I have been a huge fan of Daniel Pink’s writing since I read his book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. In this book, Dan makes a powerful argument that virtually all left brain, sequential tasks are either being automated or outsourced. He goes on to suggest that what is needed is the incredibly powerful combination of creative, right brain thinking, supported by sequential, left brain thinking. If you haven’t read this book, I strongly encourage it. But what I really want to talk about in this post is Daniel pink’s new book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

It's time to recognize a new type of motivation that actually is motivating.

This book blew my mind, it made my eyes roll back in my head and blink “tilt,” and smoke come pouring out of my ears. Well, not literally, but it kind of felt like that, only in a good way.

Like so many people in our modern society, I was brought up to believe that people are basically motivated by two primary things, reward and punishment. I can remember many times, being frustrated at not being able to get myself to do something which I felt I “should.” I often thought to myself “well I guess not doing this doesn’t hurt badly enough, when it does, I’ll do it.” Dan refers to this as “Motivation 2.0″ and described it as a motivational system of the industrial age. He argues that what we need in the modern world is “Motivation 3.0″ which is intrinsic in nature. He describes this new type of motivation as having three primary aspects: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

He lays out an incredibly solid case of research which has been known over the last 50 years, demonstrating that the industrial age extrinsic motivation concepts are truly problematic and in many cases end up REDUCING motivation rather than increasing it. This fits very well with my own experience.

He gives many powerful examples and suggestions for how to implement Motivation 3.0 in our lives, workplaces, and schools. I’m still processing how to apply this most effectively in my own life. But this is powerful stuff, and I would strongly suggest you read this book — whoever you are, whatever you do, this is something that you need to know, really know, deep in your bones, in order to be truly happy and successful.

Note: the Amazon.com links in this post are affiliate links, and I get a tiny commission if you purchase through them.

I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. They seem to have a shelf life of about 10 minutes, and thereby are not all that useful. In fact the very specific kind of goal setting that is often recommended has rarely proved useful for me. Instead, I ask myself what do I want? And who do I want to be? And how is what I’m doing right now supportive or not supportive to the first two questions?

This is something I do on an ongoing basis, and that has worked very well for me. I feel like I’m coming to a point in my development where more concrete goals, particularly around business may prove useful, but I do tend to work intuitively and haven’t felt called to do that yet.

So with that in mind, you can imagine that I was interested, but not terminally excited when I first read a blog post by Hayden Tompkins about How To Rock 2010. (Let me stop here and say that Hayden’s blog Through the Illusion is awesome and very worth reading.)

It did take me a little bit off guard when Hayden, as she often does, put her own spin on the ideas. She talked about choosing a word for the year. A word that would serve as a navigation point for the year. Her word this year is “dance,” if you want to know why you’ll have to read her post.

I casually tossed around in my mind what my word might be, if I were to come up with one, and didn’t really get anywhere. Then I read a post by Erica Douglas called 2010 Goals; 2010 #themeword; Big Announcement! (If you’re at all interested in business, particularly business online, Erica’s blog is a must read. I know this post is starting to sound like a blog pitch fest, but I really love what both of these amazing women write.)

In her post, Erica talks about starting the #themeword meme in 2007, the concept is very similar to Hayden’s. I thought this was interesting, but since I had already decided that I didn’t need such a thing, I noted that and moved on. Except that my unconscious or higher self or muse or whatever or whoever seemed to disagree. I don’t remember exactly when, but it popped into my head (and landed there with a significant amount of force) that my #themeword for 2010 is Freedom. I like this roll around in my head for a while, but the more I thought about it the more right it feels.

For me 2010 is about creating freedom

Freedom for myself; financially, from a job that I’ve mastered and I’m ready to pass on, and most importantly from my own limiting beliefs and programming.

This year is also about helping other people create freedom for themselves through my Binaural Journeys guided meditation audios. It’s interesting, I didn’t realize that that’s what I was doing when I set out to create audio programs that combined guided meditation, binaural beats, binaural drumming and music. I just knew that I had felt inspired to create programs of this sort, so I did. But, in thinking about my #themeword, Freedom, I realized that Binaural Journeys are really tools for people to use in creating their own freedom.

I am truly excited about the year to come.

So, what’s your #themeword?