day 195: Motivation

Companies try many techniques to motivate their employees. It is a broad gambit of offerings that we might experience such as; incentives and contests, dinners, off-site meetings, bonuses and even sometimes bringing in an outside motivational speaker. These speakers are people who are great at grabbing our attention, honing in on an area of our lives that needs improving and then through their own examples or the examples of others show how we can improve and be better. There are many people who make their living on delivering these motivational speeches. Throughout the years I have been asked to speak at meetings and conferences and even when I am tasked with speaking on something of mundane training substance, I can't help but to also want to leave behind a motivational message on how the people in the audience have a responsibility to make things better for the others around them, and that starts with them improving themselves first. I don't know if it is all that effective, but I usually leave more fired up. :) Maybe that is why there is that old adage, "he who teaches, learns twice". Regardless, we all need to be motivated by others every now and then. It would be great if we didn't need external stimulus to get ourselves going and find a higher gear, but that's not the way it works. If you don't believe that people look for external motivation, then just stop by a bookstore and look at the size of the self-help, self-improvement category. It's big and seems to be growing while other categories are shrinking. Since people look to others to be motivators, then why don't we, as believers who are trying to work a purpose, think about filling that role in our companies? Actually, God wants us to be a motivator of others. We see this in Hebrews 10:24: "Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works." To motivate others to acts of love, caring, thoughtfulness, service and good works would be a noble ambition and a significant role for each of us to grab. Imagine the good that could be done within your office if you were to bring this type of motivation to your team? Not only would you feel like you were "learning twice" and receiving the extra motivation as you watched others feel inspired, the effect on others would be tremendous and I suspect that morale would go way up in your team, office and maybe even the whole company. Why don't you use today to try and bring some new motivation to work? It certainly can start today and start just with you!

Reference: Hebrews 10:24 (New Living Testament)