motivated by purpose

I know what motivates me. This is exciting because yesterday I was stumped and asked for some thoughts on how to answer the question. Lots of great thoughts and ideas were offered, and I tucked it all in the back of my mind for pondering. My brand of pondering tends to let the thoughts alone back there to work things out a little with others, and I let them come out when they are ready. Possibly because some of those ideas challenged me - something I've been missing in my life for a while - the creative part of my mind seems to have jumped in to assist. I digress....

Today I was asked to take an assessment as part of an application process. Fairly similar to one I completed a few months ago for another company, as I answered the questions I thought about my verbal response to the results when the time comes, since I was unprepared the last time. Many of the questions lacked context that could change my answer dramatically, and I made mental notes of them, more for my own analysis later than anything else. Since I spent that 40 minutes essentially preparing for an interview question or two, the motivation question came to mind. "What does motivate me?" I asked myself as I curled up with a cup of hot chocolate. I closed my eyes and chuckled. One of my friends said yesterday that there are only two real motivators: Love and fear. When the hiring manager asked, my first thought was to say, "Well, it's not fear!" But I didn't know what it was. Then the images came to me.

Faces filled with gratitude. With understanding, new found knowledge. Delighted at having a new idea, a new skill, a new future. Some were faces of people I'd actually met, worked with, or encountered. Others were strangers from ads or marketing materials, but not models or actors; actual delighted people. Still others were faces I've not yet seen, made up in my imagination years ago or just now it's hard to say, but the answer was clear. I'm motivated by helping others, I thought, but realized there's more to it than that. All of it is wrapped up in my first memory of life goals in addition to being a mom. I then remembered details of my dream of having a job that required me to wear a hat and carry a clipboard - a cap, a hardhat, a uniform hat of some kind - and that my mother was mortified by the thought. (Which amused me as much tonight as it did back then!) But it's what I always wanted to do; that much I remembered vividly as I thought.

One Christmas while I was in high school, I read in the paper about the Arctic League and asked my dad if we could help. At the time, I was surprised at how readily he agreed (as a mom and former youth minister, I now know that if a kid asks to do something like that, you make it possible!) and on Christmas morning, we got up at some ungodly hour to drive a half hour to the warehouse and stand in a tremendous line in the cold and snow, and it was so worth it. The world was so quiet, between the hour, the darkness, the foot or so of snow everywhere, the hats, scarves, mittens and down enveloping all the volunteers. It was Christmas morning, but even more magical than usual, because we were going to be Santa. I was awed, touched, humbled. The line moved quickly, efficiently, and cheerfully, with hot chocolate handed out while we waited, maybe cookies, some friendly small talk among strangers. At the head of the line, we were given our deliveries and our map: 5 bags of treasures to deliver to areas I didn't even know existed. Dad found each address expertly, and together we would take the bag to the door, knocking quietly as we were instructed, so the sleeping children would have no idea we'd been there. I was profoundly affected that early, early morning by the faces of each person answering the door. No words were spoken, other than a whispered "Merry Christmas" and the corresponding "Thank you." But the faces. A picture may speak 1,000 words, but those faces, those eyes, they spoke ever so much more. Shortly thereafter I began looking into the Make-a-Wish Foundation and Habitat for Humanity, and even the Peace Corps. For reasons I neither remember the details of nor understood even at the time, I was discouraged from pursuing careers in such organizations.

But I held tightly to the tail end of the dream, like the end of a kite string.

It all came back to me tonight in that question: "What does motivate me." Love, yes; not fear. Good, that was cleared up. Helping people, yes; but in what context? Can sales goals motivate me, given the right argument of helping someone? Maybe - if some donation to a cause I believe in is involved, perhaps. I knew there was more brewing. What did all those faces that played like a movie in my mind have in common - in a concise, interview answer way? What did the jobs that meant the most to me have in common that I saw in those faces? And how did that relate to the jobs that I didn't like so well - what was missing in them?

And I realized the Love that motivates me is Purpose. Habitat, Wishes, Arctic League, youth ministry, Reading with the Lions, teaching dance and making choreography -- all of them gave me, or have inherent in them, a sense of purpose; a specific goal of helping people with something in particular. That's what motivates me: knowing without a doubt that the intent of the job is to help someone in some defined way, with a project flow to make it happen. I'm motivated by purpose that allows my process-oriented mind to get creative and find the map, and bring life to the journey. Because life is about the journey; the journey is the purpose, and the purpose is Love.