How to Be Motivated.md

How to Be Motivated: 4 New Insights From Research

by Eric Barker

http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/01/how-to-be-motivated/

How do we find motivation in the world?

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• Sometimes people don't feel motivated if they focus too much on the rewards involved rather than the task itself

• Instead of focusing on the reward, how can we motivate ourselves to care about the task at hand?

• 3 ways:

  • 1. Autonomy: being able to self-direct our own life
  • 2. Mastery: getting better at something meaningful
  • 3. Purpose: doing something in service of a greater cause

• The progress principle: the most powerful motivator is making progress in meaningful work (even just the perception of doing so)

• From The Progress Principle:

  People’s inner work lives seemed to lift or drag depending on whether or not their projects moved forward, even by small increments. Small wins often had a surprisingly strong positive effect, and small losses a surprisingly strong negative one.

• If it's hard to see progress, focus on small accomplishments instead of big goals

• What is intrinsically motivating to you?

• In a study by Barry Schwartz on West Point grads, intrinsically motivated students performed better and were more satisfied than extrinsically motivated and those with hybrid intrinsic/extrinsic motivation

• From Drive by Dan Pink:

  So there is this kind of interesting zen-like thing. The route to these rewards is not to be cognitive of the rewards.

• Extra motivation from Neil deGrasse Tyson:

  The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock. The most successful people in life recognize, that in life they create their own love, they manufacture their own meaning, they generate their own motivation.