Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

Traditional rewards and incentives aren’t always as effective as we think. Those if-then rewards often destroy creativity and motivation. Instead of continuing to do more of the wrong things or giving people sweeter carrots, we need to change our way.

Scientists who’ve been studying motivation have given us a new approach built much more around intrinsic motivation. Around the desire to do things because they matter, because we like it, they’re interesting, or part of something important.

Intrinsic motivation revolves around three elements:

• 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.

Take 15min and watch Daniel Pink’s TED Talk: The Puzzle of Motivation