Why You Don't Need Motivation

By Marie-Pier Charron

As a life coach, I often hear people say they lack motivation, in fact, the motivation discussion is almost a ritual w/my new clients.

You really want something, in fact you almost need it, but you just don't have the drive to get to it. As a result, you blame yourself; you get stuck in your disappointment, your guilt, or your frustration further & further away from your goal.

But why are we not always driven enough to meet our objectives in the first place? Is it that we're not sufficiently determined? Or maybe we aren't tough & strong enough?

The way I see things, motivation is akin to the sap that runs in the tree: it keeps the tree alive, in fact, it's essential to it,  but it's useless if the tree (our objective) is rooted in poor, unhealthy grounds.

It's not our motivation that makes the objective real, it's the other way around: when our goals are healthy, the drive to take action flows naturally.

When our goals are unhealthy, we have to push ourselves all along the path to "success" & we don't even feel like celebrating at the end (when we do get there).

So what's an "unhealthy" objective? It's an objective we hold for the wrong reasons, or w/the wrong attitude: it's rooted in poor grounds. It's not that we shouldn't lose weight; it's just that we decided to do so because we don't like (let alone love) ourselves & we think that will patch the problem.

It's not that we shouldn't start this new business; it's just that we're dead afraid of failure. And there's nothing wrong w/studying law, it's just that we do so only to honor our (deceased) fathers values & wishes.

We don't experience in life what we hope for, but rather what we think we deserve, what we expect, what we're the most confident in.

Thats how we create. We will not feel much motivation for a goal that is incongruent w/our profound beliefs & thoughts, as idyllic as this goal may be.

Motivation isn't about toughness & strength it's about alignment. It's not necessarily about wanting something very badly but more about wanting something completely. 

When we lack motivation, some part of us is saying, "I don't want to reach that goal it doesn't serve me." Maybe it's time to change our objective maybe we need to look inward & take care of other things first (see the list above).  Or maybe we just need to take a deep breath, relax & listen to the wind for a while.

" Think "impossible" & dreams get discarded, projects get abandoned & hope for wellness is torpedoed.  

But let someone yell the words "It's possible," & resources we hadn't been aware of come rushing in to assist us in our quest.

I believe we're all potentially brilliant & creative, but only if we believe it, only if we have an attitude of positive expectancy toward our ideas & only if we act on them. "

Greg Anderson

Motivation

We’ve all known highly motivated people; they’re eager, driven, determined, confident, single-minded & obsessed.

Strong motives take us in many directions:

• saints & crooks
• stars & repeated failures
• love & hate
• awe-inspiring & disgusting

Think of Lincoln studying law by candlelight in New Salem. Think of Gandhi fasting. Think of the work to become a champion in any area. Edison said,

"Genius is 1% inspiration & 99% perspiration."

What makes us want to sweat that much? We have burning needs; we strive for meaning & values; we seek external pay offs & self-satisfaction w/zeal; we develop keen interests.

Some of our drives may be innate; the natural condition of the species. But, certainly, many motives are learned, so they can be changed. e.g., Adler (1951) thought children quickly learned they were inferior & spent a lifetime striving for superiority.

Field Theory says that environmental forces & the ways we’ve learned to view our situations - determine our incentives, goals & intentions.

Social Learning Theory suggests that motivation depends on observing how to get the rewards we want in the environment & our faith in our ability (self-efficacy) to do it.

Attribution theory states that achievers have learned that they’re able to succeed, that hard work increases the chances of success, that learning about themselves facilitates success & that succeeding is enjoyable & worthwhile.

If you want to succeed but haven't learned those things, you can if you want to.

All of us are pushed in many directions by many powerful physiological, social-cultural & psychological needs. Most of us yearn for food, air, shelter, sex, affiliation, love, self-acceptance, achievement, power, mastery, self-actualization, etc.

Those needs increase our motivation in various specific, usually positive directions. Moreover, there are drives & emotions that push us in many negative directions, such as feelings of inferiority that become self-fulfilling prophecies, desires to avoid responsibility & success, beliefs that we don’t deserve success, self-defeating rebellion against doing what we’re pressured to do, tendencies to avoid any self-evaluation & of course, greed, hatred & other self-destructive or self-defeating drives.

i.e., on the same exam, why does good student A set high goals & study hard, while good student B expects to fail & works frantically & good student C blows off studying altogether?

