By: Camden Baucke MS LLP
Motivation is a vital part of living. It’s what gets you up in the morning and it’s what gets you through the day.
It’s the drive that fuels everything you do, from small errands to big responsibilities
Unfortunately, motivation often stems from a place of neurotic productivity. You might believe motivation should lead to productivity, and from productivity should come identity. Self-improvement influencers will tell you that you must be more “disciplined” to become a better person.
On the contrary, modern science has revealed that motivation is much more than willpower, it’s also neuroscience. Our brain has much to do with how we focus on achieving goals.
Between the two camps of willpower and neurology is psychology. It’s the vital bridge between our brain, actions, and the outside world. Personal choices matter just as much as neuroscience, because they happen at the same time.
To better understand motivation, we must ironically uncover our drive to understand them. What do you get from motivation? Why do you need it?
This article will dive into what motivation is, how we lose it, and how to get it.
What is Motivation?
Motivation comes from the Latin word “motivus” which meant to “move”, but it is also possibly adopted from a German word meaning “incentive” or “stimulus”. Only around one hundred years ago was “motivation” first used in clinical language.
Motivation is the cognitive foundation upon which actions, goals, and behavior are built. It is the deepest sense of “why” something happens.
In most basic terms, it’s the fuel that takes you from A to B. A is where you are, and B is where you want to go.
For example, a common use of motivation from A to B is to reduce anxious feelings. “A” might represent feeling “anxious” and “B” might represent feeling “better” so your motivation is to feel relief from negative feelings. However, this motivation and goal often depends on your methods of following through.
Motivation is performative. Why go to work? Some might say “money” because their B is something they can purchase with what they earn. However, you can also steal that money, but that is unethical and riskier. Just because a motivation is strong, doesn’t mean the action taken is healthy or helpful.
Motivation is also person specific. For example, I’m often motivated to eat Chipotle, but that’s not everyone’s preference. Thus, people might not share that motivation with me. Even when it comes to survival, people often have their own reasons for meeting their needs. That’s why many people enjoy the food that also helps them survive. Some folks love their home for being more than shelter and some people enjoy work because they’re passionate about it.
Motivation is your “why” for behaviors and goals, and can often depend on your perspective of what needs to get done. To better understand motivation, it’s crucial to understand the reward of your B, and the reason you want to get away from A.
The Neuroscience of Motivation
Dopamine is the viral buzzword of motivation. Unironically, people seem to be obsessed with this molecule.
It is a neurotransmitter created in the substantia nigra and is most commonly associated with the reward system in the brain’s mesolimbic system.
Dopamine is an important part of behavior, but it is not explicitly released for pleasure. Dopamine is more so connected to anticipation, our brain’s method of evaluating actions to be more or less likely in the future. Dopamine is not the crux of motivation, and there’s plenty of myth regarding the role of dopamine in behavior.
You can’t “dopamine detox” your way out of depression or anxiety.
Dopamine’s role in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) is to manage higher levels of thoughts and emotions. It’s helps to manage ‘s involved in movement, motivation, mood, and memory.
While the neurotransmitter dopamine is involved in motivation, it also lends itself towards psychological concepts like mood, thoughts, and emotion.
The Psychology of Motivation
Evolutionary psychologists claim that humans increased their chances of survival by pursuing common motivations. For example, the deeply entrenched desire to belong to a group might resemble the motivation our ancestors had to join a tribe, or else they could die in the wild.
Cognitively, motivations can be born from relationships with ourselves, others, and the world. You might feel motivated to play baseball because your father introduced you to the pleasure of playing it.
Motivation is built on expectations, what will need to happen to get from A to B. This is where the neuroscience of dopamine and the VTA form our sense of anticipation.
Life experiences can teach you what goals motivating, and what are the methods you take to achieve them. Not all of our motivations are healthy, nor is all achievement meaningful.
For example, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common example of unhealthy motivation. Obsessions are intrusive thoughts which cause distress. Compulsions are unnecessary and time-consuming actions taken to reduce that distress. However, OCD often develops from dangerous or threatening scenarios.
Your history can provide you with motivations, both healthy and unhealthy. You can change motivations, but it’s worth asking yourself, what’s the value you’ve been looking for?
Are your motivations adaptations to your past, or helpful for your future?
How Do You Get Motivation?
If you want to feel more motivated, you need to address your methods and your goals.
For your goals, your motivations need to be personally appealing. This means that you must be invested in whatever you receive in the end. For example, you might be invested in a promotion at your company for money, but how does that goal make you feel?
For your methods, you need to look at your motivation to endure the process of achieving your goals. For example, if you play basketball, the process is practice. If you don’t enjoy the process of practicing, then you might not actually feel motivated by the sport itself.
Motivation for goals or methods is driven by one thing: value.
Why do you get out of bed to work in the morning? The value of money. Money which you use to meet your needs, spend, save, or invest. If you don’t find any value in the goals, or in the feelings you have during the process of achievement, then you might not have any value in your goals. Even if you do, healthy motivations require maitenance.
To sustain motivation, you must reward yourself. Milestones should be reinforced with receiving something nice or ridding of something burdensome. In psychology, we call this positive or negative reinforcement. Celebrating your minor successes is what allows you to continue feeling motivated. It doesn’t make you “content” or “mediocre”. Celebrating your victories, no matter how small, positively affects the brain. It’s the activation of the brain’s reward network, which makes behaviors more likely to happen in the future.
How Do you Lose Motivation?
It’s easy to lose motivation, no matter how healthy or well-intended they might be. It’s easiest to lose motivation when it’s unhealthy.
The most common unhealthy motivation I see is the desire to eliminate negative feelings. This is the drive to find relief, not satisfaction .
Essentially, this motivation encourages you to run from something rather than question why it’s there in the first place. This is an avoidant motivation. These motivations don’t add any positive feelings to your life, nor do they add any positive meaning.
Another unhealthy motivation is meaningless expectation. You might be driven to achieve because it’s “expected” or the “standard”. This means that your milestones are meaningless. That they are not worth celebrating because they’re not special. This takes away any reward that would reinforce you to continue achieving. It’s not humble, it’s self-sabotage by stripping your goals of any personal motivation.
The third barrier to healthy motivation is distractions. If you set yourself up for failure, you won’t be surprised. For example, if you study for a class, but leave your TV on, get poor sleep, and frequently answer texts, then your motivation is being disrupted by distractions. Healthy motivations must be protected by setting yourself up to succeed.
The final barrier for healthy motivations is criticism. No, I don’t mean critique or productive comments on how to improve. If you dare to dream and have healthy motivations, other people might not like that. They might feel jealous or act pedantically. To sustain your healthy motivations, you must surround yourself with trustworthy people. Folks you know will challenge you, but not try to sabotage you.
The Method to Motivation
Our motivation is our history. It’s the progression of humanity and our individual stories.
Motivation has a neurological basis, but it is also ingrained in psychology.
To find motivation, you must look within yourself. What goals or methods would align with who you are and what you want.
When you chase your goals, make sure you reinforce your efforts along the way.
Steer away from avoidant motivations, meaningless expectations, distractions, and hurtful criticism.
Better understand your A, your B, and your reason for wanting to get there.
Follow your internal compass and enjoy the journey.
Reflections 
Leave a comment