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Becoming great at anything
requires energy, direction, and persistence. How do athletes, musicians,
and other experts do it? Their secret isn't talent but motivation.
Motivation makes you work hard
and propels you to accomplish things. Motivation can be intrinsic—you study
French because you love the way it sounds and you're interested in French
culture—or extrinsic (you learn French because you have to for work).
Research shows that intrinsic
motivation produces better results. Intrinsically motivated people are more
interested, excited, and confident, and as a consequence, they perform
better, are inspired to persist when things get rough, and are generally
more creative (Deci & Ryan, 1991).
Intrinsic motivation is also
connected with higher levels of wellbeing (Ryan, Deci, & Grolnick,
1995) and self-esteem (Deci & Ryan, 1995), as well as with prosocial
behavior, i.e., actions that benefit other people or society as a whole
(Waterman, 1981).
Intrinsic goals + growth mindset = flow
Highly motivated people tend to
have a growth mindset—they believe they can improve with practice and see
failures as learning opportunities. They also enjoy the work involved in
pursuing their goals, which means they more easily and frequently enter a
state of complete absorption, or “flow.”
So, if you want to be more
motivated, cultivating a growth mindset and making goals personally
meaningful to you are good ways to start.
These strategies also help:
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Set powerful goals. Write
them down. Focus on the experience and feelings you want to create.
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Use adjectives. This, says life
coach Martha Beck, increases your chances of picking goals that will
actually make you happy.
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Make your goals (but especially
your progress) public. Writing down your goals
makes you more likely to achieve them. Sharing them with a friend and then
sending that friend a weekly update helps increase those chances even more,
according to a recent study (Matthews, 2015).
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Start small. Whatever your
goal, start by doing a very small part of it. The simple act of completing
a small part of a bigger task will give you the boost you need to get
motivated. Author Cheryl Strayed set out to write the Great American Novel
but proceeded to watch reality TV instead. It was only when she embraced
mediocrity—by deciding to write a book, any book—that she overcame her
writer's block.
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Don’t go it alone. If you are
having trouble motivating yourself to go do something, invite a friend to
join you. Making a commitment with someone will give you double the
motivation.
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