How do you choose a career path? How do you choose a college? Why do you apply for a job? Unfortunately for many people, the answer to these questions is usually anything but “because I love this”. This is understandable. Many external factors affect our decisions: the cost education or living, parental and societal pressure, prestige, and so on. These extrinsic motivators can keep you going for a while but eventually will result in burnout. If you seek success and happiness in your professional life, intrinsic motivation is the only driving force that keeps you going for years and decades.
What is intrinsic motivation?
Intrinsic motivation is the internal force that drives you to achieve whatever you truly want to achieve. Simply put, it’s doing what you love. It means that you need no external motivators to do an activity, whether it’s writing, teaching, healing, or building homes. Imagine that you are forced to do your job without pay or praise? Would you still do it? We are not advocating forced labor or lack of compensation. We are simply encouraging you to reflect on whether your educational journey and career choice can withstand this existential question.
Getting into medical school or law school, going through dozens of interviews, preparing hundreds of resumes, takes your precious time and effort. If you are only doing these things to “get ahead”, earn money, or impress your family members, not only will you experience resentment towards your choices, but your drive to succeed will always depend on the continued presence of these external factors, which can disappear at any moment.
It’s important to remember that doing what you love is not selfish or irresponsible. Your family and friends may put even more pressure on you if you decide to pursue your passion instead of pursuing prestige but remember that doing what you love and being good at something usually go hand in hand, which is a sure path to success.
If you decide to go the route of doing what you do not love, your distaste and indifference for your job will be evident to your colleagues. If you do not have any internal drive to do your job, then even if you are financially successful, you will torture yourself every time you have to perform a task.
How can intrinsic motivation help you choose an educational path or a career?
The answer may disappoint you, but only life experience can truly lead you to choose the life that you want. And while you may think that you do not have enough life experience to choose which school to attend or what career path to dedicate your time to, it’s important to dedicate some time to reflection. Take a pause. We know it’s hard in our busy lifestyle, but you need time to stop and think about your experiences. What kind of high school activities and courses did you enjoy throughout high school? Did you feel excited to solve physics equations? Did you love writing speeches or essays in English class? Look for programs that can fulfill your passions. Do not look at the prestige of the school! The reputation of your school will not sustain you during exams or help your keep to a hundred deadlines coming up at the end of a semester. Only doing what you love can help shield your mental health from the stress and anxiety that college life often entails.
The same can be said of choosing a career. Becoming a physician, a lawyer, or a dentist simply because it’s reputable and lucrative can only take you so far. These are some of the most stressful careers out there and using extrinsic motivators to choose these career paths can only hurt your future mental and physical health.
Keep another thing in mind: extrinsic motivators will not always be there. They are circumstantial and can often come and go. For example, the influence of your parents goes away as you become more and more independent, cultural norms change and adapt through time, or the market value of your profession may shift with social and political changes in our uncertain world.
Conclusion
Making a career choice based on extrinsic factors may be dangerous. Only intrinsic motivation and doing what you love can help you get over career setbacks, financial struggles, sleepless nights studying in the college library, and more. Choose your path wisely and do not be hard on yourself – it takes time and experience to find what you want to do.