Here’s a quick question. On a scale of 1–10, how motivated do you feel about doing whatever it is you need to do when you finish reading this? And what does that even mean?
As humans, most of us are intrinsically driven to pursue a few things – food, shelter, companionship and recognition. But when it comes to more abstract or long-term goals, some people seem endlessly energised while others struggle to get off the starting blocks.
So, what’s happening in your brain when you feel motivated? Can you harness that feeling or encourage it to happen more often? And is motivation actually what you need – or can you operate without it?
“From a neuropsychological perspective, the main regions of the brain that take part in motivation are the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, which need to work with each other correctly for effective action to occur,” says Dr Avigail Lev, a clinical psychologist and author of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Couples.
The amygdala is our emotional centre, she says, while the prefrontal cortex is the area that helps you plan and execute decisions. “The amygdala controls your brain’s fear response and can push you towards action. But anxiety works on a bell curve, so if you have too much, you become paralysed and can’t get things done.”
So, there’s an optimal amount of anxiety. This is where the prefrontal cortex comes in. “It helps to plan ahead, breaks things down into smaller steps, and uses our executive functioning and higher-order abilities to come up with an effective way of achieving our goals,” Lev says.
Incentive insights
The other part of the equation that you’re probably already familiar with, if only by name, is dopamine. This neurotransmitter has a crucial role in controlling motivation. The release of dopamine in response to an event signals learning about whether what we experienced was good or bad.
“It helps us to choose which actions to perform to gain the good things and avoid the bad things,” says Dr Amy Reichelt, a neuroscientist.
“Dopamine in the brain is either released by neurons firing in a steady-state basis or in ‘phasic’ surges that cause rapid increases or decreases in dopamine concentrations in specific brain structures, including the nucleus accumbens – a key brain region involved in reward and regulation of effort-related functions.”
According to Reichelt, a rewarding experience like eating a delicious chocolate bar might trigger a surge of dopamine signalling, but seeing an advert for that delicious chocolate bar, the prediction of a reward, can also have the same effect. Your attention focuses on the possible reward and creates an urge to replicate the initial rewarding experience.
In other words, dopamine isn’t just about liking, it’s also about wanting and seeking – and as such, it’s a key factor in propelling action. It’s been shown experimentally, for instance, that animals with depleted dopamine levels in the brain won’t perform behaviours that require high effort to gain a reward.
Meanwhile, people who were administered amphetamine, which augments dopamine release in the brain, showed an increased willingness to perform an effortful task.
This also means that dopamine signalling can be hijacked.
Most popular social media platforms, for instance, are built to encourage it with variable-reward signalling similar to the kind you see in slot machines, encouraging you to spend more time scrolling and liking than you otherwise would.
Read more:
- Can't break the procrastination cycle? Blame your parents
- Why are some people perfectionists?
- Your motivation is at rock bottom. Here's how neuroscience can help
Types of motivation
What does this mean for staying motivated? Firstly, and maybe most obviously, it means avoiding the things that motivate you to do things you don’t actually want to be doing, like resisting the siren call of social media. It also means finding ways to trigger a dopamine response when you do stuff you should be doing – but that’s a little bit more complex than it might sound.
“There are two overarching types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic,” says psychologist Dr Anthony Thompson of Arden University, Coventry.
“With intrinsic motivation, people engage with an activity or behaviour because it is inherently interesting – there isn’t necessarily any expectation of a tangible reward at the end. In contrast, with extrinsic motivation, people engage in an activity or behaviour for the purposes of gaining a tangible reward – such as money or recognition or avoiding a punishment.”
So extrinsic motivation might be helpful for starting a new behaviour or motivating yourself to do something you don’t find inherently interesting – like treating yourself to an episode of your favourite TV show after you've been for a run, say. But there’s an issue.
“Research initially viewed intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as being separate, but complementary, processes,” says Thompson. “However, studies have shown that extrinsically motivating someone by providing rewards can actually undermine their motivation, making people less interested in tasks that they were initially intrinsically motivated to complete when the reward is removed.”
This probably means that if you’re looking to stay motivated over the long term, intrinsic motivation is what you need. And if you don’t feel naturally curious or energised about whatever it is you’re trying to do, it’s a good idea to find a way to give it some meaning so that you do.
“Intrinsic motivation is enhanced when we feel a significance or purpose to our behaviour,” says Lev. “When we feel that our goal is deeply meaningful to us, we’re more likely to achieve it.” Lev encourages people to clarify their deeply held values and identify what specific actions and behaviours are in alignment with those values.
For example, if you can’t bring yourself to go to the gym, it might help to identify a deeply held value of yours that aligns with the behaviour – like, for example, eventually becoming the sort of fun grandparent who can run around a playground with your grandchildren.
Similarly, if you really can’t face another round of going through emails or attending meetings, have a think about which of your values those tasks are serving – like being a good provider for your family. Above all, put the right systems in place and you’ll still be able to get things done.
Here are some more tips that could help you with your motivation…
Your 8-step guide to motivation
Try these simple ideas on how to master motivation and maybe you'll be able to unlock more potential and achieve those goals that have always felt out of reach.
1. Dumb down your phone
Before you do anything else, minimise the influence of things that are competing for your attention. Your smartphone, for example. Studies suggest that just having a smartphone near you makes you more likely to pick it up.
