What are the benefits of intrinsic motivation? How do intrinsic rewards keep you motivated?
The benefits of intrinsic motivation include being able to develop virtuous cycles of improvement and practice. This means that if you enjoy practicing, you’ll get better, which means you’ll continue to enjoy practicing and stick to it.
Read on to learn how to develop better patterns of improvement.
How to Sustain a Virtuous Cycle of Deliberate Practice
Whether you’re practicing directly or indirectly, you need intrinsic motivation—an internal urge to keep practicing and improving—to sustain the virtuous cycle of deliberate practice long enough to achieve excellence. Deliberate practice is demanding enough that extrinsic motivators (like money) can’t drive someone to make such a commitment alone. The benefits of intrinsic motivation include the ability to stick to demanding practice.
(Shortform note: Some psychology experts define intrinsic motivation as the desire to engage in an activity for its own sake. This contrasts with extrinsic motivation, the desire to engage in an activity to earn a reward or avoid a punishment. To be intrinsically motivated, you must find an activity enjoyable, interesting, meaningful, or helpful to your progress. Deliberate practice requires such effort and time that it may not be enjoyable. However, it may inspire interest because it’s focused on deeply understanding a field, a sense of progress as you improve weak spots, and a sense of meaning as you grow closer to reaching excellence.)
Science can’t definitively explain where this kind of intrinsic motivation comes from. However, some think it comes from your desires and your mindset: To invest the time and effort needed to become truly excellent, you must deeply desire that excellence, often to the exclusion of relationships and other interests. You must also have a training mindset instead of a talent mindset—you must believe that you can achieve excellence if you put in the necessary work. Together, he says this desire and self-belief can drive you to achieve extraordinary things.
| Intrinsic Motivation and Mental Toughness This mirrors what some performance and creativity coaches call the roots of “mental toughness.” These coaches agree that you must deeply desire excellence, adding that this is the first step to acquiring mental toughness: You develop the belief that “good enough” is intolerable, and this drives you to keep improving. While Colvin frames the exclusion of relationships and other interests as a potential downside to this kind of desire, the coaches frame it more positively. They say you identify things in your life that are hindering your progress—including disrespectful or toxic people—and cut them out. When it comes to believing that you can achieve excellence, the coaches say to replace any negative thoughts about yourself or your abilities with positive ones. This improves your self-confidence and helps you perform better. They add that you need to take responsibility for your performance: You control how well you perform. There is no “right” time or opportunity to act. So, take action immediately and be willing to take risks in the pursuit of excellence. |
