The Psychology of Motivation
Exploring Self-Determination Theory
We all strive to reach the finish line every now and then. However, that finish line is often out of reach, just out of peripheral vision. We get exhausted and angry at ourselves. We beat ourselves up.
As an aspiring therapist who has a tendency to sometimes over-study, over-volunteer, and over-work, I believe that we are our own worst critics. We see the worst of ourselves — it’s our overarching story versus the other person’s highlight reel.
However, we have to remind ourselves: that comparing an entire book to a highlight reel is quite unjust. It’s better to either compare two sets of highlight reels or two sets of overarching stories.
Either way, motivation is a rather fascinating topic. According to the book Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation by Edward L. Deci and Richard Flaste, motivation is primed under self-determination theory.
Self-determination theory posits that each person has the ability to manage and make choices surrounding personal lives, including decisions pertaining to our overall physical and mental health.
Having self-determination means that people have the ability to exert control in their lives and in turn, can become more motivated to instigate change in their lives.
Specifically, we are looking at:
- Autonomy, where you are in command of your own situation through your own series of choices/decisions.
- Competence, where you have the right level of knowledge and skills for the task, and you don’t feel out of depth.
- Connectedness, where you can draw meaning and relevance between two or more interrelated details.
Once we take care of autonomy, competence, and connectedness, then we can take care of our intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation requires us to immerse ourselves in many activities, for some kind of internal reward, like unadulterated curiosity, fun, and enjoyment.
Often, as adults weary of the world, we immerse ourselves with extrinsic motivation, such as doing a task because of money, power, and critical acclaim.
Thus, we need to consider that our motivation should be:
- Driven intrinsically towards directionality and/or growth
- Be manageable, easy-to-research, and interdisciplinary
Overall, while it’s not easy to maintain true motivation, it does take a lot of practice to keep it intrinsic, rational, easy, and linear. With time, perhaps you can exert greater control with the deck that you have, even across unknown and vast parameters.
As Deci and Flaste noted in their book,
There is an aspect of intrinsic motivation that sets it quite apart from extrinsic control...It is an aspect that is almost spiritual. It has to do with life itself: It is vitality, dedication, transcendence. It is what one experiences at those times that Robert Henri called ‘more than ordinary moments of existence’.
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