“I lack motivation.”
In reality, a clinically diagnosable lack of motivation is incredibly rare. It’s safe to assume we don’t have it. However, we often face suffering and fail to break out of our patterns. How is this possible? Why can’t we will ourselves out of our pain, instead of watching Netflix for hours? Doesn’t this mean a lack of motivation?
But wait… you can sit still and do one thing without interruption for hours? People DREAM of having the motivation to do that. You don’t lack motivation – it’s just pointed in the wrong direction.
How motivation ACTUALLY works.
We need to stop thinking of motivation as a binary on-off switch — some nebulous feeling of desire that you either have or don’t.
Instead, think of motivation as a calculation about likelihood of success. THEN we can begin to solve it properly, like a math equation. It becomes a real thing we can grapple with instead of some arbitrary idea.
In order to understand how to “increase motivation”, let’s examine the following all-too familiar goal…
“I want to be healthy.”
How does one be healthy? Well, you may say something along the lines of: “You should exercise, eat more vegetables, etc…”
You probably think you’re still talking about being healthy. In reality, the list of actions to take is VERY different than the idea of trying to be healthy. In fact, it is literally impossible to be healthy. Without reducing the concept of health into its components, it is impossible for your mind to conceive the steps to becoming healthy.
With that in mind, examine the following goal…
“I want to be motivated.”
See where I’m going with this? Just like health, Motivation is an idea based on multiple variables.
What does this mean for us?
Imagine a caveman in ancient times, venturing out to bring back food for his tribe. He comes across 3 seemingly identical paths. We’ll call them paths one, two, and three.
Now, his mind begins to calculate the likelihood of success of finding food if he goes down each path. But because they seem equally unlikely to provide food, there’s no motivation to go down any particular one.
Then, he spots some tracks down path one.
Instantly, the likelihood of success rises from essentially zero percent to, let’s say, fifty percent, if he goes down the tracked path. Now he is motivated to go down path 1.
Suddenly, a deer enters his vision down path 2.
Now the likelihood of success rises from zero percent to seventy-five percent, overtaking his motivation to go down path one!
You may be rolling your eyes at how obvious that example was. You’re probably thinking: “Of course he’s more motivated to go down path two because there’s a deer!”
But how often do you really apply this thinking to your own life?
Let’s take “I am unhealthy” and examine two typical paths people choose from to solve this issue.
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“Get healthier”. The likelihood of success on this is so unknown, it may as well be zero. You’re going to “stay in the middle of the tracks and not hunt”.
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“Watch Netflix”. You can always just exercise tomorrow and just finish Ozark today, right? Watching a show will guarantee that you feel better, and so the likelihood of success on this is one hundred percent, and therefore your motivation will be unstoppable.
But hold on. Objectively, watching Netflix has a 0% chance of making you healthier, so why does our brain see it as a high likelihood of success?
This is because our brain sees likelihood of success as the chance that you will feel better and not necessarily an action will help you with your logical goal.
What do I do about this?
Confidence + Likelihood of success = Motivation.
To increase motivation, we need to act on its variables.
Confidence could be an entire series of articles in and of itself. But for now, here are two ways to increase confidence:
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Dealing with negative emotions (shame, fear, low self-worth, etc.)
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Surviving failure
#1 is tough. Most of these kinds of issues take long periods of therapy and months of meditation & self-reflection. There isn’t an easy solution here.
#2 is more under our control. Surviving failure is the understanding that the worst-case scenario of taking an action is something we can deal with. The more experiences of coming away from failure without severe damage to our lives, the more confidence we have.
To increase likelihood of success, simplify the task.
The probability of “getting healthy” is zero percent.
But what about “starting a workout routine”? Easier, but it’s still us. Let’s say thirty percent.
How about “Run three times a week”? Now we’re talking — fifty percent.
This is usually where people stop. And why not? Seems simple enough. But often we underestimate our mind’s ability to give ourselves excuses to not do even the seemingly simple things. We have to realize that we can cut ourselves some slack without it meaning we’re stupid or incompetent.
“Put on shoes and go outside”.
Do not be afraid to sound silly. Do not be afraid to feel stupid. Just focus on putting on the shoes and walking outside. Maybe you can’t muster the motivation to run today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon enough you’ll be bored of simply putting on your shoes and going outside, and decide to take the steps to a better you.
In summary…
You don’t lack motivation. It’s currently pointed in the wrong direction, but we can change that. Motivation is an idea that we must break into its variables — confidence, & likelihood of success (which is the chance you’ll feel better doing something). To increase confidence, understand that you can survive your failures and come away alive at the end of the day. To increase likelihood of success, simplify the task, even if it ends up sounding silly. The most important thing is that we take a step in a direction, rather than no step at all.