Intrinsic motivation comes from within ourselves, while extrinsic motivation comes from external sources.
Extrinsic motivation is wonderful when it’s there - take full advantage of it when it comes upon you! However, do not make the mistake of relying on it.
The best motivation is intense and rare. If it became frequent and easy to feel, it wouldn’t be so special. Usually we feel it after significant events such as a heavy loss or trauma - let’s hope you don’t need to keep having those in order to work hard!
Anyone who’s listened to me long enough knows I’m a big fan of working with our internal chimp, based on the extended metaphor put forth in the Chimp Paradox. When you want to get yourself to do something outside of your comfort zone, you actually need to motivate your chimp quite a bit. They are the parts of us that really control our behaviours when it comes to our emotional centre. If we don’t negotiate well with them, you’ll regularly wonder why your plans of going to the gym turn into sitting on the couch eating a tub of Ben & Jerry’s.
Despite wanting to behave a certain way you’re constantly doing the opposite because the chimp is much stronger than the human.
Work with your chimp, not against it
When you start cooperating with your chimp instead of fighting it, you will spend less energy and time on internal battles and you will come up against less resistance. It’s been over 10 years since I read The Chimp Paradox so for the best step by step process and understanding I recommend you go directly to the source or read this handy shortform. Here I will explain briefly how I recommend approaching intrinsic motivation using the chimp, human and computer model.
The Chimp
Your chimp wants to feel safe - if it feels like you’re bringing it into an environment that will embarrass or threaten it, it will try to keep you away with every argument it can. Part of feeling safe comes from feeling you have approval from others around you. The Chimp is also interested in perpetuating the species.1
My top tips:
Support these traits by ensuring your environment promotes a sense of security - all female gyms are available in some places for example to help women feel safer while they workout.
When it comes to a fitness session, you’re about to do something that is physically uncomfortable and actually stimulates the fight or flight physiological response in your body.2 Reassure your chimp that you are going to be bringing it back to a cosy, warm place afterwards to chill out and eat. You can also say a few things beforehand about the benefits of what you’re about to do. Go deep here - ‘I’ll be fitter’ is a weak argument. You need to get to the emotional side of things to be convincing, such as ‘I will be a stronger player for my team and they will be proud of me’.
If you’re starting something brand new, you may want to reassure yourself that if you don’t feel comfortable after 10 minutes you are allowed to leave/stop. Reassuring your chimp that you are not trapped and you have the power to change things in the moment can be very comforting and make it easier to start something.
For deeper issues you are strongly advised to talk to a therapist or read psychology books to sift through the inner workings of your brain.
The Human
The human wants to feel good about itself; it generally cares about its social status, self-fulfillment and fitting in with groups. However, I also think it has a bit of an ego - so don’t deny it a bit of glory and praise every so often!
The great thing about the human is that it deals in rational thinking3. It wants to live in a civil, cordial way and get along with others.
Consider these points for how you approach activities:
Give yourself an opportunity to socialise and feel like you belong in a group - many teams have a fitness group they post into afterwards so even if they’re doing their fitness alone, they know they’re actually part of a group working together towards a common goal. Many others get themselves a buddy they report to or use social media to share what they’ve done. I don’t really feel like holding yourself accountable to others always works but the aspect I do like is how you get to show what you’re doing to others; it can help you feel proud of yourself which is going to add up to more self-esteem and will make wanting to do the activity self-reinforcing with practice.
Actively praise yourself while doing the behaviour and remind yourself of the benefits during it too.
Approach your reasoning with intelligence: write down the obvious advantages of your activity and look at it daily. Or a cost-benefit analysis may be particularly helpful if you know you’ve struggled to stay on track for long before. The disadvantages will highlight to you your barriers which you may simply not have really thought of before. If the advantages significantly outweigh the disadvantages when you weigh up the % of important for each to you, you are more likely going to be able to stick to the new behaviour. If instead you feel the disadvantages outweigh the advantages then your brain does not believe it is in its best interest to have this habit. You need to then work on fixing that from whatever angle makes most sense.
Personal records are worth chasing - achievements are critical for feeling like you’re becoming a better version of yourself and this leads to greater feelings of self-fulfillment. The goals you set should be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timebound). If you make these too easy they won’t have enough meaning to really make you care. If you make them too hard you’ll never feel satisfied with the small steps you take because it will feel like you’ve still got a mountain to climb. It’s best I feel to decide on a mixture of easy-hard goals over short-long periods of time.
Examples of personal goals:
Easy, short-term
Make it to the gym 3 times this week
Run 1km this week
Get up at 7am every day this week
Avoid all sugar and processed food for the next 3 days
Hard, medium to long-term
Run a marathon in 6 months time
Increase my deadlift by 20% in the next 3 months
Lose 10lbs in the next 2 months
Attend 4 tournaments without any games missed in a season
Achievement comes in so many forms; medals are the obvious one but simply finishing a fitness class can be another person’s. There is no such thing as an achievement that’s too small as long as it took you out of your comfort zone. As you achieve more and become more resilient, your goals can become greater.
The Computer
The computer is based around your beliefs, both positive and negative. Some are more deeply ingrained than others. Some will be fixed from childhood and very difficult to change (but not impossible) while many others can be replaced with more helpful beliefs pretty easily once you spot them.
When it comes to fitness, some people may have deep insecurities about what they’re capable of doing and need to work on their self-esteem before they can even step foot into a gym. For most others, it can be a bit more superficial and straightforward: you simply have to truly believe that what you’re doing is going to achieve what it’s supposed to. If you don’t trust the process, whether through lack of understanding or a way to measure progress, then you’re more likely to quit early. Make sure you feel educated on facts and not feelings when it comes to healthy habits.
One More Thing
Schedule breaks. This is especially for people who really push themselves hard. If all you do is 100% effort sessions then you can end up getting burnt out, injured or sick. When this happens you are forced into a break. This can then be an opportunity for the chimp to take over and not let you back into your exercise routine for fear of the same cycle repeating itself. Your computer will also start storing negative beliefs that you are not strong enough if you continue to repeat the same pattern of abuse.
Be kind and encouraging to yourself while still holding high standards!
Please feel free to share your best practices for self-motivation or ask any questions if you’d like some help!
Not super relevant here but worth mentioning as a single person may find it much easier to get out into group activities if they are on the hunt for a mate!
Which is very, very healthy. We want our bodies to experience fight or flight for short periods at random intervals and then, most importantly, to come back out of it. When we are in a chronic state of fight or flight - such as in extreme anxiety - we have the lost the ability to do this.
I think it’s also worth knowing that your human part is the ‘real’ you, the conscious part of you. This is the part of you that you ideally want in charge of your actions.