GUEST POST BY WENDY JENKINS, READY RESILIENCE
Ready Resilience helps organisations thrive during times of change and challenge, using practical neuroscience-based resilience tools that have been proven to offer in-the-moment solutions and long-lasting results.
June motivation
Do you enjoy the challenge of learning something new? You may have what’s known as mastery orientation. Or, do you prefer to use your existing skills to strive for excellence? You could have what’s preferred to as performance orientation.
Researchers believe that knowing whether you have mastery or performance orientation can help you tailor goals in a style that best motivates you. Take for example, a goal of increasing your metrics by 10%.
If you are mastery-orientated you may be better to re-engineer, research and reimagine newer ways to achieve your goal. This approach is more likely to engage you and drive results.
Performance-orientated individuals on the other hand, are more likely to improve results by reviewing any prior high-performance actions and processes to see how to replicate their success. An approach like this has a higher chance of appealing to your need to excel at what you already do.
Which type of orientation do you believe will be more effective?
Studies show that while performance orientation may be great in the short-term, once you reach your initial goal, you become less motivated to continue.
Furthermore, if you don’t reach your goal it can lead to de-motivation as your self-worth is based on external inputs. You start to question if you have what it takes to succeed.
Mastery goals are usually more effective as they are always just beyond reach. Individuals who lean towards this orientation are excited about the new possibilities and interested enough to persevere through challenges.
If you can determine how your colleagues or team are orientated, you can use this to your advantage by setting individual or team goals that will encourage better outcomes.
