Donald Hebb realised that existing theories were too focused on reacting to the immediate environment. Thoughts, ideas and goals could be just as strong for triggering action as sights and sounds.
Together with John Atkinson, they noted that the study of motivation had undergone a "paradigm shift", where motivation couldn't be seen as how actions get started, but how the organism decides to change its behaviour from one thing to another.

Motivation as change

People have three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Our internal motivations often depend on how these needs are met.
Goals that satisfy these needs tend to be more motivating, while goals that don't may cause harm. The underlying reasons for a goal may matter more.

Motivation and psychological needs

While motivation is a huge topic, and the science on it is not in agreement, there are many takeaways we can use to understand how motivation operates and use it to improve our lives. 
<ul>
<li>Rewards and punishments are at the centre of motivation. For example, we may not be able to consciously link our love of sports to early childhood experiences.</li>
<li>Consciously setting our intentions greatly impacts our performance. When we reframe a situation, we can be more motivated to do it.</li>
<li>There are many positive feedback loops. Set hard goals and commit to them, and our performance increases. If you feel you can't do anything, your motivation diminishes.</li>
<li>Motivational struggles are caused by competing forces. We might find it harder to read books in our spare time when we have easy access to Netflix.</li>
<li>Many sources of motivation may be hidden from view. Our motivation is often hidden from us. Sometimes it is simply because the hardware that runs our motivation is not expressible. In other cases, motivations may be subtle and complex.</li>
</ul>

Improving your life with motivation

<ul>
<li>A-motivation. An utter lack of motivation to act.</li>
<li>External regulation. When you're motivated to act based on external rewards and punishments.</li>
<li>Introjection. Your motives to act come primarily from guilt/shame. Even when contingencies are removed, you may perform it, such as going to a medical school because your parent's desire it.</li>
<li>Identification. When you agree to the behaviour and identify personally with the reasons.</li>
<li>Integration. When identification becomes a part of your identity.</li>
<li>Intrinsic motivation. When you spontaneously engage in the activity for its inherent value.</li>
</ul>
The experience of actions starting from oneself is a matter of degree. Some actions are controlled, while others feel spontaneous. Most are somewhere in-between.

The six levels of motivation

<ul>
<li>Information-gap theory of curiosity. This theory argues that the intensity of curiosity is controlled by the gap between what you know and what you want to know.</li>
<li>Friston and free energy of human neuroscience places the search for information as the central organizing principle of the entire brain. It argues that we are motivated to reduce uncertainty.</li>
<li>Learning progress is a simple model that states that we are motivated to learn wherever we experience the most gain. When we focus on learnable situations we haven't yet grasped, we can unlock new opportunities.</li>
<li>Boredom signals that you're not engaged with the material. It may be a sign that you need to adjust your attention rather than change tasks.</li>
</ul>

Curiosity and boredom are a form of motivation for learning

<ul>
<li>Goals direct your attention to relevant information and tasks.</li>
<li>Goals give you the energy to act on various physical and cognitive tasks.</li>
<li>Goals increase your persistence. It enables you to endure for longer before giving up.</li>
<li>Goals encourage you to find better strategies. Having a better method can lead to better performance.</li>
<li>Harder goals that are accepted by the participant will lead to better performance than easier goals.</li>
<li>Focusing on a specific target will produce better results than merely doing your best. However, the goal should not be set too high, as it can have the opposite effect.</li>
<li>Goals can be made more effective when they are connected to implementation intentions. "I intend to write every morning at 7 am."</li>
</ul>

Goals: how intentions impact results

<ul>
<li>At first, psychologist William James thought that only the initial act was conscious, thereafter behaviour was a spontaneous cascade of habits. He suggested we struggle with motivation when there are competing ideas.</li>
<li>Sigmund Freud theorised that we are largely unconscious of what drives our behaviour.</li>
</ul>

The first views on motivation

This theory is not focused on how human motivation can be controlled and manipulated from without, but how it is functionally designed and experienced from within.
Intrinsic motivation is when we are more motivated to pursue actions when it emanates from the self. Extrinsic incentives and rewards have the potential to decrease intrinsic motivation. However, the form of reward matters greatly. If the reward is not directly related to the completion of the activity, it does not have a negative effect.

