborating with a presentation design agency like Ethos3 can help. Here’s how.
What is Intrinsic Motivation?
As we said, there are two main types of motivation. Extrinsic comes from external sources, like rewards and punishments. Study after study shows that extrinsic motivation actually doesn’t do what we think it will. In his 2009 TED Talk, Pink says, “there’s a mismatch between what science shows and what business does.” Incentives (external motivators) usually slow work down and hinder the creative process.
Intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, works really well. Pink says it comes from a combination of three internal things: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. He defines them this way:
Autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives
Mastery: the desire to get better and better at something that matters
Purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves
How Can Ethos3 Help?
Sure, intrinsic motivation ultimately is about you. But what if you’ve tried to motivate yourself and somehow you still end up unmotivated? Collaboration might be the answer. If you choose to collaborate with us, here’s how Ethos3 can help.
Autonomy
If you feel forced to create a presentation, it’s no wonder you aren’t motivated. You are being asked to do something you wouldn’t choose to do on your own. I teach public speaking at a private, liberal arts university in Nashville. It’s safe to assume that a large percentage of my students would choose not to take public speaking if they weren’t required to do so. So how do I motivate them? I let them talk about the things that they care about and give them as much creative license as possible.
So while we can’t keep you out of doing a presentation you’ve been asked to do, we can come alongside you. We can help you develop your content and design a slide deck that wows. And we can help you get creative about the things over which you do have control.
Mastery
It may be that you lack motivation for presentations because you don’t feel like you have the skillset to do them well. None of us enjoys doing something when we feel we might perform poorly. For me, it’s cooking. I hate it with a passion. Like, I’d rather give a speech than cook dinner every single time. I know part of the reason I dislike cooking so much is that I don’t feel like I do it well.
At Ethos3, we have coaches who can help you build your presentation skills so that you are able to master the art of public speaking. A little bit of training can go a long way to building your confidence, which, in turn, can build your motivation.
Purpose
It could be that you lack motivation for your presentation because you just don’t see the point of it. One of the ways I regularly help people overcome public speaking apathy or nerves is by shifting their focus from themselves to their audience members. When you stand up to give a presentation, you have a unique opportunity to help them. You are providing a service, whether it’s informational or persuasive or inspirational.
The experts at Ethos3 are passionate about presentations because we know the power of a well-told story and a well-designed slide. We can help you tap into the deeper purpose of your presentation. And we know our passion will be contagious.
You don’t have to resort or respond to carrots and sticks when it comes to giving a presentation. You can find ways to increase your intrinsic motivation when you collaborate with a presentation design agency like Ethos3. If you want to shop around for presentation agencies, we understand. Here are 5 things to look for in a presentation design agency.
Motivated to learn more about how Ethos3 can help take your presentations to the next level?
