The Three Ingredients Needed in the Pursuit of Certifications (Or Any Other Pursuit)
Disclaimer: This is my own philosophy on what's needed to pursue something, such as certifications. It's what I've followed and managed in pursuing just about everything in life.
This post has been a long time coming. As I've been getting much closer to riding off into the cert sunset, putting my philosophy down on paper has been on my mind more and more. These three ingredients, and the management of them, is what has helped me get to where I am today. Maybe this will help those new to certs or new in their careers.
There are three ingredients that I've needed to pursue a certification. In the order they appear, are Desire, Motivation, and Drive. First comes the desire to pursue the certification, next up comes the motivation, and finally the internal drive to pursue and follow it through to completion. I'll detail them below.
Desire: This one is self-explanatory, but there is an initial desire to pursue a certification. This is the wanting to pursue the certification in the first place. You can actually pursue a certification without the desire, it will just make it tougher. Why would anyone do that you ask? For example, if it’s a condition of employment (typically within 6 months), or later required for the position.
Motivation: Motivation can be different things for different people. For me, motivation is the why of pursuing the certification. Why am I pursuing it, what is making me pursue it. Motivation can be internal or external. Internally, I could be wanting to pursue the certification because it’s a difficult and renowned one, or a personal challenge. Externally, the why could be the afore-mentioned condition of employment, or it could be the hot, new, sought after cert, or a high-paying one. You can pursue a certification without the motivation, the problem is without knowing the why or having the reason, you could end up obtaining a certification that doesn’t make sense for you to have.
Drive: Drive is arguably the most important ingredient. Drive can be different for different people, but it’s essentially the internal motor to keep moving forward and making progress. Its the internal impetus to keep going. The fire inside. Absent a real desire, motivation, or even both, drive can in fact push you through the finish line. It’s what allows us to power through when things get tough.
When all three ingredients are present, and at high levels, accomplishing a certification can seem like an easy task. I believe that you can have zero of any one ingredient, and still accomplish your goal. You can have combinations of low to no desire and motivation, but if your drive is high, you can still push through. With a combination of low to no drive and motivation, one could accomplish your goal if you desire it bad enough, but it would be a tough slog. The one combination I feel has to be present, even if at a very low level, is desire and drive. Absent those two, I feel it’s next to impossible to reach the end as you would have no reason for pursuing it, and no drive to move forward.
What has helped me to manage these ingredients is to first rank each one on a scale of 1-10 on the outset of pursuing a certification, and then monitor throughout. Desire and Motivation are easier to boost than drive from what I’ve found. When motivation is low, I’ve looked for positives to obtaining the cert. Usually when finding a benefit and motivation going up, the desire goes up too. For drive, it’s one of those things that I think naturally ebbs and flows for the most part. Some people do burn hot all the time, and some people just don’t have any drive to move forward, but I think for most people it changes for various reasons. Unfortunately for me the only remedy I’ve found for low drive is an artificial boost (and not one that’s good for you). I found that energy drinks gave me what felt like a boost in my drive to push through. Anyways, hopefully someone starting out finds this helpful when pursuing certifications, and it helps them to look at the endeavor from a different perspective.
