The 3 Problems of Motivation

The difficulties we have in learning aren’t just about strategy. Sometimes you know exactly what to do… but you just don’t do it.

Let’s try to understand why motivation can stall, and how you can redesign your learning efforts to make it the best part of your day.

I see three common patterns to the problem of motivation:

When you have a lot of learning to do, but can’t seem to motivate yourself to do it, the problem typically falls into one or more of these categories.

Without a drive to learn, it’s hard to get started. Weak drives can include expectations from family members, teachers or employers. The things you “need” to do, but don’t “want” to do.

The problem here is that these drives can often be satisfied by avoidance. Placating parents is much easier to do by putting in a half effort than really trying to get good grades, so what you end up with is apathy.

You can flip this, of course, but you need a compelling vision to get you started. In Rapid Learner, we spend the first week on designing a project. A big part of this is to create an inspiring goal to drive you forward. If your project doesn’t excite you, all the learning advice in the world won’t help.

Sometimes you have a drive to learn, but end up procrastinating anyways. Why?

In this case, it can be an inverse of the previous problem. Instead of lacking reward, you worry about punishment. Fears can be of failure, feedback or performing.

Fortunately, we have a lot of research on anxiety. If you can expose yourself to the thing that you find unpleasant, and nothing bad happens, the response tends to diminish.

I often find reframing helpful. Begin each studying session with the idea that you’re going to get the questions all wrong. Do your first practice test with the idea that you’ll fail it. Open your flashcards with the intention that you’ll forget the first ten. Expect it to be hard, and you take the sting out of starting.

If your tendency to do something else is stronger than to study, you’ll get distracted. This is particularly true in our current environment where attention-stealing mechanisms are stronger than ever.

Distraction isn’t always an evil, however. Putting a book down because it got boring isn’t a failure of willpower but a recognition that in a world full of unread books, you should stick to the interesting ones. Switching projects too, can be useful, if a new goal matters more.

The problem is when distraction becomes compulsive. Those same mental subroutines that drive you towards greater rewards can backfire when the rewards are superficial.

The solution is to build a walled garden for your mind. Create rules and constraints that prevent toxic distraction without disabling what those mental algorithms were made for. Here are some that I find helpful:

Today, I want you to look at your motivation to learn and see how you could cultivate it:

If you’ve enjoyed my articles, or my book Ultralearning, my course Rapid Learner provides the system.

Related posts:

Sono passati molti anni dall’ultima volta che sono stata in Italia, ma uno dei ricordi piu’ belli della mia infanzia in Italia e’ la mia visita a Trieste. Trieste si trova a nordest, al confine con…

Every single item of the Lord’s creation has it’s own reason for being, and almost always — it would have its own pair or partner. I first encountered this while reading the Quran, chapter An-Naba…

In the event that you do it on the divider you will draw out the sexual sensation of “I should have you!” in both of you. Obviously, there are numerous sexual situations to browse and we present some…