YOUR HEALTH
What Tipped You Out of Bed This Morning?
by Padre Rog Hardman What if someone asked you why it was that you
tipped yourself out of bed every day and came to work? What would you say?
I
f you could form an answer it may have something to do perhaps with pay or affording the rent or mortgage. It may be
that you would think of a reason to do with enjoying an aspect of your job or the whole job itself. Perhaps there is also a sense that work is part of a routine or a habit that we have fallen into but don’t particularly think about – we just do it!
Motivation is the focus of energy that drives us to seek rewards. People have two kinds of work motivation – external and internal. Some motivations are used for the external rewards we gain through work – such as pay that we can use for our living costs and tangible things like food, clothes, housing, cars and holidays.
Volunteers who don’t receive any pay for what they do may find that there is less emphasis on the external motivations and
more on the internal – working for the love of it! These internal motivations help us to gain the rewards we need for our inner lives. Some of these we will be aware of and some of them we will not – they happen without us always being conscious of them. However, when they are disrupted by the changes going on, you may well feel out of sorts because your sense of reward has gone.
There are three key internal motivations we share: One internal motivation we may be aware of is the need for affiliation – the enjoyment of human contact with friends or colleagues who work with us is something we gain from work. Another internal motivational goal is to serve others. A sense of achievement can be another internal reward – when a job well done leaves a feeling of satisfaction.
Those who work in Public Service may enjoy the reward of knowing that what they do is contributing in some way to building a better community and society. This has been called public service motivation and although not all those who work in public organisations like the Armed Forces or the Civil Service have it, it can make working in our organisations feel quite different from working in the private sector.
In times of spending cuts like these, the rewards we gain from our motivations may not be achieved in the same way they used to when our roles, jobs and employment begin to change and change fast. This may produce
more likelihood of inner conflict as we seek to regain the rewards that may have been lost and the process of adjusting can leave us feeling low and depleted of our energy. The motivational goals need to be reset and adjustments made so that both internal and external motivations complement each other once again.
Public service, in my opinion, is a high calling and a noble enterprise. Our belief in what we do and why we do it need not be forgotten through this belt-tightening period of change. It will not be easy to keep our focus on this but in my view this willingness to serve is what will pull us through difficult times. Faith and prayer are always a way to keep the torch of public service motivation burning brightly and I hope we can share in this together for all our people and their families.
Chaplains are always available to talk with you over issues like these, or anything else for which you need a listening ear, so please do get in touch with them.
www.raf-ff.org.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56