Tips For Life and Work

In contrast, you may only feel motivated to study because you’re scared of how your parents may react to a bad grade. This demonstrates a low degree of autonomy. In both of these examples, you are externally motivated to study. However, you feel more autonomous and less coerced when you are motivated by your values and ambitions rather than fear of punishment. Notably, you’ll probably learn more deeply and be happier if you’re motivated by more autonomous goals.

Levels of Extrinsic Motivation
Four levels of external motivation exist between complete amotivation and intrinsic motivation. The degree to which the motivation has been internalized increases as you move through these levels.

• External regulation: acting only to earn rewards or avoid punishments. An exercise contract where you pay an entry fee that you get back if you complete a defined amount of exercise is an example of external regulation.
• Introjected regulation: acting to avoid negative emotions like guilt or anxiety or to enhance self-esteem or pride. You’ve partially internalized the goal but haven’t completely accepted it. If you exercise to avoid judgment from your doctor, you are motivated by introjected regulation.
• Identified regulation: The external pressure has become a personally important goal because it is useful. If you exercise because of the benefits to heart health you are motivated by identified regulation.
• Integrated regulation: The goal has become part of your personal identity and aspirations. The behaviors are now autonomous and self-determined. If you exercise because exercise is important to your identity and sense of self, then you are at this level. The motivation isn’t intrinsic; you are still externally motivated. However, you act because the actions reflect your values and you are authentic in your commitment.

• Autonomy: We all want to feel that we are in control of our actions. No one likes feeling that they are being coerced into doing something. For example, you’ll probably feel more motivated to study if you choose your own major.
• Self-efficacy or Competency: You want to feel that you are competent. The task can’t be so difficult that it feels impossible, but it also can’t be so easy that you don’t feel challenged. If you’re a first-year college student, you probably wouldn’t feel motivated to study a graduate-level textbook. You also probably wouldn’t feel motivated to study a child’s textbook. The task should match your abilities.
• Relatedness: You will feel motivated if you feel a sense of connection with others. You may feel more motivated to study a boring subject if you join a study group or if you learn that others in your chosen career path have also taken this class and studied this material. You can increase feelings of relatedness by building connections related to your goals and promoting environments that exhibit genuine caring, mutual respect, and safety.

If you’re feeling completely unmotivated, you may need to use external motivators, at least at first. Extrinsic rewards may help you get the experiences and skills that you need to increase your feelings of competence (Gillison et al., 2019) and to move you along the continuum away from amotivation and closer to integrated and intrinsic motivation. A good tip is to create an exercise regimen that increases your sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Gillison et al., 2019).

Competence
You can increase your feelings of competence by focusing on your own definition of success and not on outside expectations. You may not be able to complete a marathon, but finding an achievable fitness goal may increase your feelings of self-efficacy. You can also increase your feelings of competence by seeking out specific feedback on your progress. A smartwatch is a great tool for this – you can track information about your activity levels like your heart rate or the distance you’ve run. You should make sure to monitor feedback that matches your specific goals. If your goal is to get stronger, you could measure how much weight you can lift. In this case, you might not necessarily be interested in your resting heart rate.

Relatedness
Feeling a sense of connection to a community is important to staying motivated. Find a workout buddy or an online community to help you feel more connected to people who share your exercise goals.

Competence
Work that is technically challenging will be more motivating than work that is too easy. You’re unlikely to be motivated by boring tasks that don’t fulfill your need to feel competent.

Relatedness
You’ll probably be more motivated to work if you have a sense of belonging within supportive workplace networks. Team-building exercises and happy hours with your colleagues may help you feel more connected and more motivated in your work. You’ll also feel a greater sense of motivation if you can connect your contribution to a larger project that is impactful and meaningful to you.

You may be able to motivate yourself to study by fulfilling your basic psychological needs. Your feelings of autonomy may increase if you remind yourself that you are working towards your chosen educational goals. Your feelings of relatedness may increase if you seek out connections to people in your chosen field who have completed the course of study that you’re now struggling with.

• Cleaning as a matter of routine.
• Cleaning when you see visible dirt or mess.
• Cleaning for social reasons such as when guests are coming over.

