Ask HN: How do you develop internal motivation?

[Xophmeister]

I believe I have a problem with internal motivation, in the sense that I have none, or very little at best. This doesn't lead me to, what one might call, "procrastination". Rather, it just makes me idle; content in doing nothing. I say "content", but obviously I wouldn't be asking this question if I didn't see it as an issue!

However, I don't just sit around doing nothing, a lot of the time. I attribute this to external motivators. This applies, as far as I can see, to almost every aspect of my life. To give an example: I know how to cook, but if I'm cooking for myself, I'll probably be lazy -- I might just eat something straight out of the packet! -- but if I'm cooking for myself and others, I'll go to the trouble of making something good.

I've recognised this in me for some time; the reason I bring it up now is because it's related to procrastination -- which was a hot topic on HN a couple of days ago -- and because I'm interested in doing a PhD. That requires enormous amounts of internal motivation, for several years straight, when there's little-to-no external motivation. I see that this could therefore be my downfall.

How does one develop and maintain internal motivation? What can one do, for example, to renew their enthusiasm if/when it starts to dwindle? Besides "passion" and "enthusiasm", what are other people's internal motivators?

[calebkaiser]

I've felt similar to you for a long time, but have recently (over the last year) had a fundamental shift. I'm loathe to ever recommend self-help books (I used to work in publishing, and I know how most of those books get written. Hint: Not by the author, and not based on real research.), but I'd really recommend picking up Atomic Habits.

The big aha moment for me was in the separation of systems and goals. I always struggled with the same kind of procrastination as you--if there was a pressing need, I'd rise to the occasion, but otherwise was content with the minimum--despite having large ambitions (am also strongly considering a PhD, weirdly enough). The book does a nice job of explaining goals as things that are distant, and so can really never be "pressing" or rewarding short term, whereas systems can have a pulling effect i.e. I don't have one singular side project with a schedule that I'm constantly failing to hit, I have a system in which I write code for fun for at least an hour each morning, during which time I let myself listen to new music and try random ideas while I have coffee.

I might not hit peak productivity, but I do it everyday because I enjoy it. I look forward to it when I wake up. The system pulls me in, and as a result, I'm actually way more productive overall.

[alok-g]

>> Hint: Not by the author, and not based on real research.

I would like to hear more on this. :-)

[idoby]

I find that internal motivation is mostly a myth, that is, the part where people expect to just have infinite drive out of nowhere.

The cooking analogy is good but here's an IMO better one - would you make a movie if you knew for certain nobody would ever watch it? I wouldn't.

You want to get a PhD - why? Is the PhD a mountain to climb or is it a pair of boots that will let you scale a mountain? Both answers are legit, but I think you do need to agree with yourself on one.

Motivation ex nihilo doesn't exist. Humans are goal-driven and averse to spending time on teleologically neutral things (enjoyment of the activity itself is, of course, a legit end on its own).

[muzani]

Internal motivation feels a little like fascination.

I do a lot of things that nobody will notice, that give me nothing, because there's an element of experimentation to it. To use the cooking analogy, it's like trying to replace butter in a recipe with margarine, making a french omelet as soft as possible, or pulling a perfect espresso.

I wouldn't say these things are enjoyable in themselves, but they scratch a curiosity.

One trick is to have different steps to try to follow. For example, I was very motivated to do a startup, because there were step by step instructions on what to do, and doing these steps consistently would result in becoming a billionaire.

It's an absurd idea and it didn't work, but it went much, much further than I expected, and it was fascinating to see how far it could go. Same with blackjack/poker - it's grindy and repetitive, but it's motivating to see whether the theory checks out.

[bmitc]

I think that many artists serve as a counterexample to this sentiment. Many of them, even ones who eventually become famous, pursue activities without a care of who pays attention and without an end goal. They simply explore and seek out expression, where it almost seems to coming pouring out of them by necessity, obsession, or some combination thereof.

Some artists are so prolific, it can be mind boggling. Artists are not given enough credit for their work ethic.

There are plenty of artists who would make something, e.g., a movie , even knowing someone wouldn't see it.

[ankothari]

Absolutely correct

[barrkel]

Make sure you get enough sleep. I don't know of a single bigger correlate to lack of motivation than lack of sleep.

When you do feel motivation and work on something for some time, leave something undone at the end to pick up on. Something small to get the ball rolling.

Look after the big issues in your life. If there's something looming or lurking, you may procrastinate (which might look like enthusiasm for a diversion) but only at a surface level, like your brain is fidgeting trying to keep your mind off the big bad thing(s).

