Career motivation and path direction are some of the most important facets of your life. They can be arduous but exciting. They can also be fraught with challenges, anxiety, and frustration. Where are the missteps? Will you see them in time to make the choice that matters?
How can you gain, or regain, clarity?
Are you worried you will reach the peak, only to realise that you climbed the wrong mountain?
Job satisfaction and motivation are moving targets. They depend on your personality, as well as a set of dynamic circumstances. Put simply, things change. They always do.
What motivated you at the start of your career is probably going to be different from what motivates you later in life.
Staying aware of what motivates you, as a leader, or your team members is the key to ensuring you are on the right path. One of the best ways you can do this is by exploring and clarifying your emotions at work.
The Emotional Culture Deck: A Tool to Unlock Motivation
One of the most effective motivation tools I use is the “Emotional Culture Deck.”
On the surface, it is a “game.” But in reality, it is a personal motivation tool designed to address from company culture dynamics to career questions, and life paths.
And here’s a strong case for the key role emotions play in work motivation psychology.
In this article, I want to paint a picture of what working with this deck is really like. Let us delve into its transformative potential with a real-life case study.
What can your emotions tell you about your job motivation and satisfaction?
It turns out: everything.
Let us talk about Beth (not the client’s real name).
Beth: A Study in Emotion and Career Motivators
Beth came to me for help preparing for a promotion. She wanted to uplevel and improve her skills. After a few conversations, I noticed a pattern. She would start each conversation with all the bad things that happened that week at work.
“I am constantly pulled from one fire to another, with no time to fully focus on solving the problems. I feel so ineffective.”
“I’m constantly worried that I won’t be given the resources I need to do the job.”
“At the end of the day, I have no energy left to study or develop my skills.”
Beth’s frustration was evident.
One day, I asked, “Why are you in this job?”
She paused. Then she revealed something I hear a lot. The job seemed like the best option available when she applied. At the time of our conversations, she had hoped for a promotion, to stay a couple of years, and then move on to something better.
Does this sound familiar? Is this not the conventional advice for climbing the proverbial ladder? Unless you are lucky, this “means to an end” strategy does little for career motivation along the way.
When I asked her how she was going to tolerate, for another 2 or 3 years, a job that made her miserable, it turned out that “hoping things would get better” was her strategy. She also didn’t know what her next step would be at the end of that timeline.
This is when I tapped into one of the most effective tools in my toolkit: the Emotional Culture Deck.
How Do You Want to Feel? Emotions As Critical Indicators of Career Motivation
We began using the deck to create a map of Beth’s personal work motivation and drivers.
I showed Beth some positive emotion cards and asked her to choose three that described how she wanted to feel at work. She picked “appreciated, energised, and proud.” We explored each of them in detail.
Then we repeated the same steps, this time using negative emotion cards. These would be the emotions that were “non-negotiable.” She didn’t want to feel them at any time. She picked “afraid, powerless, and incapable.”
Next, we explored the why behind those emotions.
Why was it so important not to feel them? What are the red flags in the behaviours and actions of others, or the work environment, which could cause these unwanted emotions? What was in her power to address?
By the end of this exploration, Beth looked at me, and said, “This isn’t just about this job, is it? I am on the wrong path. This is never going to fit me.” Beth realised she was a creative person working in a rigid environment. Her motivation and values just weren’t in alignment with what was expected of her.
It was time to move, and she did exactly that.
What was initially meant to be a discussion about a “promotion” quickly evolved into an exciting new path filled with unexpected opportunities. Clarity created change and she took the next step with confidence. As long as she keeps checking in with herself, using her emotions as a guide, Beth won’t be on the wrong mountain when she peaks.
Real Job Motivation and Satisfaction for Uncompromising People
Whether you are curious about the motivators for your current job or career, or for a new one you are not even aware of yet, your emotions are critical signposts.
What tasks give you energy? What do you enjoy doing most? What gives you that spark that is so obvious to others? What job gives you more of the emotions you want, and less of the ones you don’t?
Use the Emotional Culture Deck to explore authentic career motivation for yourself or your team. Or let us find out together.
About the author
Olga Valadon is the Founder and Director of Change Aligned. She is a strategist, leadership mentor and corporate empathy expert with three decades of experience in global organisations. She is a board advisor and associate management lecturer. Her work has been published in several publications, including Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company.
