Careers Cuppa: Motivation pt1

“Motivation is not a magic stick” - Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper

Friday November 13th turned out not to be unlucky at all this year, as opposed to so many of the other days in 2020. The Careers Cuppa coincided with World Kindness Day, and taking an hour out of the week to focus on ourselves felt like a really appropriate act of kindness.

As the world has not radically moved on since last week’s session on uncertainty, it felt like it would be helpful to continue with the theme of working with uncertainty rather than denying or trying to avoid it, and look at what we can do to keep ourselves motivated as the days get shorter and darker and our summer scaffolding is under stress.

“The motivation monkey’s traps are stealthy and numerous” - BJ Fogg

Motivation can be hard at the best of times. As Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper from the awesome Squiggly Careers podcast say, ‘Motivation is not a magic stick’. In and of itself, motivation - or the desire to do something - is only part of the story. When our motivation feels compromised, its worth taking a look around us before we start beating ourselves up. People can be amazing motivation boosts, but certain people might also be motivation drains - especially now with so much going on around us - and as covid is preventing us from being too choosy about who we spend our time with it can help to know who your radiators and drains are and how to maximise or reduce their impact on you.

Limiting the impact someone has on your motivation is not the same as cutting communications with them, but might lead you to think differently about how and when you engage with them.

We are largely wired to maintain habits and seek regularity, but motivation is anything but steady. ‘The motivation monkey’s traps are stealthy and numerous’, says BJ Fogg, founder of the behaviour design lab at Stanford University. Left to their own devices, our motivation monkeys are all high and low and no plateau as they swing off through the trees.

We need tools to help us re-calibrate so we don’t ping pong between spikes of intense motivation, which can leave us frazzled, and troughs of inaction which can lead to feelings of failure or self-flagellation. We can also find that we sometimes put too much of ourselves into something that initially feels motivating and ‘stretchy’, only to find the stretch replaced by strain, when it starts to feel too much, perhaps we are no longer supported, or things outside our control have impacted our energy or ability to operate as before. This is something that I know resonates for me, and I’ve heard similar from many of you, that we struggle with things we could manage perfectly well before.

So what can we do to harness the monkey and help him work for us?

A great place to start is by reflecting on times where you have felt motivated, and looking at what was going on - self-awareness is a great tool for training your monkey.

Were there behaviors or conditions that you can replicate now?

What about at times when you felt particularly unmotivated? Can you see any patterns?

I looked at two great sources of theory on motivation for this call. BJ Fogg’s book ‘Tiny Habits’, which teaches us that the key to changing our behaviour is about small consistent actions that make us feel good, and Daniel Pink’s 2009 book Drive, which looks at ‘intrinsic motivation’ i.e. that which doesn’t rely on a carrot or stick approach, and breaks motivation down into 3 key components - Mastery / Autonomy / Purpose (more on that in pt 2).

Fogg looks at motivation as the combination of a personal desire to do the thing, a carrot or a stick, and a set of contextual triggers to action. I describe his model as ‘small, sustainable successes, and the scaffolding we need to keep us steady while the desired behaviours take shape.’

His book is full of practical examples and exercises you can do to create and feel the benefits of your own Tiny Habits, as well as the theory that backs it up, but for the purpose of this session, I broke it down into 4 steps.

1) Get clear on your aspiration/s.

What is it you are really looking to achieve? The more specific you are, the more effectively you will be able to design behaviours to match. So whether it’s reducing stress, increasing productivity, getting started or keeping going, spend time on bottoming this out.

2) Accept that there is no single right/wrong way, so start by exploring as many behaviours as possible which will enable you to get there.

Challenge yourself to make the largest list you can - ask other people who they might approach the same question, think about one time behaviours like setting up a work station or signing up for a course, and repeat behaviours that you can perform regularly, like writing 500 words, or switching off your phone.

3) Sift through your behaviour brainstorm, and look for those which will be effective at getting you where you want to be, and you have a high likelihood of actually doing them - they aren’t too hard, too boring, require skills/experience/equipment you don’t have.

Don’t restrict yourself to just one thing - a cluster of small, sustainable behaviours works better than one high impact big hitter. And when he says small, he really means it - the book isn’t called Tiny Habits for nothing. Starting with the smallest version of the habit you want to adopt allows you to enjoy success early on, and acts as a gateway to the bigger version.

His example is flossing his teeth. Instead of committing to floss his teeth every day, his rule says he has to floss one tooth, and by the time you’ve gone to the effort of doing that, most of the time you’ll also do the rest of them, but on the days you don’t, its ok. You’ve still done what you set out to do.

Take your selection, and challenge yourself to make them tiny. Writing 500 words might start out as ‘sit at your desk and switch on your laptop’ or write 50 words. An hour of uninterrupted flow might start out as ‘switch off your phone’.

4) Now you’ve got your behaviour/s and their tiniest versions, look for ways to schedule, or slot them into your existing routine.

We are much more likely to create sustainable behaviour change when we piggyback the new stuff onto something regular, reliable and established - like flossing right after you’ve cleaned your teeth.

What are the anchor behaviours you can use to reduce your reliance on the motivation monkey?

Can you write 50 words while you wait for the kettle to boil in the morning, or your coffee to brew?

If you do a school run, can you switch off your phone when you do the drop off?

Once you have your small success behaviours scheduled, your motivation monkey has some scaffolding of its own to as a support, and if you miss one, or you find that one of the behaviours doesn’t stick, rather than being the beginning of the end, think about it rationally:

Do you need a stronger contextual prompt?
- Get your pad and pen ready by the kettle before you go to bed, or put your running kit out next to your bed.
Do you need an easier action to start with?
- Can you make your behaviour tinier until the habit beds in? Instead of 50 words, can you write a sentence, or even just switch on your laptop
Would a more effective carrot/stick be worth trying?

And if you try all these and it doesn’t gel, go back to your long list and try another!

In part 2 of this post I’ll look at Daniel Pinks’ work on Motivation, with some practical steps you can take to boost your sense of Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy.

This was a summary of the Friday November 13th My So-Called Career ‘Careers Cuppa’, a space in your week to connect with others, to talk, to listen, to learn and to share.

We do this every Friday at 1pm.

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