For something like a PhD, I think it's unusual for internal motivation to last. Most people I know who've completed did it to get it done, rather than relying on internal motivation. They were so sick of the material by the end that enthusiasm had worn away, like a mouthful of food chewed for too long.

[raztogt21]

Agree 100% with the lack of sleep. One night of bad sleep (4-5 hours) wrecks all my next day.

Maximize your health first, before setting goals. Sleep > Nutrition > Exercise, thou they're deeply correlated; try to fix them in that order.

[johnmarcus]

This, 1000%. Bad sleep hygiene is behind almost every bad mood or behavior I have ever experienced.

[cyberdrunk]

Unabomber's [1] writings introduced me to the concept of "artificial needs". All the things that you list are artificial needs - wanting nice meal when eating from the packaging satisfies you just fine, doing a PhD when there's really no need to do it etc. He explained that, since in the West all our real needs are meet with ease, we've now entered an era of deformation, where people try to find meaning in their lives via artificial goals (just like the ones you've mentioned). However, our monkey brain can't be easily fooled into doing bullshit busywork just to provide "meaning" - hence your problems with procrastination. I find life is much easier when I accept this and don't strive to do things just for the sake of doing them.

[1] He wasn't the original author of this observation as far as I recall.

[tvanantwerp]

You predicament reminds me of The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. The tendencies are based around whether you respond or don't respond to expectations, and whether the expectations are internal or external. From how you've described yourself, you sound like the common "obliger" type: responds well to external expectations, not so much to internal expectations. If that sounds like you, try finding ways to introduce external expectations for the things you'd like to do but don't. E.g., if you wanted to start working out, you'd be better off getting a trainer who expects you to show up than just telling yourself that you'll go to the gym.

It's not a scientific framework, but I think it's a helpful mental model all the same.

[simonsarris]

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

(Charles Baudelaire, 1821-1867)

[DomenicoMazza]

- Basic: Get enough sleep and exercise (just a 30min walk each day is good enough)

- Basic: To not get tired during the day I have a good breakfast (I have overnight (steel cut) oats with fruit)

- Intermediate: Understand the root of your procrastination. Procrastination = low-self esteem in the moment and/or making a task bigger than it needs to be. For example you approach a task and you doubt your abilities straightaway (e.g. write a paper) and you may even not see the task at hand can be divided into chunks based on what you know you can do (e.g. topic sentences for each planned paragraph in a section OR topic sentence for each section in a paper) and/or practice/learn to get better (e.g. put some sample data into a vis library)

- Advanced: Identify and handle self-esteem issues. An app called 'Woebot' I find really useful in helping recognise cognitive distortions that lead to being too hard on yourself

Finally, if all the above are down, but you still need a kick. Kick yourself. I have moments where I feel a bit doubt-y for no good reason and just do what I need to do. I feel 15min of focused work (i.e. no distractions) will get you into the zone. If not take a break and break your pattern of thinking in the moment—don't get sucked into where procrastination takes you.

[pier25]

I don't think you're lazy. It sounds like you're probably just avoiding frustration.

I think we're creatures of habit. If you create a habit you will naturally have the desire to keep doing the thing, even if it doesn't give you pleasure right away. If on top of that you add a little curiosity and a bit of desire to keep getting better you will quickly feel the need to do something with regularity.

In fact I'd argue most things worth doing will be quite unsatisfactory for a time until you start feeling pleasure. A musical instrument? Programming? Painting? Writing? Sports? A new language? Cooking? Yeah you will be crap at all those until you aren't.

The trick to getting started is having the willpower and the tolerance to frustration to keep doing the thing through the initial hardships.

I struggled a lot with recognizing frustration in myself when I was younger which made learning to tolerate it even more difficult. Once you start feeling frustrated you have to remind yourself that everything is ok and that you will figure it out. You will never be immune to frustration, but by exposing yourself to frustration gradually your tolerance will get better.

[exanimo_sai]

There is a way to develop internal motivation - in my opinion it is one part the realisation that you want to be motivated and the other part putting in the hard yards to build habits. For the first part I always refer to the concept of the elephant driver as a reminder.

"NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt uses a lovely analogy to explain both: the emotional side is the elephant, the rational side is the rider. The rider of the elephant looks like he or she is in charge, but when there’s a disagreement between the elephant and the rider, the elephant usually wins.

Chip and Dan Heath's superb book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, builds on this analogy and talks about directing the rider (rational brain: responsible for planning and direction, but can get paralyzed overthinking things) and motivating the elephant (emotional brain: prefers quick gratification over long term, but gets things done). Numerous experiments show that the rider can get exhausted trying to motivate the elephant and needs time to recover. This is why, if you’re trying to eat healthily while on the road, you tend to make bad choices at the end of a long day and opt for that extra glass of beer."

