I think we have all been in the position of having something we need to do, want to do, know we should do, and just can’t bring ourselves to do it. It could be exercise, cleaning, a project at work or at home, or even a phone call that we need to make. Somehow we just can’t get motivated to do anything about it.
What is this thing called motivation? Why does it hold so much power over our lives? What makes some people have more of it, more energy to get things done, that others? The big question is how do we get it back when we are lacking in it.
Let’s start with what motivation is. This concept has been studied a great deal by psychologists and much has been written about it. Motivation is the seeking of a certain outcome or feeling that will come from accomplishing a certain thing. There are several factors that influence motivation both within us (intrinsic) and outside of us (external). The outcome or feeling has to be strong enough to prompt us to take action. As infants, we have an internal drive to explore. If we want to figure out what something is, we need to get it in our hands and mouths. That drive to explore moves us to crawl, walk, and move about our environment. As children, we start to develop other motivators to do different things. A child may clean their room or wash dishes because someone told them to, they don’t want to get in trouble if they don’t, or they just like having things neat and tidy. Over time some of those external motivators may become internal. A teenager may want to play basketball because their friends are. Basketball involves running. The teen hates the runs initially because they are hard but does them because the coach told them to. Over time, the running becomes easier and the teen starts to realize that those runs help them calm down and focus on the next task ahead. In the off-season, the teen finds themselves running on their own because it helps them stay ready for the next season and is also a great stress-reliever. The desire to run has now become intrinsic.
Motivation as a concept seems to hold a great deal of power over our lives. This is because everything we need to do to exist—seeking food, shelter, warmth—is obtained through motivation to perform certain behaviors that will result in these things. When those needs are met, those behaviors have become a part of us and we move on to other needs. Autonomy, belonging, and power are just a few of the needs that we will start to perform behaviors to achieve. Those behaviors might be going to work every day, completing tasks that will demonstrate independence such as making your own meal as a teenager, or taking on extra jobs to earn more money to pay for something you want.
What about those people who are climbing mountains and running ultramarathons? What about those scientists who are finding new ways to go to space and explore the depths of the ocean? We don’t really need to do any of those things. What is motivating them?
Curiosity. The desire to see what will happen if I do this thing. How far can I push my body, my mind, the limits of science? What emotion will that person have when they accomplish these things? That is what they are chasing. This does not make those people any better than the rest of us. It is one of the unique traits that we all have that make us who we are.
So what, Julia? How does knowing all this help me get off the couch to exercise or wash the dishes? How do I tackle that project I have been wanting to do?
There are a couple of things to remember here. First, a lack of motivation is really another form of procrastination. We are putting something off because we don’t have enough of a drive, a reason, to do it. Next, the payoff is not big enough to give you a strong enough desire to achieve it. It just doesn’t matter enough to us yet. Conversely, the negative consequence of not doing it is not bad enough for us to do whatever it is to try to avoid that consequence. For example, that closet that we don’t want to clean and have been putting off (i.e. don’t have the motivation to clean) doesn’t matter enough to us yet. How will we feel when it is done? What will happen if we don’t do it? Probably nothing. We will just continue to live with that mess even though it annoys us. It doesn’t affect our daily life enough yet.
The same is true for anything that we are lacking motivation to do. We know that if we get outside for a walk or do some exercise that we will feel more energized when we are done. We will be strengthening our muscles and our hearts and our lungs. We know we will be able to do more things we want to do because we have the physical strength to do them. On the other hand, we may choose to not work out for many reasons—we are tired, our muscles hurt, it’s cold outside, we don’t like that particular activity—the list is never ending. The desire to achieve those positive outcomes needs to outweigh those reasons to not do anything.
You can read about countless ways to increase motivation. Whole books are written on it. There are podcasts and websites and motivational speakers. What it comes down to is value. How much do you value the outcome and the feelings that come with that outcome? When we decide that we value that more than the alternative status quo of doing nothing, we will find the way to do that thing we are putting off.
Sometimes it is just sheer will that makes us get up and do the thing. “Just do the dishes, Julia. You know you will feel better when it’s done. The kitchen will be tidy. If you just do it now, it’s not going to actually take that long. Ten minutes max. What else are you going to do for those ten minutes? Probably nothing. Just go do it.” That is the internal monologue that we need to be having to get ourselves to take action.
While I might not be giving you these amazing fool-proof tricks to increasing motivation, I do want to leave you with this — No one thing is going to work for everyone. Try all of the things and see which ones work best for you. Give yourself fewer reasons to not do it than to do it. Set up your environment to make doing it easier. Make not doing it more unpleasant. Reward yourself for the behavior. Tell yourself positive affirmations.
In the end, we all just have to jump into that deep end of the pool and swim. We may have fear. We may not like to get wet. We may not 100% know how to swim. We just figure it out even if we’ve done it 1000 times. When the outcome is great enough, we will find it easier to take that jump. Then we can tell ourselves and our friends that we did it and be proud of it.
And it will be that much easier to do it again the next day.
Peace from The Edge,
Julia
(The answer to the question on the photo? 1) Because running had become who I was and what I did. This was day 3 of Relay Iowa on a ridiculously steep hill, cold wind, serious lack of sleep, and in my delirium, all I really knew to do was keep running. 2) I didn’t want to let down my team or make anyone else run extra. 3) The sooner we were done, the sooner we could get to food. 4) I am stronger than I thought.)
