#internal-vs-external-motivation

#internal-vs-external-motivation

I was 17 when I went to study law in UCD in 1990. At school in Boyle, Co Roscommon, I was interested in science and biology, but I did not take up the CAO offer to study genetics in Queen's as I was scared of maths.

For my sons, those experiences proved incredibly valuable. Both of them learned to value their athletic experiences not so much for the awards they won or accolades they received but for what participating in those events did for them on the inside. In comparing their childhood experiences to my long-distance running, I realized that many of my own fondest running memories did not come from the buckles or plaques I received but rather from the internal gratification I enjoyed in completing something really difficult.

Overall, the results show that meaningful work plays an important role in enhancing employee engagement, and that providing employees with skill and task variety is important to achieving that goal.

Somewhere between 'go to school' and 'get a job,' work became the central node of our lives-the very thing that defines us. We measure our worth by our output, our identity by our title, and our health by how much we can endure. The hours. The travel. The back-to-back meetings. The busyness.

Looking back, I think the incident happened because I was at an internal breaking point between who I had been and who I was becoming. It was Blair's first indication that the self-discipline she imposed on herself-insisting that she could do everything perfectly on her own-wasn't healthy. In addition to the significant stress of her high-pressure job, she was also still carrying the grief of losing her partner five years earlier.

For my colleagues and me, whose task it is to improve population health, we architect specific health interventions because doing so gives us a measurement advantage. Through good intervention design, we (or the intervention's facilitators) can track attendance, program completion, vital signs, functional capacity, clinical labs, and downstream health utilization. Yet, despite our best design efforts, we still chronically face a fundamental challenge: program adherence.

In The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, Harvard philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein argues that human flourishing rests on two distinct 'cornerstones of our humanness': connectedness and the longing to matter. Connectedness—what we often call belonging—is 'the feeling that there are particular others who are prepared to pay us special attention, whether we deserve it or not.' It is unconditional, relational, and necessary. But it is not sufficient.

Here's something that might sound counterintuitive: people who achieve their goals don't actually take them that seriously. Wait, what? Let me explain. While goal-setters treat their objectives like sacred vows they can't break (and then feel crushed when they fail), achievers approach them more like scientists in a lab. They're curious about what will happen, not attached to a specific outcome.

While goals can create structure in your life, give you something to strive for, and even inspire you, reaching the goal itself is a result of what you do to get there. The actions you take are the process-how you're actually filling the time that is your life. Sometimes, if you're lucky, what you do is fulfilling; it brings out the best in you-your talents, interests, and skills.

When I was training as a therapist, I learned the theories of healing that I was expected to know. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) both appealed to me and rubbed me the wrong way. (CBT is a therapy that focuses on changing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors into more adaptive, helpful ones.) On one hand, it offered structure and practical tools. On the other hand, language like core schemas made people sound like science projects, and cognitive distortions often felt shaming to me.

If you ever felt your motivation drain away under a micromanaging boss, he gave you the language for what was happening to you. If you ever sensed that grades and gold stars were somehow diminishing the very learning they were supposed to enhance, he explained why. And in doing so, he helped liberate psychology from one of its most limiting assumptions. The Black Box of Behaviorism For much of the 20th century, the dominant paradigm in psychological research, behaviorism, treated humans as input-output machines.

Humans are wired for growth. Self-determination theory shows that well-being depends on three core needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Interestingly, meeting external markers of success does not guarantee these needs are met internally. You can have stability without autonomy, comfort without meaning, or connection without authenticity.

Ability is thought of as being an internal stable factor over which a person may not think they have any control. However, one should consider that the ability to control one's own learning may become available to an individual if they actively engage in their learning. This active learning engagement has the potential to change neurological pathways, leading to changes in cognitive and skill-acquisition capacities, as well as advances in knowledge, potential, insight, and creativity(Arrowsmith-Young, 2012; Coyle, 2009; Doidge, 2010, 2015).

Praise. Universally good, right? Those of you who are fans of Alfie Kohn's (2018) work know it isn't. Praise comes with baggage. I (EB) was reminded of another downside by a young adult patient who sees praise as invalidating or dismissive of a person's experience. What about this exchange? Person: "I can't do it." Response: "Yes, you can. You are so amazing and strong."