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To achieve a goal, you must want to do what is required. However, not all motivation is the same, and some things that motivate people to succeed might even be harmful.
When the new year begins, many of us consider what we want to do in the next months. And, when we do so, it’s critical to analyze the difficulties themselves, as well as why we’re taking them on.
For example, if you wish to write a novel, are you attempting to create an universe and characters to inhabit it? Or are you doing it to give your culture something significant? You may want to prove to yourself that you can get published, or you may want to be famous and believe that writing a best-seller will help you get there.
“Self-determination theory,” says that each of these questions is a different source of motivation that has different good and bad effects on our performance and well-being. This research shows that if you pick the right goals, you will be more determined, and your success will make you feel better.
Motivation could be a reward
Like many scientific ideas, the self-determination theory has been around for a long time. A few studies from the 1970s gave it its start, but it was taken seriously when a seminal paper on motivation, performance, and well-being came out in 2000.
The theory is based on the positive idea that most people want to learn and grow independently. “It’s based on the idea that people care about growth,” says Anja Van den Broeck, a professor of economics and business at KU Leuven in Belgium.
The most obvious sign of a growth orientation in a child is that they are always interested in what’s happening around them. But adults can also be naturally drawn to and interested in certain things, which makes completing a task its reward. (Think of a time when you were so interested in something that you didn’t realize how much time had passed.) We call this kind of drive “intrinsic.”
But sometimes, we don’t have enough “intrinsic” motivation to do something we need to do to reach our goals. In these situations, we need motivation that comes from outside of ourselves.
These things:
Identification: Even if you don’t like the activity, it may fit your bigger goals and values, giving you another reason to do it. Teachers might spend more time correcting homework because they know how important education is for their student’s futures. Even though writing can be hard, aspiring novelists might keep revising their manuscripts because they know they are making something important.
We sometimes put pressure on ourselves to keep our egos and self-images in good shape. But, Van den Broeck says, “What you do may change how you feel about yourself.” For example, you’re worried that if you don’t reach your goal, you’ll feel bad about yourself and like you’ve failed.
External control: People are sometimes driven by things like money and fame that come from the outside world. In some workplaces, outside rules may come in the form of bonuses, and pay raises based on how well people do their jobs. So you keep working on getting money, even if the tasks themselves are boring and don’t seem to lead anywhere.
People have motivation if they don’t have many of these things happen to them. Conversely, people who aren’t motivated tend to be less productive and less interested, which makes sense. This might be most obvious in schools, where students skip class whenever possible and have no plans to work hard on their studies.
Psychologists who study self-determination theory have made different questionnaires to measure these kinds of motivation in many different situations. But in the 20 years of research since then, some clear patterns have become clear.
Van den Broeck, for example, recently read 104 papers about what motivates people at work. As expected, intrinsic motivation—an interest or pleasure in the job itself—predicted better job satisfaction, engagement, and initiative, and it kept people from burning out. Of course, having a job that feels important or meaningful is good for happiness, but it’s even more important for how well you do your job.
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Most of the time, the effects of other types of motivation could be clearer. For example, introjection (making a link between your work and how you feel about yourself) seems to help you do a better job, but it also makes you more stressed and puts you at a higher risk of burnout, which is a high price to pay for professional success.
For example, giving people money to do well was the worst kind of outside regulation. As a person’s main source of motivation, it had little effect on things like engagement and performance, and it also made people feel worse. There is even some evidence that people who are only motivated by outside rewards are likelier to lie about how well they did to get the praise they want.
The idea of happiness
Self-determination theory is not just about work; it can also help us decide how to spend our free time.
Do you want to learn a language just because you think it will sound cool? Or is it because they want to learn about the culture or need to talk to people who speak the language? If you want to learn a language for the social status of being able to speak more than one language, you will find the hard work much harder than someone who wants to learn the language to learn more than one language.