The self-determination theory

<ul>
<li>Rational choice theory suggests that human behaviour is underpinned by the motivations of each individual. More specifically, this theory models human beings as utility-maximizers, according to a set of preferences. If you give people a set of actions to choose from, they will do whatever improves their utility the most. </li>
<li>Signalling is the idea of taking an action because of what it communicates about you. For example, we care more for credentials in education than learning. </li>
<li>The prospect theory states that we are reliably irrational in our decision-making. One possible bias is loss aversion that argues that we'll work harder to avoid losses than to get equivalent gains.</li>
</ul>

Modelling motivation: rationality, signaling and bias

When Ivan Pavlov and his dogs led to the discovery of learned behaviour through repeated exposure, and Edward Thorndike discovered the Law of Effect that stated that rewarded behaviours tended to increase, many psychologists were impelled to separate psychology from armchair introspection and formulated their theories as mathematical formulas. <ul><li>The Drive x Habit Theory. Clark Hull's formula was sEr = D x sHr, which states that excitatory tendency (E) is the result of the drive (D) combined with the habit (H). The drive is nonspecific, such as hunger or thirst. The habit, however, depends on the stimulus (s) and response (r). But the theory turned out to be wrong and even opposite in many cases. </li><li>Expectation x Value Theory. Drawing on ideas in economics and game theory, Edward Tolman and Kurt Lewis formulated an alternative account by evaluating motivation based on expectations. Tolman expressed the ideas as the mathematical formula: Subjective Expected Utility = Probability1 * Utility1 + P2U2 + P3U3 + … where subjective expected utility of an action equalled the motivation to act. But, if you expect a reward, why act and not simply passively wait for the expected reward? </li></ul>

Mathematics of motivation

Thorndike’s Law of Effect led B.F. Skinner to the study of instrumental conditioning, where behaviour could be manipulated by applying rewards and punishments.
To describe this paradigm, some terminology is useful since they are often confused in popular discussions:
<ul>
<li>Positive reinforcement. Rewarding a behaviour.</li>
<li>Positive punishment. Something bad decreases a behaviour, such as shocking an animal that gives an incorrect response.</li>
<li>Negative reinforcement. Removing something bad to increase behaviour.</li>
<li>Negative punishment. Removing something good to decrease behaviour. </li>
</ul>

Reinforcement learning

<ul>
<li>Self-efficacy. When we feel we can do something. The social-cognitive theory is the idea that we learn by witnessing others, not only by trying things ourselves. Yet, sometimes we don't (or choose not to) learn from the example of others. If you believe you cannot perform well or master a particular skill, you're unlikely to do so.</li>
<li>Group impact motivation. When you are attending a school which out-performs you academically, you may be highly motivated. But placed in a superior school where everyone is equally talented, your self-conception and motivation may drop.</li>
<li>Self-comparison. If you are good at more than one thing, you may be more motivated to focus on what you are better at. For example, preferring maths over English, if your self-concept is that you are a "math" person.</li>
</ul>

Motivation and identity: what you believe about yourself

Neuroscience offers clues on how motivation works within the brain.
<ul>
<li>Taking action. The motor loop in the brain enables one-action-at-a-time control. (We can't sit down and stand up at the same time.)</li>
<li>The dopamine network explains which action we will pick. It signals to the brain which action will bring a reward. It uses that anticipation to guide our thoughts and behaviour.</li>
<li>Addiction is a motivational disorder. Some drugs act directly upon the motivational circuitry of the brain, and cause the motivation to do something to far exceeds its value.</li>
<li>Fear and anxiety compel us to do the opposite of motivation. The amygdala is a "threat detection centre" and forces us to suppress and avoid actions when we are anxious.</li>
</ul>

The neuroscience of motivation

Procrastination is delaying an intended course of action despite expecting negative consequences for the delay.
Possible causes for procrastination:
<ul>
<li>Task unpleasantness. Boring, frustrating and aversive tasks.</li>
<li>Self-efficacy. Believing in your ability to do a task.</li>
<li>Task delay when rewards and punishments are more distant.</li>
<li>Impulsiveness. You are easily distractable and less able to resist it.</li>
<li>Organization. Being more organized is associated with less procrastination.</li>
<li>Achievement motivation. The higher you value achievement, the less you will procrastinate.</li>
</ul>
Learned industriousness claims that when you are rewarded for expending higher effort, the experience of effortful activity itself is reinforced, leading to a willingness to work harder for bigger payoffs.