For the second part use mobile apps/smart watch to help you build habits. Being an unashamed apple user I rely on streaks to be my habit builder but there are many similar applicatons out there. Gamify your own life. Because at the end of the day life is a game. And if you want to get to the next level you have to play it.

[chanmad29]

Lots of good pointers here. The elephant analogy blew my mind! Somebody on the internet said life is pointless if we do not set ourselves these goals to aim for. It is down to us on how well defined these goals are and how we track our progress against them. Too ambitious or vague, and we've set ourselves up for failure.

[bfieidhbrjr]

A PhD has basically zero value (probably net negative) unless you want to go in to academia for the rest of your life and retire as the head of department at an Iowa community college, so double check you really want to do that and have that kind of life?

You need to double check your mental/emotional and physical health. Are you getting sleep? What are your serum vitamin D levels? Do you wake up and run a 5k every morning? Have you travelled to a new or slightly dangerous place on the opposite side of the world in the last 6-12 months to reset your beliefs about the world? - These are the type of questions you need to be asking. When you have this stuff figured out and you feel alive, motivation will not be an issue.

[calebkaiser]

I think this is true of most PhD programs, but I think that in certain fields—lab-centric sciences, for example—doing a PhD isn't a complete waste.

There maybe better alternatives (maybe a Master's or a community bio lab or something), but when you need access to a lab and resources to do research, the university provides some value.

Then again, is it $150k worth of value? Probably not

[teodorlu]

Here's how I handle lack of motivation mechanically:

- I spend time asking why, and allow myself to answer that question before rushing into an action

- I allow myself to answer "I'm tired, I want to do nothing"

These two help me work on goals and rhythm. Goals are where you intentionally want to go, the why. But if you don't have useful habits, you won't get there. That's rhythm.

Ignore goals, and you might work a lot, but have no control in where you're going. That might lead to feelings of helplessness. Ignore rhythm, and you might not learn to do the work. Instead of actually working towards where you want to go, you might juggle goals, and dream about the future.

[nicoburns]

> I know how to cook, but if I'm cooking for myself, I'll probably be lazy -- I might just eat something straight out of the packet! -- but if I'm cooking for myself and others, I'll go to the trouble of making something good.

You do have internal motivation in this scenario. You are internally motivated to impress and/or do nice things for others.

> I'm interested in doing a PhD. That requires enormous amounts of internal motivation, for several years straight, when there's little-to-no external motivation. I see that this could therefore be my downfall.

Why are you interested in doing a PhD? It sounds like maybe something that you like the idea of, more than something that you actually want to do. Why not focus on the things that you do actually want to do?

> How does one develop and maintain internal motivation? What can one do, for example, to renew their enthusiasm if/when it starts to dwindle?

One of the key things is to maintain good emotional health. So things like sleep, exercise, diet, etc. This won't make you motivated to do things that you're uninterested in, but it may help you to maintain motivation for things that you are.

[dri_ft]

> You do have internal motivation in this scenario. You are internally motivated to impress and/or do nice things for others.

'For others' is definitionally external motivation, no?

[gbasin]

You cannot develop internal motivation. In my experience, when you have some vision that you are excited about, motivation is not a problem. That vision can take many forms, but it's often some concrete outcome that you understand how to accomplish, and desire to achieve (for whatever reason).

[medialucky20]

I completely agree on vision point. every indivisual need to have clear vision on what you want to be in coming 1 month/year or couple of years. Good to have both short term and long term goals. achieving shortterm goals motivate for longterm goals. I give more importance to personal than professional.

I feel motivated when I look at my goals. Definitely I do sometimes feel down start thinking it is impossible to achieve. For such days I prepared list of things I achieved so far and I am grateful for. It can be as simple as the day I got independent and started earning, Bought new jewellery to my mom etc. These days are very special and bring lot of joy and inspiration to perform better and work toward my future goals.

Also never compare my journey with other people. everyone's journey is different. Having few common things doesn't mean you both are same with same level of capacities. each person's tolerance, will power, IQ different. This understanding made me to not get demotivated by looking at some peer achievements.

[catchmeifyoucan]

I don’t think you’re not motivated. For example, I feel the same when cooking. In fact, one of your motivators might be that you need to do things for others or else that task has no meaning.

I took an exam called career leader a while ago. Like one of those professional strengths, exams. It provided a good framework to think about this.

