The 4 Types of Motivation
There are four types of motivation I commonly see with therapists who want to start a side hustle:
✔️ Money
✔️ Time
✔️ Energy
✔️ Values
In the latest podcast episode, I’m digging into those four key types of motivation and breaking them down.
Why? Because once you know your motivation for something, you can make informed decisions that are aligned with your key motivators so you can keep it moving in the right direction quickly and easily.
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Show Notes:
Hey, Risers. Welcome to Episode 136 of Empathy Rising. Happy New Year! This is the first episode coming to you in 2022. Oh, let's just please cross our fingers this year is better than the last two.
As I was reflecting on 2021, I swear, 2021 was heavier for me than 2020 was, and I've heard that from a lot of people that, 2020 was the shock and the initial parasympathetic response where the adrenaline was going and it was just like the reaction, and then 2021 was what was left after that, after the adrenaline had burned off and we were just sitting there like, "Oh my God".
So I'm just crossing my fingers. I am not going to make any strong declarations this episode. I have done that in previous New Years Episodes before. The one for 2020 was when I said "this is the year of the Empathy Rising retreat", and then we all know what happened later that year, so I won't be making any declarations or proclamations.
I would like to just set an intention that 2022 is a lighter year, that it is a happier year, that it is a more upbeat and uplifting year for all of us listening, so that's my wish for you, and I hope that you guys are feeling a bit more high vibe, a little bit more positive going into this year and that you see some lightness for you as well.
I think that motivation is always a topic of discussion at this type of time of year. Everyone's setting their resolutions. I almost feel like that is a bit passe or a tradition of the past even with the months that have just blurred together for us for so long, but I do think that there is something to intention, and I believe that motivation and intention are linked. I think they go hand in hand.
In today's episode, we're going to be looking at the four types of motivation that I see most commonly behind people wanting to start a side hustle. Perhaps 2022 is the year that you are thinking you are going to pursue that dream of yours. Whether it's to have a course, a membership site, a group program, or whether it's to be a dog-walker on the side, whatever, maybe you are ready for something new and different, and when you know the motivation behind that (which we're going to discuss today) I think that is key to then making intentional decisions.
Once you know why you want something, the reasons for something, then you can start to make decisions in accordance with that "why", so that's what we're going to be diving into today.
I will say, as we get into this episode (and you can probably hear it in my voice) I have a bit of a scratchy throat, a bit of a cough, so you may hear me take a few pauses or you might hear me hack up a lung, it's all good. We're not about perfection around here. We're about getting the message out.
Hopefully, I'm modeling to you guys that you can market your business and share value with your audience even if it's not 100% perfect. Getting back to this idea of motivation, I think some self-awareness is key here, and if you've been a listener for any length of time, you know that I bounce between the concepts of reflection and action.
I think they need to go hand in hand, if you get stuck in the thinking and the perhaps ruminating and reflecting side of things, you can be one of those people who is a forever learner, a forever researcher, but not somebody who ever necessarily sees the fruits of that research, who doesn't see things ever come to fruition.
On the other hand, I've worked with several students who like to jump in with both feet and take action without the reflection, without the knowledge base. And then they end up kind of making a mess. You will hear me always talk about how both go hand in hand. The piece of this with the motivation, you need to know a little bit about yourself.
You need to do some of the reflective work. Why are you looking for something beyond the therapy room? Why are you wanting another source of income? Why are you looking for something? To maybe flex your creativity muscles (or as one of my students said your bravery muscles), what's the reason behind that?
We have to take some time to go there. I think journaling for this is great. I think meditation for this is great. What I often tell my students is to get really really clear on something and then completely clear your mind on it, off of it. That made no sense. Let me say that again to spend some intense few minutes, no more than 30 focusing on something, and then go do something that completely clears your mind.
Inside my signature program Side Hustle Support Group, what I do is teach an exercise where we brain dump. We brain dump for 30 minutes on a very focused topic. This one really works when you're trying to name your program, so we're trying to come up with a name for your course or your membership site or your group program or your coaching package or whatever.