Procrastination: why we struggle to start

Understand yourself and those around you.

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The Complete Guide to Motivation | Scott H Young

<ol><li>Integration of consciousness that allows for awareness </li><li>Bilateral integration happens when we reconcile our thinking & emotions</li><li>Vertical integration allows for creating a mind-body connection.</li><li>Memory integration focus on memories & how it affects our wellbeing</li><li>Narrative integration is how we find meaning</li><li>Mental state integration concerns itself with the need for being alone</li><li>Interpersonal integration is about how we relate to others.</li><li>Temporal integration is about thoughts about permanence & certainty.</li><li>Transpirational integration is about the expended sense of self.</li></ol>

Areas of integration to promote motivation

Feedback, if done well, can leave people feeling motivated and positive:<ul><li>The power of expectations. Establish from the outset what the feedback is intended to accomplish as the person receiving the feedback owns their emotional reaction.</li><li>The power of accuracy and specificity. Provide feedback on performance, not the person's character.</li><li>Feedback is focused on the future. Discuss ways how to get there.</li><li>Believing in the project. Your feedback highlights your personal investment </li><li>The power of relationship. Use what you know about the person to give better feedback & keep them accountable.</li></ul>

Feedback and motivation

Motivation is a complex process to explain or to realize fully.Motives are internal experiences that can be categorized into needs, cognitions, and emotions that are influenced by environmental events and social contexts. These internal and external forces can be used to increase motivation by targeting either physiological or psychological needs.

Motivation is a complex process

Stress can impact our motivation. To cope with stressors involve planning, execution, and feedback.<ul><li>During planning, we analyze if a life-changing event is positive, negative, or irrelevant to our well-being. If it is a negative event, we find resources to manage the event.</li><li>During execution, we determine how to cope with the stressor. When the stressor is low, reappraisal is a good strategy, but when the stress is very high, distraction is more effective.</li><li>During feedback, we can use it to reappraise the stressor or to change coping and emotion regulation strategies.</li></ul>

Motivation and stress

Motivation is not enough. To encourage lasting change, we need reminders, repetition, and habits.<ul><li>Reminders: Schedule your gym times in your planner with your client meetings. Set out your running clothes the night before.</li><li>Repetition: Regular reminders can create repetition, which is essential for lasting change. Track your progress on a visible chart.</li><li>Habits: We form habits when we keep up our reminders and repetition, as the brain creates new pathways associated with a particular behaviour.</li></ul>

Techniques for sustaining motivation

<ul><li>There are clear goals.</li><li>Gain immediate feedback.</li><li>Challenges need to be matched with personal skills.</li><li>The task has to be challenging enough to require a person to employ their skills and promote concentration and engagement.</li><li>Focused attention on the task at hand is essential.</li><li>Perceived control of the situation.</li><li>Loss of self-consciousness.</li></ul>Intrinsic motivation and self-initiative are created by activities that are challenging, require skill, and have clear and immediate feedback.

Factors of activities that promote motivation

<ul><li>The need for closure. It motivates us to arrive at a stable conclusion. </li><li>The need for cognition is our desire to understand experiences and things in our environment. </li><li>The need for meaning motivates us to understand how we relate to our environment, especially after traumatic events.</li><li>The need for power motivates us to want to be noticed and to desire to influence other people, to be in command, and to have high status.</li><li>The need for self-esteem refers to how a person feels about the self.</li><li>The need for achievements is guided by the motive to achieve success and to avoid failure. </li></ul>

Recognized psychological needs

If you change the contents of your thinking, then you change your motivational state. The same applies to other cognitive aspects like goals, mindset, values, perceived control, identity, etc.Self-concept is learned and comes from how we represent our characteristics. We are motivated to change our behaviour in ways that confirm our self-view and avoid those that contradict. We also observe the behaviour of others that we may want to become. These possible selves become long-term goals that generate and sustain the motivation to develop toward the hoped-for ideal.