A few motivators the exam ranks you on are things like “prestige”, “altruism”, “autonomy”, “recognition”, “lifestyle”, “security” ..etc. you then get your results with which of those attributes you score highest on. Ultimately,I think it comes down to what you value more. You should then really question how what you do aligns with those motivators and optimize for the tasks that put your motivators ahead.

Here’s a sample report that has them all listed, and framed it better for me: https://www.hec.ca/etudiants/soutien-ressources/gestion-carr...

[mox111]

I get this too, and I think it has a lot to do with where your imagination tends to go.

If you often imagine negative outcomes, such as the negative judgement that you might receive if you served 2-minute noodles at a dinner party, then your sole motivation will be to avoid these sorts of outcomes. Life becomes about hazard detection. The anxiety that comes with this can obscure your 'true' interests to the point where you are not even sure what they are anymore.

Where does your mind turn when there is no sense of threat? If you bring yourself to imagine positive outcomes, then so long as they are realistic and accompanied by a strategy, then it is natural to be motivated to realise them. Failure to create a compelling future could just be considered a failure of the imagination.

I'd really recommend the book "Psychocybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz for more on this sort of stuff.

[biophysboy]

I'm doing a PhD right now. There are actually a LOT of external motivators: group meetings motivate you each week, posters and presentations motivate you each year, and publications motivate you the whole time. You also get some motivation from your peers and future career prospects. There's also the thesis proposal and defense.

This all said, I ABSOLUTELY relate to you feeling "flat" or "complacent" or "content". You might feel like you have no inner fire, that you're just a Pavlov dog salivating at the world's treats. Here's three things I've kept in mind for myself:

1) Health is absolutely key (as others have already noted)

2) Keep your head above the water. I'm resorting to a cheesy self-help metaphor, but if you're constantly receiving external motivators, you're going to lose a sense of how you're feeling.

3) If you feel a spark to try something, but then lose that spark, maybe keep going for a bit. Everything has a learning curve, and the first steps are often more boring.

But also I try to remember that productivity is not necessarily a virtue. You can always optimize yourself just a little bit more. Productivity obsession can just as easily be a symptom of my ego or my narcissism. I think this is a big part of self-help stuff. Marie Kondo doesn't just sell cleaning strategies, she sells PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION.

Basically, make a couple changes if necessary, but I don't think you need to panic if you're not obsessed with personal accomplishment. That could be a good thing!

[rednum]

Probably there's no easy answer. I guess if you could think yourself into getting motivated you'd already do that.

Some things that help me:

- right environment. If you want a PhD it's probably good idea to join some kind of research group you will feel good being part of or advisor you get with on very well. For the record I don't have a PhD but both of those things made quite a big difference for me when I was learning stuff throughout high school/university (though this is something I've realized quite late). Judging by how you put more effort when cooking for other, I guess you'd also put more effort when learning with others.

- setting realistic expectations. Sometimes it may be a good idea to lower your standards, for example change "cook healthy meal every day" to "cook healthy meal once a week". I'm a perfectionist so it helps me to say something like "OK, maybe I won't write a great design doc for the new thing my team is working but design something where X and Y work well but Z and T are not working so well". Often it turns out Z and T are not so important or that I can do iterative improvements on them

- getting bored from time to time. Planning to "waste" a day (though it's better to do this not in front of computer).

[rickpmg]

Read the Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin.

It speaks specifically to this, and basically says if you are motivated by external forces, that's how you're wired and you should capitalize on it... it is a waste of time to try get 'internally' motivated. A lot of people are this way, and there is nothing wrong with it.

I liken it to a car that runs on gas... retrofitting it to run on diesel (or electric) is counter-productive... just tune it up so it efficient at burning gas.

[PSNapier]

> "I know how to cook, but if I'm cooking for myself, I'll probably be lazy"

> "How does one develop and maintain internal motivation?"

> "... Besides "passion" and "enthusiasm" ..."

Perhaps it's an unwarranted bias on my part, but I cringe whenever I hear 'passion' brought up as the answer in this context, for this reason: it seems to me there is a distinction between monkey and user, e.g. the hedonistic monkey that drives us towards the easiest dopamine hits and the user that can override the hollow desires and moves us in a direction of actual fulfillment. The user can be passionate and it won't make a lick of difference if you're still letting the monkey sit in the driver's seat.

Assuming this metaphor makes sense, how does one put the user more in control? In my experience becoming conscience of this push-pull -- daily, hourly -- makes the most difference. Then it is a matter of learning, training yourself, to become responsive to the user. During this process I've found it is important to focus on mentally rewarding yourself for improvements and not fall into continually chastising yourself for 'not doing enough,' etc.