We just stream of consciousness everything we can around our brand, around our feelings, our mood board, all of that stuff for about 30 minutes. That's the max. I like to set a timer here, and then I recommend that you go for a walk that you take a shower, that you go to the gym, that you go for a drive, something that completely takes your mind in a different direction, and you'll find that things start to pop, things start to come to the surface and you're like, "oh", and you have these revelations or these insights.
If you're not 100% sure on the motivation for your side hustle, if you haven't done some of that reflective work, that's a really great way to start it. You can do it journal style, you can meditate on it, you can do brain dump style, stream of consciousness style, whatever feels like the one that speaks to you. Set a timer. 30 minutes, if you're just starting, this might be a little bit long, so you might want to start maybe with 5 or 10 minutes, but really give yourself a timed space to intentionally focus on something and just only on that.
A lot of my students tend to be neuro-atypical. We have a lot of adult women, students who go through side hustle that find out either later in life or just have always lived with an ADHD diagnosis. And they're drawn to working with me and working in Side Hustle in particular because of the structure and because of the accountability.
If that sounds like you, you might need to start with a shorter time frame. You might need to start with 5 minutes or 10 minutes. 30 minutes might be out of the question, especially if this is a new skill for you. So, find the timeframe that feels like a good fit, but I want you to try to intensely focus on, "why do I want a side hustle?"
If it were me, that's what I would write at the top of the page. Why do I want the side hustle? And then I would just stream of conscious, journal, doodle, whatever around that until the timer went off, and then I want you to go for a hike, go for a walk, a run to the grocery store, something that is completely opposite that takes your mind in a totally different direction and be prepared for things to pop in.
In case, I sometimes like to have my phone with me because sometimes I'll just have a download, and I'll need to pull out my notes app and I will need to jot stuff down so I don't forget it. So you might want to have a little notebook handy with you or your notes app handy when you do this other thing that takes your brain in a new direction.
But what I find is the contrast between the intense focus and then the complete release is what will often jog ideas. So if you're not quite sure of your motivation, do an exercise like that, and you might be surprised or you might be reassured and reaffirmed by what pops up.
The reason that I want you to do this is because when you don't know the reason for your side hustle, when you haven't gotten really clear with yourself, really honest with yourself, really clear on what you want this for, you can start to feel a little bit disconnected from the side hustle.
You can know that you want one, you can know all the benefits, "oh, diversified income and more fun, more creativity, not trading dollars for hours". You can know all the benefits of having an online program, but until you know why you want one, you can start to feel disconnected from that reason, and then it starts to feel like an aimless goal, like "I'm working towards this thing that I hear everybody talk about it and I'm supposed to want, and it sounds really good, but I don't know why I'm working on it".
Without that connection, you can feel obligated, you can feel resentful or you can just find yourself not following through because while everything sounds good in theory, you haven't integrated it, you haven't applied it to yourself and you haven't decided why you need it, and why it matters to you.
I think that this also contributes to an idea of having less certainty. You start to second guess your decisions and you start to second guess yourself "oh, I wanted this, but this is hard" or "this is a lot more work than I thought" or whatever and then you're like, "why did I do this?" and then you give up or you just feel distanced from it. You may continue to move forward, but you don't move forward with consistency or you don't move forward with intention and I've mentioned that word already before, but I think that is really key here.
Frequency is less important to me than consistency and intention are, and without knowing the reason you want your side hustle, you're going to be lacking both of those. Then even if you do stay consistent and you do continue to make strides forward, you might be pursuing options that aren't actually the best for you.
You might be doing what's trendy. You might see a lot of blog posts, especially this time of year about "New Year, New You" "New Year, New Business" whatever. "This is what's cool. This is what's hot". This is what sells, and let's say that you move forward with consistency. You may find that you end up pursuing options that aren't the best for you.
You might be working diligently and moving forward, but you might be doing things that other people are telling you are best. Especially this time of year, you'll find articles about, "oh, the new hot trend for 2022" or "the online program that sells the best" or whatever, and you won't necessarily be considering how that works for you.
How does that work for your circumstance? How does that work for your nuance? And you might end up just pursuing what others are doing because they're telling you it's the right choice rather than you sitting and reflecting and making the right choice for you.
This is why I want to dive into motivation and help you decide what it is that is guiding you towards your side-hustle because knowing your personal motivation is what's going to give you a sense of ownership, a sense of pride, taking responsibility for something, keeping a consistent schedule, knowing why you're doing it and feeling personally connected to it, which leads to just more resonance.
When you are personally connected to your side hustle and when you know why you're doing this, it's going to help you feel more purposeful. It's going to help you do more good in the world, which I know a lot of us are impact-driven, so when we know what the motivation is, we can start to have that resonance, not only with what we're doing, but the people that we're helping.
And it ultimately just helps us confirm to ourselves and remind ourselves that we're on the right path, that this is the right decision, and it's the decision we've made for ourselves. A well-informed decision, a purposeful and intentional decision instead of moving forward, because we hear what is a good idea from others.
I think motivating or knowing what motivates you helps clear all of this up, and then when you're going through a hill or a valley, or an easy time with your side hustle or a more challenging time with your side hustle, digging deeper into this motivation, really grounding down into the reason why you made this choice in the first place helps you keep going during the challenging times.
Ultimately, knowing yourself, knowing your "why" helps you make the intentional decisions and helps your side hustle just come to fruition much faster, much simpler, be more rewarding for you in terms of not only monetary but in terms of impact. And just also in terms of the resonance with you as a person and knowing that you are pursuing your purpose in the world.
What are the four types of motivation and how can you determine if they are the ones that are motivating you? The thing that I want to preface this with is these don't have to be mutually exclusive. You might have a primary motivator, but there might be others that show up, and that's what I would want you to identify before you start moving forward, and certainly if before you start working with me, is: What is your primary motivator?
All of these that I mentioned will probably be present for you in some capacity, but I want you to identify what your primary motivator is because that is what makes a big difference in the plans that we create, the structure we create, and when you're working through things like your timeframe or your business structure or your marketing approach, you need to know your primary motivator because they're going to be different depending on what your motivator is.
The first type of motivator that you've probably guessed, especially if you've followed me for a while, is somebody who is money motivated. This used to be (up until the middle of last year, middle of 2021) money was my primary motivation. It has shifted for me recently, and I'll tell you more about that shift, but somebody who is money motivated either has a big-money goal, (which was my case) this could be paying off $50,000 of student loans.
This could be paying off your mortgage. This could be buying a car or a house in cash. This could be fully funding a retirement account. This could be fully funding a college fund or a trust fund for a child, so these are money motivations. People who are money motivated, tend to have shorter timeframes.
They want to see the financial returns sooner than later, they want to know that their efforts are working for them and that they want some sort of return on their financial investment or their time investment. When I'm sharing this, there's nothing wrong with this, like I said, I was primarily money-motivated for a long time.
People who are money motivated also tend to go with one or the other business structure. They either tend to go with a premium price program where they need much less volume that's what's going to help them support that shorter timeframe but I've also seen people who are money motivated, also go with a lower-priced, more accessible program, and then we just work toward building a bigger audience for that program. That can also lead to impact motivation because impact motivation would be more people at a lower price.
Impact is not one of the four that we're exploring today, but it is something that does factor in here, but mostly money motivated individuals are looking at a shorter time frame, a business structure of typically a premium price program, and their marketing approach tends to be a higher-touch marketing approach because they're selling a higher-touch program. That's not always the case, but those are two things that go hand in hand.
Now, the second type of motivation is somebody who is more time motivated. They're looking to have an extra income source because they want more time freedom. They might want to shrink their caseload significantly, or they might want to not take on another clinical client and instead sell a course or a program that is more hands-off, so the time frame is important.
