Motivation is the beginning of every great career as well as the inner life force that will sustain career momentum and growth.

The first thing to understand about motivation is that you've got to be in the right career. If you take a job that doesn't fit your interests – what Richard Bolles, author of What Color Is Your Parachute?, calls your “fields of fascination,” then you won't likely be motivated at work.

Or if you are motivated, it will probably be because of external factors like salary, benefits, etc.

Although there's nothing wrong with a great pay and generous benefits, true motivation can only come from passion for one's work. This is why it's so important to carefully choose a job that will allow you to feel alive and use your natural talents.

At the beginning of a career, what is most important is the motivation to learn. The motivation to do something specific will only come later.

Motivation to learn comes from curiosity and the willingness to explore new ideas, topics and subjects.

Motivation obviously requires that a person be open-minded, but what is perhaps less known is that it requires also a certain intellectual discipline. That is, one must seek to know more and more about a certain topic, for the more one learns, the more one is motivated to know more about the subject.

The world renowned creativity guru, Dr Edward de Bono, wrote that the best way to become passionate about a particular subject is to acquire a critical “mass” of knowledge about it.

In practical terms, it means that motivation about a career or job won't come naturally. You might be “interested” in a job or profession, but you won't know if you can be motivated or passionate about it until you acquire a critical amount of knowledge about the field.

This requires reading books, going to seminars, talking to experts in the field and learning as much as possible about the particular topic or job or career.

To help readers find their true passion and talent, and develop a career based on those deeply personal characteristics, we're releasing FREE of charge for a limited time a special report titled “Ideal Career Framework: How to Design Your Ideal Career and Pursue It With Passion". This special report will be offered free of charge to all readers who sign up for our newsletter before Dec 7, 2007. See below for details.