If you know that you need to clean but can’t get motivated, incorporating one or more of the above motivators may help. My bathroom has been a lot cleaner since I started wiping the counters as part of my morning routine. If visible dirt motivates you, you can arrange your home to make dirt and mess more obvious. People tend to be better at detecting food and dirt on smooth surfaces like laminate and stone compared to textured surfaces like wood (Moretro et al., 2020). People are also better at detecting dirt on light-colored surfaces. Getting rid of your wooden chopping boards and choosing light colors for all your surfaces may motivate you to clean more often. If routine and visible mess fail to get you cleaning and you still want to motivate yourself, try inviting a fastidious friend over.

• S – Silence: Mediation, prayer, deep breathing, reflection, gratitude, or any other activity that is solitary and silent.
• A – Affirmations: Recite your personal commitments and what you intend to do to achieve your desired outcomes.
• V – Visualize: Use your imagination to create a picture of your future and how you will achieve it.
• E – Exercise: Even a walk around the block or a few minutes of jumping jacks can increase your energy levels for the rest of the day.
• R – Read: Start with ten pages of reading a day.
• S – Scribe (write): Write down your thoughts, ideas, self-realizations, or anything else. Getting your thoughts out of your head and onto paper will heighten your awareness and increase clarity.

You may be more successful in adopting the habit of early rising if you increase feelings of relatedness by working with an accountability partner.

If you have trouble even getting out of bed in the morning, The Miracle Morning recommends these steps to get you up.

• Set your intentions before bed. Before you go to sleep, create a positive expectation that you will wake early the next day.
• Move your alarm clock away from your bed, forcing you to physically get up to turn it off.
• Brush your teeth as soon as you get out of bed. Engaging in an automatic action first thing gives your brain time to get active.
• Drink a large glass of water. Dehydration may make you feel more tired.
• Get dressed or have a shower. This sets the momentum for the SAVERS routine and for the rest of your day.

The authors of The Miracle Morning suggest that you challenge yourself to waking early and going through the SAVERS routine every day for thirty days in a row. Waking early is said to become easier as you progress through the thirty-day challenge. Establishing the first thirty days of these new habits as a challenge may externally motivate you to persist through the discomfort until you start to experience the internalized rewards of early rising.

The strategies described above for increasing motivation in specific situations may be useful as short-term fixes while you are addressing larger concerns. Increasing feelings of autonomy by giving yourself choices, increasing feelings of self-efficacy by ensuring that you choose goals that are obtainable yet somewhat challenging, and increasing feelings of relatedness by creating connections with people may be effective in getting you motivated. However, these strategies will not be sufficient to treat the depression which is the root cause of the lack of motivation. It is recommended that you seek professional care to help you through this difficult time in your life.

In contrast, if you have a growth mindset you attribute your failures and successes to the effort that you put in. You didn’t get that good grade because you have a high IQ, but because you put time and effort into your studies. Similarly, you didn’t get a bad grade because you have a low IQ, but because you didn’t put in sufficient effort. People with growth mindsets don’t feel a devastating loss of motivation after a failure, but may in fact feel energized and motivated to put more effort into pursuing their goals.

Luckily, you can change your mindset. Children who received attribution retraining in the form of being told that an incorrect answer on a math problem was due to a lack of effort rather than a lack of ability, were energized by errors. They were motivated to continue trying to solve difficult problems. In contrast, children who didn’t receive this attribution retraining were devastated by incorrect answers. Their performance got worse after incorrect answers (Haimovitz & Dweck, 2017). Something as simple as telling yourself that your failures are not due to fundamental shortcomings but rather are due to things that are within your power to change may increase your motivation after a failure.

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External motivation, where you act to get rewards or to avoid punishment, is less effective. You may feel a sense of resentment or bitterness when working exclusively to earn rewards or avoid punishment. The opportunity to experience autonomy, competency, and relatedness in the pursuit of your goals can produce motivation that is deep, authentic, and resilient to obstacles. Moreover, knowing that genuine motivation comes from feelings of autonomy, competency, and relatedness, you can create systems that promote authentic drive in your children, your employees, your students, and anyone else who looks to you for leadership.

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