Are you Motivated by Money?

I heard this quote at church a few weeks ago “Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil” – (Henry Fielding English) – do you agree?

Money is there for us in so many aspects of life it seems – all the stuff we have seems to be attached to money. All the stuff we want to have is due in part because we don’t have enough money. And everything people own has a value that is attached to money.

People love money – because money can ultimately make you successful, it can make you {feel} powerful (although it doesn’t necessarily always make you actually “powerful”).  It can make you feel better accepted and if nothing else, well… money can make you popular. ;)

Moving on from that…

When it comes to having money, it can also have it’s detriments – you can lose values (like honesty, passion and even your work ethic)... and it can make you lose sight of your goals, too.

There is always a question of whether or not money is the real motivation for entering a venture – as each day passes, it becomes almost necessary that money is “the” driver for everything.

Just a few days ago my husband and I were talking about this as we drove to an appointment.

Money: is it or is it not a motivator for people? Why are some people driven so largely by money?

I think it largely depends on who you talk to.

My husband works a stressful job – he’s on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Not only is his job stressful, it’s overbearing at times. In trying to understand where he’d like to be, I had to understand what he has done to reach the level he is at – schooling, certifications, testing, lots and lots of sleepless nights.

I asked him if he would continue doing what he was doing, working for the same employer if he was given a raise.

His answer was simple, and I kind of expected it because we have been married for so long I know him pretty well at this point..   “I don’t want a raise. I love what I do, I’m compelled to work hard at what I do because I love it. .. I feel challenged, and I care about the customers. I just need help because I can’t stretch myself over everything given to me.”

We have very few close friends – but we have many acquaintances.  Many of those we are acquainted with love money. They have personal businesses in which they try to rig up interest by throwing out figures of what one could make, and in some cases, what they actually make.

And that works – for them. But not everyone is motivated by a dollar sign and some of us certainly don’t feel appropriate throwing numbers out to people to garnish attention in hopes that they will find popularity, or a greater level of acceptance.

It makes us ask ourselves if everyone is motivated by dollar signs or, if we are just too complacent with being happy where we are at this point in our lives.   Obviously, we all need money to pay bills, and cover expenses – so we don’t necessarily mean that everyone should work for free.

Because it’s obvious – that wouldn’t work well, would it?

We’re talking about money as a motivator – we can throw out an example, and hope that it makes better sense.

When we cut back our workload on this blog, we did so because we truly struggled to post opportunities to buy cheap food knowing that it was unhealthy for the masses. Considering we are wary and watchful of what we eat, and we made a lifestyle shift here in our own family, it’s not acceptable for us to portray some foods as being amazing deals knowing that down the road, health implications are at stake. Granted, those who agree with us might be few and far between, that was a decision we made on our own.

That mentality wasn’t widely accepted – and several fellow bloggers mentioned that we should just continue – after all, taking the more popular route equates to profitability, and why would anyone give up that for less revenue?

Obviously, money is not a motivator for some, so we push on and we feel that we made the right decision. Not everyone may agree but it was obvious that money was NOT a factor in our decision to cut back.

But that can’t be said for everyone – right?

Researchers discovered a unique distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation that helps us understand if people really are motivated solely by money or, if they truly have a passion for what they do (money obviously being important but not so important that they lose sight of their performance).  The research study showed that the power to make employees care about their work is unparalleled – that in itself was far greater than any money could ever cover.

Money is more of an attractor than a motivator – which essentially means that a handsome salary is a nice way of garnishing interest, but that’s about where it ends. It’s usually only enough to get people in the door. 

Once they are hired, you need their intrinsic motivation to allow them to do their best and stay past that initial hire.

Getting more than you expect will not necessarily make you work harder – if the job is one that makes you unhappy then the extra money will not make the job any better.