All 3 want to achieve & have been successful. Their different possible selves may explain the differences in their attitudes & behaviors.

Student A is an "optimist," expects to do well & works hard to meet or beat his/her past achievements.

Student B is a "pessimist," fears careless failure, overlooks past successes & predicts doom to soften the blow when it comes. He/she tries real hard to avoid all the awful outcomes he/she is imagining.

Student C is a "self-handicapper" who wants to impress others but fears getting an average score which would tarnish his/her image of being brilliant, so he/she hopes to do fairly well on the exam while letting everyone know he/she hasn't studied, thus, preserving the image of being real smart.

We don't yet know why people use different strategies, but surely we can learn to change our thinking about our possible selves & our future, thus, changing our achievement motivation.

Likewise, different possible selves may explain why 3 people, all interested in socializing w/the opposite sex, might behave very differently, e.g. one goes to parties or the bars every night, another only goes to places where he/she already knows people & a third doesn't go out at all.

There are many possible selves involved: "I'm attractive," "I'm unattractive," "I'm shy," "I'm not likely to meet anyone interesting," "All they're interested in is sex," "I'd like to be the center of attention," "I can drink & have fun anywhere," "I don't want to look like I'm on the make or loose," "I don't want to be seen out alone," etc.

We can change our self-concept, then our behavior (or the reverse, see method #5).

The nature of a "weak will" seems to involve a conflict between

So, there are several critical aspects of self-directed motivation:

One is deciding what you value; what you want to achieve; & how much you’re willing to invest to be successful.

Second is making a commitment to change, which includes arranging & recognizing the wonderful pay offs of changing & the terrible disappointments of failing to change (see step 4).

Third is giving up the old way of behaving & deciding how -step by step, to accomplish the goals you value highly. This requires self-discipline, self-control, scheduling, practice & reinforcement (see chapters 4 & 11).

If, on the other hand, you decide you’d sort-of-like-to change, that is you have some high, maybe even noble aspiration but never get much accomplished in that direction, you may simply be enjoying having the goal but living a lie.

Example: the person who wants to be a music or sport star but only practices for 15 minutes 2 or 3 times a week. The pleasurable fantasy is there & they tell everyone "I want to be really good" but the commitment & passion aren’t there.

Most likely, such a person will never muster the drive or motivation to get "over the hump" that stands in the way of all goals. Here we only deal w/that one crucial factor; mustering up the motivation.

Depending on the techniques you select to use, it may take only 15 or 20 minutes per day or many hours over a period of weeks.

Common problems

If you lack motivation, how can you do the things recommended in this method?

Perhaps you can start w/a very simple, easy method, such as:

• scheduling your time a little better
• rewarding some desired behavior
• daydreaming about the future

Other complex factors are intertwined w/ motivation:

•  values
• emotions
• skills
• expectations
• self-esteem
• irrational thoughts
• unconscious motives & so on...

Simple approaches may not work.

Effectiveness, advantages & dangers

Relatively little is known about motivating ourselves. McClelland & Steele (1972) suggest most of the above steps but much of this research by McClelland lacks control groups & focuses primarily on developing entrepreneurs in foreign countries.

That’s a far cry from helping a person who doesn't know where she is going or doesn't do his home work. McCombs & Pope (1994), McHolland & McInnis (n.d.), Alschuler (1973) & de Charms (1976) have, however, raised the academic motivation of students.

This method gets at the crux of the matter, in my opinion. That's why chapter 4 deals w/motivation so much. With enough motivation you could produce almost any self-improvement you wanted. I suspect the eventual key to having "will power" lies in our philosophy of life, our dreams about the future & our willingness to take responsibility for our lives.

There may be some dangers associated w/"trying too hard." You may give up prematurely because it seems too difficult to make changes or achieve the goals you’ve set. It may also hurt more if you fail after trying very hard to succeed.

Brim (1992) has a neat book about managing ambition: how we handle our drive for success or mastery, how we adjust our goals to fit our ability, how we find satisfaction in doing what we can.