Our concept of self plays a major role in motivation

Some techniques to enhance motivation:<ul><li>Acknowledge what the person says to show that you're really listening.</li><li>Clarifying can deepen mutual understanding.</li><li>Validating a person's feelings is essential so they don't feel judged.</li><li>Ask how he or she managed to overcome a similar situation.</li><li>Help the person to reframe the situation.</li><li>Celebrate their wins to increase positive emotions.</li><li>Expose limiting beliefs by asking how true is that belief and how has it affected them.</li><li>Consider the opposite view they currently hold </li><li>Assumptions are about why, if this happened in the past, must it happen again.</li></ul>

How to motivate people

We are motivated when we use goals that spell out in advance when, where, and how we will achieve it.We plan beforehand how we are going to overcome possible problems. For example, if your goal is to eat less sugar, your implementation could be "When the dessert menu arrives, I will order coffee."

Goal setting & Implementation Intentions

<ul><li>Others can be motivated by giving feedback on changes in emotion, behaviour, and well-being.</li><li>Praise can create positive emotions, while mastery programs can increase a sense of competence.</li><li>Positive feedback, expressing gratitude and awe can be used to induce change.</li></ul>

Emotions as feedback

Monitoring one's goal-setting progress increases our capacity to persevere with our long-term goals on our own. Self-control is the central part of the process of self-regulation and is essential for sustained motivation.Our ability to suppress, restrain, and override a desire or temptation is quickly depleted when we pursue a long-term goal. We can increase our ability for self-control by good nutrition, training, experiencing a positive effect, and when our psychological needs are met.

Learning self-control

There are 3 psychological needs to satisfy:<ul><li>Autonomy (self-determination). We are motivated when we have a choice in terms of tasks, time, team, and technique.</li><li>Competence (capability & effectiveness). When we strive toward something greater than ourselves, it demands effort.</li><li>Affiliation needs (association & belonging). We are motivated to form long-lasting positive relationships.</li></ul>External rewards do not work because we don't do rule-based routine tasks. Instead, we need to create environments where intrinsic motivation thrives, where we can gain satisfaction from the activities themselves.

The basic psychological needs

<ul><li>Teachers that plan lessons to be interesting, curiosity-provoking, and personally inspiring have better success in motivating their students to read.</li><li>Leaders have better success in motivating their employees when they take the employees' perspective and invite them to create their own self-endorsed work goals.</li><li>Parents are more successful when they try to truly understand why their children don't want to do something and then take the time to explain to them the benefits of the activity.</li></ul>Most successful interventions do not try to change another person's motivation. They focus on the environment.

Motivational strategies that show success

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Although it might seem simple to come up with strategies and recommendations on how to motivate ourselves and others, it rarely works. So what does work?

How to Motivate Someone, Including Yourself

Stressful workplaces are often poorly designed, socially toxic, exploitative and can kill motivation.
If you're unsure whether your workplace is to blame, ask yourself:
<ul>
<li>Do you feel challenged?</li>
<li>Do you feel a sense of curiosity?</li>
<li>Are you mostly in control of how you spend your day?</li>
<li>Do you have opportunities to collaborate or compete?</li>
<li>Do you feel you're getting enough recognition?</li>
</ul>

Feeling unmotivated can be an organizational issue

We don't lack motivation because we don't know how to be motivated, but because we don't know how to act on our own knowledge.
When we feel unmotivated, it's common to seek advice. But research shows that giving advice can be more motivating than receiving advice.

Giving advice to someone else can be motivating

If you wait for the ideal conditions before you start, you'll probably never do it.
A lack of motivation is an emotional issue. That means there is no hack to save you. The best way to get motivated is just to start. Small steps on meaningful tasks will build motivation.

The Progress Principle: Tiny steps build motivation

The lack of motivation might also come from an unbalanced work-life.
Give yourself space. Take on a hobby, engage in deliberate rest or a meaningful break to help you disconnect from work and increase your happiness.