They're looking probably for a shorter timeframe, but not as quick of a turnaround as somebody who tends to be money motivated. They might say "I'd like to cut five clients in the next six months or, five clients in the next year". So they definitely have a timeframe in mind, the business structure for somebody who is time motivated is likely not going to be one-on-one coaching, of course, or usually an in-depth group program.
People who are time motivated are much more likely to have a course with no support, perhaps the course with structured support that doesn't infringe on their time a lot, the highest touch offer that somebody who's time motivated, usually likes is a membership site where it's one event per week, an hour and a half typically per week, so they're showing up once a week, but it's a limited amount of time. That's usually how high-touch time motivated people do it.
Then of course, the marketing approach, people who are time motivated are most likely to pursue paid advertising, and they're much more likely to use Facebook ads, Instagram ads, those types of things. People who are time motivated, their marketing approach might also involve a lot of collaborations or visibility marketing because it takes less time for them to go and be a guest on someone else's podcast than it does to maintain a podcast of their own, so to speak.
The third type of motivation that I see often are people who are energy motivated. Now, energy motivated is going to look and feel similar to time motivated. Somebody who wants to get to probably shrink their caseload or somebody who is not wanting to take any more clients, but what I find for people who are more energy motivated is there is more of a wellness component than I see with people who are time motivated.
People who are energy motivated are either in the middle of burnout, are coming off of an intense burn-out, or maybe, with the pandemic have felt overwhelmed they're prioritizing their mental wellness. They may have chronic illnesses or things that leave them feeling more depleted than others, and so energy management and energy cultivation is really important to them.
Now, to go a little bit on the woo side, energy motivated can also have kind of a spiritual component, so people who are energy motivated are looking, (you can think of this in terms of energetic frequency) they're looking for more..the best word I can think of right now is Dharma.
They're looking for more purpose-driven, more of a spiritual connection or a divine connection to the type of work they're doing, and so while they may get that in therapy by being a therapist, they may also feel a little bit too structured too regimented by the therapy industry, and so they're looking for a more ease-filled vibe.
They're looking for a more relaxed vibe, and so that's also part of this energy. These are people who are energy motivated. The verb that comes up for me with them is "cultivate", they're looking to cultivate a different type of lifestyle, and that could be with a health concern or a burnout concern, or it could be from this Dharma spiritual angle, where they're just wanting to make shifts that feel - the word authenticity comes up - that feel more authentic, more in alignment with the lifestyle that they want. So that is somebody who is more energy motivated. Somebody who's more energy motivated is probably less concerned with the timeframe.
They don't want to force anything to happen because part of the reason they're looking for an energetic alignment in the first place is because they probably feel over structured or overburdened with the way things are right now, so they want things to more unfold.
Now, if you are somebody who is really burnt out and energy motivated, you might have a more defined timeframe or time might feel more of the essence for you, because there's gotta be an answer, there's gotta be a solution to what you're going through. There has to be a way out.
You might feel a little bit more of that if you've got that burnout kind of feeling going on, but especially on the purposeful or spiritual side, those people who are more energy motivated are looking for it to unfold more naturally, looking for it to feel organic.
So timeframe is less of a concern. I also see business structure, running the gamut for people who are more energy motivated, they really are trying to look for that authenticity and that alignment, so if that's a course for them, awesome, it's a course for them, or if it's a group program, high-touch program for them, awesome.
It's really about them keying into "what is my next evolution? What is my next step on my path?" and so this energy motivation is something that started to come up for me with the pandemic. I was money motivated, and that still I'd say it was probably my primary motivator.
It was my primary motivator for starting my business in the first place, which was end of 2017 when I started, and then all of 2018, all of 2019, I would say like 90% money motivated, eke-ing on like a hundred percent money-motivated, there wasn't much else in there, and then pandemic-wise, energy motivation became important to me.
There was a program of mine, the Mastermind off the back of Side Hustle that is only open to side hustle graduates. I didn't even run it in 2021 because it didn't align energetically coming off of 2020, and I monetarily felt that, I felt a revenue dip in my business in 2021.
If you think back to the episode that I just aired with Amber, our Q4 biz bestie chat where we wrapped up 2021, I go into this a little bit. I had a revenue dip and I would say it was intentional because energetically, I couldn't run three programs. I had to run just two for 2021, but I also still felt a little - "irked" is the best word.
Not mad or angry, but it still got to me once in a while when the revenue wasn't what I wanted it to be, so the money motivation was still definitely there, but energy motivation was ticking up. I would say the beginning of 2021, it was half and half, half money motivated, half energy motivated, so this is what I mean by they can coincide, it can be more than one, but we want to identify what's your primary.
Now the fourth type of motivation is somebody who is values motivated. What we mean by values motivated is somebody who feels as if they have a mission or they have a message that they are called or compelled to share with the world, and so somebody who is values motivated, strongly believes in bringing a change or maintaining the status quo, whatever it could be.
I think about some of the people that I follow online that are really working to not only speak out against patriarchy, but they feel like it's their occupational duty to start to perhaps dismantle patriarchy. I don't know if I love that verb to describe their work. Some of them might use that verb, or even like stronger, more aggressive verbs in their work. Others may not think that's what they do.
That's just the first verb that comes to my mind, but I've seen this also with people who are speaking out against colonialism, people who are really strong in their anti-racist work.
If that is your motivation, then you are most likely values motivated. I think people who are values motivated, walk both sides of the timeframe because it's so important to them, it's something that they feel like if they don't talk about it, that they're almost not okay.
It's that strong of a call. So, some of it feels very immediate, very instant, but I also think that people who are values motivated recognize that they're not going to change the world overnight. So they recognize that there's some longevity to their work, there's things that are going to have to unfold over years and potentially decades, so timeframe is interesting for people who are values motivated.
There's an immediacy for them to spread the word, so to speak, or to get their message out there, but they also have a recognition of, this is not something that's going to change overnight. People who are values motivated often have a business structure where they are building a platform, so monetization is important to them.
They might be working on programming, like coaching packages or courses or things like that, but I find that's less of a factor than, say, building like a social media platform or starting a podcast, something where they are able to be prolific in their messaging somewhere where they're able to share their thought leadership, their opinions, their passions about whatever their subject matter is, and so business structure I feel is less focused on money.
I'd say somebody who is values motivated is least money motivated. Typically not, that's not to say they can't go hand in hand, but that's just what I tend to see, and so the business structure, they might be starting an Instagram and, or they might be starting a podcast and then monetization might come from things like sponsorships, so they get a sponsor for their podcast.
People who are values motivated are often influencers, which some influencers get a really bad rap because they're just like hocking makeup or hocking diet pills. That's not the type of influencer that somebody whose values-motivated would want to be. Somebody whose values motivated could go down the influencer route but would be really choosy about the brands they worked with.
Let's say their value, their platform, their stance was environmental, so then they would maybe partner with some of these bamboo toilet paper companies or things like that, wildlife conservation funds or things like that. That is something that could really align with somebody who is values motivated.
For me, I will share, you heard me talk about it a little bit on the episode with Amber, I have a new offer coming out this year. It'll probably be quarter two, so probably around the summertime of this year, which I'm really excited about and this offer is purely values motivation.
If you're brand new to me, I won't harp on it too long, but the pandemic specially locked down and quarantine was profoundly life-changing for me, and those of you who have listened for a while have heard me just process this and navigate this over all of 2020, and all of 2021 as well. In 2020, I announced, I said, I will be doing a life coaching offer. I will be talking about what I am going through in terms of the values that are coming up for me during this pandemic.
Then all of 2021, it was just always with me, I wasn't acting on it yet. It just didn't feel like the right time, so that's where that energy motivation I think was starting to come in. I had to step just a tad back from the current business structure that I had built so that there could free up some energy and that energy started to flow towards this new offer and this new offer is 100% values motivated.
