Intrinsic Motivation

I have a confession that might make me seem strange. In fact, it might destroy any credibility I may have. Well, here it is: I like to mow the lawn. That horrible task that most normal people hate doing throughout the spring and summer is one of my favorite things to do.

I’m sure it wouldn’t be as much fun with a push mower, but I have a riding mower and about one acre to mow. Once a week I hop on and take a two-hour ride to happiness.

So why would such a distasteful task be the source of such joy for anyone? The more I think about it, the more I realize that the things that motivate me to mow the grass are the same things that motivate people to enjoy any job.
One great thing about mowing the grass, for example, is that you can easily see yourself making progress. That patch of tall ugly grass gradually becomes smaller and smaller until you make that final pass. Within two hours I’ve converted an unsightly mess into something I’m quite proud of. People enjoy jobs when they can vividly experience a sense of accomplishment.

But there must be more to it than that. After all, many people hate their jobs even though they receive the same type of immediate feedback. There’s one more thing that makes mowing the lawn enjoyable. I’m choosing to do it.

I was never forced to mow the lawn when I was younger. Today, I can afford to pay someone else to do it for me. A huge amount of the enjoyment comes from the fact that I decide if, when and how to mow.

My guess is that most people who hate to mow were forced to when they were younger. Or they may have mowed in order to make money. A fair amount of psychological research shows that people lose their intrinsic motivation for a task when they feel like they are being controlled by external motivators (like money).

You can see the same thing among professional athletes. The game they played for fun as a youngster is less fun when they do it to fulfill a contractual obligation.

These two insights might be pretty useful to business owners and managers. Why do your employees have a hard time making it to work at 8:00am but have no trouble waking up at 4:00am to go hunting? Sitting perfectly still in the cold woods hoping that a deer wanders by sounds about as fun as mowing grass. Yet people pay for the privilege. Why? Because a successful hunting trip inspires a sense of autonomy and accomplishment.

Another reason I like mowing is because it’s appreciated. My wife appreciates it. My kids can find their toys lost in the tall grass. My neighbors probably appreciate it. I probably get more thanks after I mow than at any other time during the week.

The only bad thing is that my eight-year old son has discovered the joys of mowing. It’s as close as he’s going to get to a go-kart for awhile, so he thinks it’s fun too. Maybe I’ll start forcing him to do it, paying him to do it, and then forget to thank him for doing it. Then he’ll start to hate his job like normal people are supposed to! In the process he might even learn how not to manage people.