How To Force Your Brain To Crave Doing Hard Things

Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Limitless Motivation

Step 1: Understand the Two Types of Motivation

• Extrinsic motivation comes from external sources like money, status, and praise.
• Intrinsic motivation comes from within and includes curiosity, purpose, and mastery.

Step 2: Upgrade Your Fuel Source to Intrinsic Motivation

• Focus on developing intrinsic motivators which are more powerful and long-lasting than extrinsic motivators.
• Intrinsic motivation can lead to an upward spiral of skill development and accessing the Flow State.

Step 3: Identify and Boost Your Intrinsic Motivators

1. Curiosity

   • Engage in learning activities related to your work outside of formal work hours.
   • Seek immediate feedback from learning to see tangible positive results.

2. Mastery

   • Continuously strive to improve your skills and seek out greater challenges.
   • Practice skills on the edge of your comfort zone to trigger the Flow State.

3. Autotelicity

   • Engage in activities at work that you genuinely enjoy and find rewarding.
   • Focus on activities that align with your strengths to trigger flow.

4. Purpose

   • Connect your work to a larger cause or mission that you care about.
   • Identify how your daily tasks contribute to the bigger purpose to increase motivation.

5. Autonomy

   • Seek control over when, how, and what you work on.
   • Design your work tasks and projects in a way that gives you a sense of ownership and choice.

Step 4: Juice Up Your Intrinsic Motivators

• Assess each intrinsic motivator on a scale of 1 to 10 and aim to boost them by five points each.
• Focus on raising the motivator that is currently the lowest to create a balanced motivational stack.

Step 5: Sustain and Monitor Your Motivation Levels

• Maintain a high level of intrinsic motivation by regularly checking in with each motivator.
• Adjust and course-correct as needed to keep your motivation levels high and consistent.

Step 6: Embrace Intrinsic Motivation

• As you upgrade your fuel source to intrinsic motivation, you'll experience increased drive and focus.
• Intrinsic motivation reduces reliance on external rewards and makes hard work feel effortless and rewarding.

Step 7: Achieve Flow State

• By maximizing your intrinsic motivators, you can enter the Flow State more frequently.
• Flow State leads to increased performance, focus, and a virtuous cycle of motivation and engagement.

By following these steps and focusing on developing your intrinsic motivators, you can unlock limitless motivation and achieve peak performance in your professional life.