How to Boost Intrinsic Motivation and Increase Satisfaction in Your Life
Written By: Destany Filicetti & Diondra Filicetti
Intrinsic motivation is the motivation to engage in an activity for your own development or enjoyment. It involves envisioning tasks as an opportunity to learn and to explore your potential. Intrinsic motivation is derived from your own inherent interest and is free of any outside influence such as the allure of external rewards or the obligation to complete tasks imposed on us by others. This type of motivation is internally rewarding, providing a sense of personal satisfaction and generating positive emotions.
Internal rewards from intrinsic motivation are positive outcomes within our body and mind. Some examples of internal rewards include:
A sense of personal satisfaction
Improved self-esteem
Personal achievement
Happiness
Personal growth
These internal rewards are especially crucial in your personal development process because they add meaningful value to your efforts in each task and activity, create a greater sense of self-worth and ultimately lead to a more fulfilling life.
With so many benefits to intrinsically motivated activities, it comes as a surprise that so many people have very low levels of intrinsic motivation. In a world that places so much emphasis on external rewards such as money, awards or recognition, it can be difficult to develop our own interests and practice intrinsic motivation.
Although difficult, there are a few ways to increase the levels of intrinsic motivation in your life in order to take advantage of the many internal benefits that come with it.
How to Increase Intrinsic Motivation
Increasing the autonomy, purpose and mastery in your life are ways in which you can increase intrinsic motivation. These elements will allow you to develop motivation more organically and enable you to be more productive in your growth process.
Autonomy
The vast majority of activities in our lives are dictated to us by some sort of external source. For example, our job activities are dictated by our employers, our household duties are dictated by the household/family needs and the time in between is often spent preparing for the next responsibility.
Many of us have very low levels of autonomy in our lives. In order to boost our levels of intrinsic motivation, we can increase the amount of decisions we make for ourselves. The ability to control what, when, and how you do something increases the intrinsic motivation you have towards that task and makes you feel more in charge of your happiness. Being told what to do, when to do it and how to do it, reduces intrinsic motivation and often leaves us feeling resentful towards the task. To start increasing your intrinsic motivation, try to increase the number of activities in your life that you choose and have control over, such as a new hobby or autonomous online courses.
Purpose
When we feel like our efforts and activities are meaningless, we feel disengaged and unmotivated. When our efforts are tied to a greater cause or purpose, it provides meaning to our work and in turn increases our intrinsic motivation towards the task. Therefore in order to increase the intrinsic motivation in our lives, we can choose activities that allow us to contribute to a greater cause or find a greater cause in the work that we already do. For example, if you find that your purpose is helping others, get involved with your community and participate in local food drives, youth programs, or volunteer. If you are in the construction industry try focusing on the fact that you are not only building housing or structures but the fact that they will be used for others to build their businesses or create families.
Mastery
Mastering a skill is rewarding in itself. Naturally, we have the desire to be good at things we enjoy, therefore the motivation to get better is already present. Engaging in activities that we are not interested in can make it difficult to focus our energy in developing our skills.
Focusing on the activities and tasks that you are interested in can make mastery a more natural component of the process. This continuous improvement can boost our intrinsic motivation towards the task which in turn increases our will to further improve and continue on our journey to mastery. Increasing our opportunities for mastery with more intrinsically motivated tasks, will provide a heightened sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in our lives.
Beware of Rewards
Though rewards are nice to receive, they should not always be the motivating factor behind what we do. Receiving rewards has been proven to be counterproductive. By accepting rewards for completing a task that is already enjoyable can make the task less enjoyable. This is a cognitive phenomenon known as the overjustification effect.
Because intrinsic motivation is the internal motivation to engage in an activity for the enjoyment of the activity itself, receiving an external reward for something that you have an existing interest in can make the activity feel more like work; thus altering your motivation. When the activity that once brought you enjoyment is associated with external rewards, your focus shifts to exerting the least amount of effort required to get the reward, reducing your internal motivation to participate in the activity.
With many internal rewards such as personal satisfaction, improved self-esteem, a sense of achievement and increased happiness, intrinsic motivation has a powerful positive impact in our lives. In order to contribute to positive mental health and a more fulfilling life, we should strive to increase our levels of intrinsic motivation. To start, we can focus on increasing the autonomy, purpose and mastery in our lives because of their connection to our internal motivation.
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