Motivation

Motivation is an effect, not a cause

One of the ideas from Smarter Faster Better: The New Science of Productivity is that motivation results from making progress, not the other way around. If you wait around until you feel motivated to do something, you’ll wait forever. If you want to do it, get started in the smallest way possible, and the feeling of efficacy and progress will motivate you to continue.

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle delves into the neuroscience of motivation, describing a kind of mental module the authors call “the monitor”. The monitor is a kind of energy accountant which compares how much energy we’ve expended toward a goal against the progress we’re making on it. If we’re not making sufficient progress, the monitor in our brains discourages us from pursuing the goal any further. (From an evolutionary biological perspective, it’s easy to imagine the purpose such an unconscious mental process would have evolved to serve in a resource-scarce world.) If we’re not feeling motivated, there’s nothing wrong with us: it’s just our unconscious brains wisely discouraging us from expending precious further energy toward a goal we don’t seem to be getting any closer to. So the best way to silence that discouragement is to demonstrate progress, however small, to get the number-cruncher off our backs. However, if we try to force ourselves to work on something without making visible progress, the monitor’s discouragement will grow increasingly harsh, leading to despair and burnout in a desperate attempt to get us to stop wasting our energy.

Self-determination theory

In order to flourish we must have three basic psychological needs meet:

• to live with authenticity
• to feel competent in our work
• to forge close connections with others

From Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward L. Deci