Motivation is the power that activates the engine of success, and moves you to act and do things.

Motivation is having the desire and willingness to do something. It is some kind of force, stimulus or influence that moves a person, or indeed any organism, to act or respond.

Motivation is the call to action that impels us to initiate behaviours.

The output of motivation could be described as the initiation, direction, intensity and persistence of behaviour.

So much for a glib statement that is really about the effects of motivation, but what is it?

It is important to get some sense of what motivation actually is, since it seems to be a major factor in achieving success in anything you care to do. If we don’t know what it is, how can we influence or even manage it?

The best place to start looking for answers is inside ourselves.

What is motivation to you?

What people notice is that there are some things that they simply want to do – and that sense ‘wanting’ is effortless. They don’t even think of it as motivation; it just seems obvious and natural to expend energy doing that thing. Others may describe this behaviour as ‘motivated’, but that is their label for what they are observing.

Have you noticed that when you use the word motivation about yourself, as in ‘I am really motivated to do this’, it is often concerned with an attempt to psyche yourself up to actually do the task? This means that that effortless intrinsic wanting is not there.