Try keeping it out of sight by leaving it in a drawer or your bag if possible. There are also apps available that will transform your home screen from the colourful, alluring delight it is now to a boring blank screen with nothing but text on it.
Turn off notifications for anyone who doesn’t need to contact you urgently and consider changing your lock screen to a reminder of what’s actually worth worrying about — like your family or that cottage in the Cotswolds you’re hoping to own one day.
2. Set 'process' goals
“Outcome goals – like wanting to speak Spanish or lose 5kg (11lbs) – are common, but this type of goal tends to lean towards extrinsic motivation,” says Dr Anthony Thompson.
Outcome goals can be motivating at first due to the anticipatory emotions generated by imagining what it would be like to attain the goal. But they also tend to be long-term, so it’s difficult to track or measure progress towards the goal, which can degrade motivation over time. In contrast, process goals focus on the behaviour rather than the outcome.
For example, spending five minutes a day learning Spanish shifts the focus to elements that can be monitored and tracked more frequently. “It’s easier to track that you’ve completed 10 minutes of language learning than it is to track the goal of being able to speak Spanish,” says Thompson. Individuals receive more regular feedback on progress, which can be motivating.
3. Make goals small and achievable...
“Your brain releases dopamine every time you experience a sense of achievement, whether it’s completing a demanding task, reaching a goal, receiving acknowledgement for your hard work, or mastering something new,” says Dr Amy Reichelt. “This further motivates the behaviour that you’ve been performing.
When you set achievable goals and experience small wins along the way, your dopamine system is able to positively reinforce those behaviours, making you more likely to perform those behaviours again to get the same sense of intrinsic achievement.”
In other words, set yourself small, achievable goals rather than trying to motivate yourself through one long task and celebrate the small wins along the way.
4. ...And tie them to a bigger purpose
“The biggest mistake people make is assuming that the pleasure they receive from hitting their end goal will last,” says Dr Emma Seppälä, a psychologist and lecturer. “Unfortunately, that’s just not the case because the dopamine high is only momentary, and you’re left craving more. This is the brain’s way of ensuring we keep reproducing, eating, seeking recognition and so on.”
According to Seppälä, there’s one form of pleasure that doesn't subside so quickly and that’s the pleasure we receive from doing something for others – compassion and altruism, and connecting with something bigger or beyond ourselves.
In essence, the pleasure that offers a quick dopamine rush, known as hedonic pleasure, is centred around personal gratification, while the pleasure that endures, eudaimonic pleasure, is derived from actions that serve a greater purpose. So, you’ll be more motivated if you chase higher goals, but also if you tie your existing goals to a higher purpose.
5. Use the two-minute rule
“This rule, popularised by David Allen [productivity expert and author of Getting Things Done], works because it prevents small tasks from accumulating to the point where they feel overwhelming and
unmanageable,” says Dr Kristin Mann, an organisational psychologist.
“If a task takes two minutes or less to do, do it straightaway.” It could be sending an awkward follow-up email or wiping down the sink, but you could also expand it to a habit you’re trying to start, such as playing the piano or reading one page of a book. Just do the smallest amount you can.
6. Think ahead
"When you're looking at your alternatives, like staying on the couch or going to the gym, do a mental experiment," says Seppälä. "Imagine how you'll feel after doing both things for an hour - probably lethargic, lazy and a little down on the sofa, or accomplished, energised and happy at the gym.
Or if you're trying to cut down on sugar and you see a slice of cake, consider how you'll feel after you've eaten it."
7. Try 'backcasting'
Imagine yourself at 75 - healthy, wealthy and sitting in your garden sipping a cool drink. Great! How did you get there? Poker player Annie Duke calls this way of thinking 'backcasting.'
In one experiment, researchers found that imagining an event has already occurred increases people's ability to correctly identify reasons for that outcome by 30 per cent. So link your long-term goals to short-term actions and you're on your way.
8. Get moving
It's tempting to think that you need to be motivated to start an exercise programme, but, in fact, that might be thinking about things the wrong way around.
"Tonic dopamine levels may be increased by engaging in physical activity and exercise," says Reichelt. "This might help recalibrate your baseline dopamine, so it's less effortful to motivate yourself to complete a task that has been lurking on your to-do list for a while."
If a full-bore workout seems too intimidating, just a handful of squats or a quick walk over your lunch hour might do the trick.
About our experts
Dr Avigail Lev is a clinical psychologist and author of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Couples. She has also published two further books: The Interpersonal Problems Workbook: ACT to End Painful Relationship Patterns and ACT for Couples.
Dr Amy Reichelt is a neuroscientist and works for the School of Biomedicine at The University of Adelaide in Australia. Her work has been published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, iScience, and Journal of Medical Chemistry (to name a few).
Dr Anthony Thompson is a psychologist and principal lecturer working for Arden University, Coventry. He's the author of Recruitment Toolkit and Agile Working and Well-Being in the Digital Age. He has also been published in Occupational Psychology Outlook and Journal of Sports Sciences.
Dr Emma Seppälä is a psychologist and lecturer at Yale University. She is the author of The Happiness Track and Sovereign. Her work has also been published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, Journal of Traumatic Stress, and Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience (to name a few).
Dr Kristin Mann is an organisational psychologist and a managing director in leadership advisory practice for Raines International.
Read more: