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By Nicholas Lore, April 6, 2012 1:55 am

There are two kinds of motivations and rewards:

Intrinsic – you get internal rewards like fulfillment, enjoyment, feeling you accomplished something worthwhile, like a kid in a sandbox.

Extrinsic – you perform to get an external reward – a trophy, money, a higher position on the chimpile, a bigger this or that, like a dog doing tricks for a treat.

Many parents urge their kids to pick something secure, professional, well-paid and prestigious. When you succeed on their terms, they get is those sweet intrinsic rewards: they did their job as parents well. They are proud. It is satisfying (for them.)

So, what do you get? All too often just the extrinsic rewards: success without satisfaction.

NOTE TO PARENTS: why not support them to have both?

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By Nicholas Lore, April 6, 2012 1:25 am

Rockport Institute has coached thousands of mid-career professionals through career change over the last 31 years. Most picked their first careers for all the wrong reasons. They went for the external rewards without paying enough attention to the internal, intrinsic rewards. All I can say is: DON’T DO IT. You can have both success and satisfaction. You don’t have to settle for one or the other.

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By Nicholas Lore, February 8, 2012 9:46 pm

Self-esteem never hovers. It is either rising or falling, based mostly on what is occurring in your life. It usually rises when you win, when you are satisfied with yourself and the progress you are making in your life. It falls when you lose regularly, when life is a constant struggle, when your confidence is eroded, when you feel no connection between you and the world around you.

Your work profoundly influences your self-esteem. People who change paths in mid-career nearly always report that their ill-fitting careers had damaged their self-esteem. Create a future you will be proud of, and your self-esteem will take care of itself.”

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By Nicholas Lore, January 9, 2012 7:45 pm

Years ago when I stopped smoking I used a technique psychologists call precommitment. I knew that the little voice in my head could easily talk me into just having one. And down the slippery slope I would slide. I made a deal with a friend who wanted to quit as well. We each wrote out checks for hundreds of dollars to the re-election committee of our biggest political nightmare. (We both picked Jesse Helms.) We switched envelopes, stamped, addressed, and ready to go. Then once a week we met, looked each other face-to-face and said whether or not we had kept our promise. If one of us caught the slightest flicker of lie in the other’s eyes, they would mail the envelope. There were times when I would have paid that much money for a cigarette, but knowing it would go to help re-elect Helms kept me on the straight and narrow.

The idea is to make it nearly impossible to crap out on your promise. Odysseus ordered himself lashed to the mast and had his seamen fill their ears with wax so he could listen to the deadly, seductive songs of the Sirens.

What is that huge challenge you want to face that you think your mind will con you out of fulfilling? What is that behavior or habit you want to change?

Find a cost you are not willing to pay and someone to play this powerful game with you.