It's just about what came for me and how I've grown and changed and transformed as a person because of the pandemic, and I want to spread that message. I want to spread... message isn't the right word. It feels like a mission of mine, and so now I would say I don't even really feel money motivated, which is even six months ago saying that would have been like "what? Of course you're money motivated."
I'm sure it's still there. I can't say it's ever gone away. It's ingrained in me. It's generational in me. This relationship I have with money in my money story is something that I am willing and ready to face in 2020, which I think is also part of what my lifestyle offer will be about, but if I were to today identify what my motivation is, it would probably be 50/50. 50 energy and then 50 values.
There's gotta be like that doesn't work mathematically, cause there's still gotta be a little bit of money motivation in there, and I think I am a little bit time motivated because I know I only want to work a few hours a day and I only want to work a few days a week and stuff like that, so there's some time motivation in there, but let's give money motivation 10%. Let's give time motivation 5%, and then the rest would be evenly split between energy motivation and values motivation.
And this is new for me. I've never had money motivation be a low factor for me, and I've also never had values motivation be a high factor for me. I don't want to say I've been always a superficial person. I think working in mental health and seeing what clinicians, what we see in the inner workings of the world, the way we understand people and relationship dynamics and all of those things.
I've always been a very deep person, but I haven't felt as if I had found my thing with which I was going to make an impact on the world. I do believe my current business structure with Side Hustle and Space Holder, I do believe those are impactful and I really do believe in being financially autonomous, not necessarily financially independent, but financially autonomous, I believe in that 100%, and that is the mission of my current business structure, but this other offer takes that and feels like (I feel bold saying this), it feels like what I am meant to do.
It feels like a culmination, like all of my body of work - I was describing this to Josh the other day. It feels like a tiller. That's the best analogy that I can come up with. When you till the land, it brings the dirt from behind you forward. The tiller itself is moving forward down the row of the garden or whatever, but it's bringing dirt from behind and bringing it forward and then bringing dirt from behind and bringing it forward.
That's the best way that I can describe this, is it feels culminating and progressive at the same time, and I'm, so I'm excited about it, but I'm also very intrigued because this is a new state of being for me. I feel like if I'm going to again, get woo with it, I've unlocked something here.
I've gone through a portal, whatever, I've unlocked something here. I am a new person in a new place right now, and I still acknowledge and respect and see and hold all of the old pieces, but I am excited about this newness as well.
So I hope learning about the four types of motivation has been helpful for you seeing how they play into things like timeframe and business structure and marketing approach has given you some clarity around which might be your primary motivator right now, and also, I hope my story has shown that these can shift and these can change and these can coexist, but you want to think about what your primary motivator is at this moment because that's the one that we are going to capitalize on because we're going to make your initial business plan around your primary motivator.
Of course, there's room for it to shift, but we want to get started on the thing that's going to give you that forward momentum and get you going, and then we can take into consideration as you evolve and you grow your programs and your business structure and your marketing approach and your timeframe.
Those can all evolve and grow as you do. So nothing's locked in stone, but your primary motivator will certainly be the thing that starts the fire, that it ignites everything and gets us moving.
If you liked this type of episode, a little bit of a reflective, a little bit of insightful type of episode, you may like my free masterclass. It is also insightful like this, it helps you walk through four or five different questions, motivation being one of them, and helps you see which side hustle might be the right fit for you, which might be the best first or next step.
So if you're ready for that, you can head on over to marissalawton.com/masterclass. It's on-demand and prerecorded. So you can watch it at any time. You don't have to self-select a time for you to be available, and you'll get the link right away and you can watch at your convenience. So I hope this has been fun for you. We will be back next week where I'm actually interviewing my mom.
So that's kinda neat, and you'll hear some of these generational things that I was talking about a little bit on the episode, so I will be back with you next week and until then, keep on rising.
