Motivation versus determination.
Over the last few weeks the topic of motivation and determination has come up a few times. I thought it would be helpful to explain how these are different, why that difference is important, and how they can be used to complement each other.
Consider an activity we want to do compared with an activity that we want to avoid. When we want to do an activity it feels like our desire is a force pulling us toward the activity. When we want to avoid an activity our aversion to the activity is like a force that pushes us away from the activity.
Imagine that you standing on a slope. An activity that you want to do is downhill from you. You are pulled toward it. An activity you want to avoid is uphill from you. You are pulled away from it. The more you would like to avoid the activity the steeper the uphill slope toward it.
When we are faced with an activity that we need to do but that we want to avoid, then it is like we are standing on a slope looking at a destination uphill from us.
Motivation and determination work as follows.
We use motivation to make us want to do the activity. That is like changing the topography, the slope of the hill, so that instead of going uphill the slope to the destination is downhill.
We use determination to do the activity even if we don’t want to. Determination enables us to move uphill.
Motivation changes the slope of the hill. Determination enables us to move up the hill.
Motivation is when we tell ourselves “I want to do that.”
Determination is when we tell ourselves “I don’t need to want to do that. I’m doing that.”
It’s great if we can use motivation so that we want to do an activity we don’t like. Unfortunately, for many activities that are helpful, we can’t motivate ourselves enough to really want to do the activity. We end up spending so much energy trying unsuccessfully to motivate ourselves that we end up not having enough energy to simply do the activity. We need to stop using motivation and use determination.
However, if the hill is quite steep then we may not have enough strength or stamina to make it to the top. Determination alone will not be sufficient for us to do the activity..
In those cases we can combine motivation and determination in the following way. We can spend some of our energy motivating ourselves so that our aversion to the activity is less. This makes the the slope to the destination less steep. We will now have enough determination to do the activity even though we still don’t want to do it.
Some activities require more motivation and some require more determination. With experience we will learn to combiner both effectively.
We use motivation to make us want to do a task that we otherwise would want to avoid. That is like changing the road from going uphill to downhill. Instead of the task being a destination that is higher than our level it is now lower than us and it is easy to ride the bicycle down and start doing the task.
Determination is completely different. We use determination to peddle toward the task even if it is uphill. Instead of trying to motivate ourselves to want to do the task we tell ourselves that we are going to do the task even if we don’t want to.
Too often people will try to use motivation alone to help them do a task that they don’t want to do. However, if we have a strong aversion to doing a task then it is unlikely that we can generate enough motivation to make us want to do the task. In the metaphor, we are trying to make the road change from going uphill to going downhill. But that may not be possible.
We can spend all our energy in the attempt to motivate ourselves enough to want to do the task, and then when that doesn’t work we have no energy left to use determination.
Very often no amount of motivation will make us want to do the task. We can give ourselves all sorts of reasons on why we should do the task and the negative consequences of not doing the task, but none of these make us really want to do the task. We can spend so much effort trying to motivate ourselves without success that we have no energy to simply do the task. Sometimes we just have to use determination. However, if the hill is quite steep then we may not have enough strength or stamina to get to our destination and actually do the task.
In this situation we can combine motivation and determination in the following way. We can spend some of our energy motivating ourselves so that our aversion to the task is less. This makes the height of the hill less in the road less steep. We may now be able to have enough determination to do the task even though we still don’t want to do it. Our aversion to doing it is just less.
When we realize how motivation and determination are different then we can avoid wasting our energy on fruitless attempts to motivate ourselves and rather used some energy on motivation and the rest on determination.
Motivation is a way of changing the topography of our inner landscape. Determination helps us get where we need to go no matter what the topography is like.
It usually takes only a little bit of energy to reduce the height of the hill, much less than it takes to make the road downhill. We can use motivation so that the task is “not so bad” and that makes the hill we have to climb with determination doable.
When we have to do a task we don’t want to do it is like we tell ourselves “I need to do that,” and another part of our mind says “I don’t want to do that.” Motivation is when we try to talk ourselves into wanting to do it. Determination is when we tell ourselves “I didn’t tell you to want to do it, I told you to do it.”
