Motivation

We often find that clients are struggling a bit with motivation. It's a complex issue, but I think I'm beginning to get my head around it.

There are some theories that can help us to understand motivation a bit better. First there is the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation - intrinsic motivation is where you're doing it just because you enjoy it (eg me eating cake), and extrinsic is where you do something because you know it's going to lead to something else (eg me going for a run). Intrinsic motivation is generally thought to be more powerful, and tends to lead to more sustainable action (as evidence by the amount of cake I eat vs the number of runs I go for). But there are different types of extrinsic motivation, and some are better than others. The best kind of extrinsic motivation comes when the knock on impact of the action is something that genuinely matters to the individual eg studying hard at school in order to get in to get into medical school (if that is your dream), or working hard to earn money to feed yourself and your family.

So that's a basic distinction. Then there is self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci 2000) which breaks down a little the kinds of things that get us motivated. This theory proposes that we are driven to meet three key needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness. This theory links nicely with the evidence about job satisfaction, which suggests that some of the key factors that bring job satisfaction are autonomy, the opportunity to develop your skills and good colleagues.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs (and this concept has been very much embraced by the most recent positive psychology movement) gives a very encouraging perspective which is that we all have a desire to improve ourselves, learn and develop. And this will inevitably happen, unless something gets in the way.

So, what else?

Well there is self-efficacy, which seems to have an impact on pretty much everything I ever seem to come across. This is the confidence to feel that you are going to be able to manage it. There is outcome expectations, which is related but distinct, which is the degree to which you feel that you are likely to succeed - the higher your belief of your chance of success, the more effort you are prepared to put in to achieving your goal. There is something called future orientation - which is whether you think much about the future, and instrumentality, which is the degree to which you link current behaviour with future outcomes. High degrees of both lead to higher motivation. There is your locus of control, - those with an internal locus of control feel that they have the power to influence the outcome, and those with an external locus of control feel that they have no influence on what happens. Those with an internal locus of control are much more likely to feel motivated to act. And finally there are goals, which can lead to clear identification of the steps involved and increased motivation to put plans into action.

I think I need another post to start to look at the practical tools that we can use, or suggest to our clients to take advantage of this understanding of motivation, but there is one last thing, that I find really interesting and helpful. It is that action leads to motivation. (Kearns and Gardiner 2011). Usually, we feel that we need motivation in order to act. When the motivation comes, then we will start moving. But actually, motivation usually only kicks in after you've started. The useful lessons that we can learn from that is that if there is something that you need to do, your best bet is to start it - even if you don't want to. More often than not, after about 15 minutes, it will dawn on you that you're actually finding it quite interesting. I have personally found this a really helpful strategy. When there is something that I need to do but don't really fancy, I will simply get started, promising myself that I can stop it after ten minutes if I want to. I almost never do.

Kearns, H. and Gardiner, M. (2011) Waiting for the motivation fairy Nature 472-127
http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2011/110407/pdf/nj7341-127a.pdf