Hobbies and motivation

Procrastination is worst when we don't see the point of our jobs. The connection to a larger purpose helps us find meaning and motivation at work.
If your job doesn't make a huge impact, think about how it has helped the people you spend your day with. Each day, write down three ways your work has helped your coworkers.

Look for ways your work impacts the people around you

We may not feel motivated all the time but we should take advantage when we are motivated. 
The key isn't to use this wave to get something done today, but to use that rush of motivation to set up systems that will force you to build better habits and stay motivated when you don't feel like it. On a smaller scale, use your most productive hours to make progress on something you've been putting off.

Knowing how to ride the “motivation wave”

Almost everyone struggles with feeling unmotivated from time to time. Yet while those feelings are normal, they can become a serious distraction.

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The Progress Principle: A simple trick for when you're feeling unmotivated

If we really want to be motivated, having a goal is not enough. We need to feel something. When we feel that what we do has meaning, we will feel motivated.
Workers who fail to live up to their potential have lost sight of the importance and meaningfulness of their own jobs. If you could remind employees of the importance of their jobs, they might become highly motivated and productive.

Feeling the importance of our actions

We may think of money as a great motivator, but it is a very poor one.
Money is a good motivator only for boring jobs. For creativity or problem-solving activities, money reduces our natural motivation.

Money doesn't always motivate

Progress is what makes stories feel real. And just as the stories don't need to be real, neither does the progress. The illusion of progress is enough to inspire you to action.

The best motivator

We can find meaning when we tell ourselves stories. Reflecting on ourselves and how we see ourselves creates an almost instant change in behavior. Self-awareness involves comparing the self to the ideas of what we should or could be.
When people are told that their actions are being filmed, they consistently change their behavior. They work harder and are more consistent in their actions and values.

Giving mundane jobs meaning

Everything you need to know about What does it take to motivate you?

What does it take to motivate you?

When we feel connected to what we're doing and make it our own, we're much more motivated. Having sovereignty over what we do, when we do it, how we do it, where we do it, and who we do it with, serves as a powerful motivator.
When you're handed a task at the office, you can make small tweaks to customize what you have to do. It creates a motivating feeling when you can do it your way.

Take Ownership

Research shows that more than 50% of American workers feel disengaged at their jobs.
Research also shows that motivation is very important to feel engaged. Motivation predicts career success better than intelligence, ability, or salary.

The importance of motivation

When a task you have to do doesn't seem meaningful, reframe your experience. You may not always be able to change what you have to do but you can change how you view it. When you look at it in light of how it helps others, you'll often find motivation.
You're not "filling out boring paperwork, you're helping people get the insurance that could save their life. You're not slaving over a hot stove, you're showing your family how much you love them.

Tasks that do not seem meaningful

We find motivation when something is meaningful. Meaning is much bigger than the enjoyment of a moment. It can include something we don't like. Soldiers risk being killed every day to serve their country. New parents handle poop daily for years.
Meaningful things give us purpose. This means doing something that serves a larger cause than yourself or, at least, making a contribution in your own world.

Focus On The Meaning

Very often, when we look at a task, we take the outside view by forgetting about the emotional component. And that's how something we may actually enjoy becomes a chore.
<ul>
<li>The inside view requires you to focus on the middle of the task that you know you usually enjoy, not on starting the task.</li>
<li>In tasks where the inside view is worse than the outside, think about the feeling of accomplishment you'll have after it's done.</li>
</ul>

The Inside View

You know what you're supposed to be doing... but you've come down with a really bad case of " I-don't-feel-like-it. " You just don't have any motivation. Ever feel like that? Well, you're not alone... Research shows lack of motivation is at a record high.

The Complete Guide to Motivation | Scott H Young

How to Motivate Someone, Including Yourself

The Progress Principle: A simple trick for when you're feeling unmotivated

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

What does it take to motivate you?

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The Complete Guide to Motivation | Scott H Young

How to Motivate Someone, Including Yourself

The Progress Principle: A simple trick for when you're feeling unmotivated

It's time to Read like a Pro.

What does it take to motivate you?

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.