Why do we forget our “deep rooted purpose” while doing “to- do list” ?

As humans, we often have a deep-rooted purpose or goal that we want to achieve in life. However, with the busyness of day-to-day life, it can be easy to get caught up in the tasks and responsibilities of the moment, such as completing a to-do list, and forget about our overarching purpose.

Research has shown that when we focus on short-term tasks, we are more likely to experience a phenomenon known as “goal disengagement,” where we detach from our long-term goals and become more focused on the immediate situation. This can lead to a sense of purposelessness and a lack of direction in our lives.

One study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found that participants who were primed to think about their short-term to-do lists were less likely to report having a sense of purpose in life. Another study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people who were primed to focus on immediate tasks were less likely to volunteer for a future opportunity that aligned with their long-term goals.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Another study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that when people were reminded of their long-term goals, they were able to maintain a sense of purpose even when focusing on short-term tasks.

To avoid forgetting our deep-rooted purpose, it can be helpful to periodically remind ourselves of our long-term goals and how the tasks on our to-do list fit into the bigger picture. This can help us stay motivated and focused on what truly matters in the long run.

The first step in deliberate practice: get motivated

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Like most worthwhile pursuits, developing proficiency in any skill — whether sewing, software design, or surfing — isn’t easy. If you want to push past the hard parts of skills growth — the frustration, the failures, the periods of slow progress — you’re going to need to be motivated.

Without the motivation to push past obstacles, when improvement stalls, the natural inclination will be to give up. So if you’re picking a skill to improve with deliberate practice, make sure it’s something you care about and are willing to devote considerable time and effort to.

Are you an achiever, an explorer, a socializer, or a killer?

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In the 1996 paper – Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs, Richard Bartle described how mindsets and goals of different players could be described in a way to analyze the dynamic of balance in a game:

• Achievers are goal-oriented and enjoy meeting milestones they set for themselves
• Explorers want to learn as much as they can about the game they’re playing—mapping it, experimenting with it
• Socializers most enjoy their interactions and conversations with others; relationship building
• Killers like to demonstrate and exercise their power over others (and make impact on others)

Bartle’s paper has some fascinating discussion of how the balance of a game might be tweaked by focusing on combinations of these player roles.

But what are you? Are you an achiever, an explorer, a socialized, or a killer?

That is, what motivates you to do anything you do. Do you do things to learn how to achieve something? To dig into the explration? To be part of a community? Or, to have more impact on the world?

Your behavior is driven by internal rewards

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In psychology, intrinsic motivation distinguishes between internal and external rewards. In “Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior With Concept Maps,” the authors offer a definition.

“Intrinsic motivation occurs when we act without any obvious external rewards. We simply enjoy an activity or see it as an opportunity to explore, learn, and actualize our potential.”

When you pursue an activity for the pure enjoyment of it, you are doing so because you are intrinsically motivated. Your motivations for engaging in the behavior arise entirely from within rather than out of a desire to gain some type of reward.

Of course, that isn’t to say that intrinsically motivated behaviors do not come with their own rewards. These rewards involve creating positive emotions within the individual.

“A person’s intrinsic enjoyment of an activity provides sufficient justification for their behavior,” explains author Richard A. Griggs in his book Psychology: A Concise Introduction. “With the addition of extrinsic reinforcement, the person may perceive the task as overjustified and then attempt to understand their true motivation (extrinsic versus intrinsic) for engaging in the activity.”

Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation: Which Is Best?

Why do we do the things we do? What drives our behavior? Psychologists have proposed different ways of thinking about motivation, including looking at whether motivation arises from outside (extrinsic) or inside (intrinsic) an individual.

Extrinsic motivation is when we are motivated to perform a behavior or engage in an activity because we want to earn a reward or avoid punishment. You will engage in behavior not because you enjoy it or because you find it satisfying, but because you expect to get something in return or avoid something unpleasant.

On the other hand, intrinsic motivation is when you engage in a behavior because you find it rewarding. You are performing an activity for its own sake rather than from the desire for some external reward. The behavior itself is its own reward.

Which Is Best?

Research has shown that each type has a different effect on human behavior.

Studies have demonstrated that offering excessive external rewards for an already internally rewarding behavior can reduce intrinsic motivation—a phenomenon known as the overjustification effect. Extrinsic motivation can be particularly helpful when a person needs to complete a task that they find unpleasant.

Additionally, external rewards can:

• Be a source of feedback to let people know when their performance has achieved a standard that is deserving of reinforcement
• Induce interest and participation in an activity an individual was not initially interested in
• Motivate people to acquire new skills or knowledge (once these early skills have been learned, people might become more intrinsically motivated to pursue an activity)

Both extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation drive human behavior. Understanding how each type of motivation works and when it is likely to be useful can help us perform tasks (even when we do not want to) and improve our learning.

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Self-Determination Theory

Self-Determination is a theory of human motivation developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. Motivation, in this context, is what moves us to act. The theory looks at the inherent, positive human tendency to move towards growth, and outlines three core needs which facilitate that growth. Those needs are autonomy, competence and relatedness.

Competence – The need to experience our behaviors as effectively enacted (to feel like we’ve done a good job). 

Autonomy – The need to experience behavior as voluntary and “…reflectively self-endorsed” (to feel like we have control over what we do).

Relatedness – The need to “…interact, be connected to, and experience caring for others” (to have meaningful relationships and interactions with other people).

Self-determination theory suggests that people are motivated to grow and change by these three innate and universal psychological needs.

Purely self-determined behaviors tend to be intrinsically driven and are done for enjoyment, interest, and inherent satisfaction for the action itself.

Self-determination can play an important role in how we function in many different areas of our lives. Feeling in control and intrinsically motivated can help us feel more committed, passionate, interested, and satisfied with the things that we do.

Self-determination theory can be helpful in understanding the things that might motivate your behaviors. Being self-determined, feeling like you have the autonomy and freedom to make choices that shape your destiny, is important for each person’s well-being. When you pursue things that are intrinsically motivated that are aligned with your goals, you will feel happier and more capable of making good choices.

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Will it make the boat go faster?

This is the question that allowed Ben Hunt-Davis and the British Olympic rowing team to win a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, which was the first time a British crew won this event since 1912. The question was applied as a basic stress test to whatever decision the team made in their training leading up to the games. For instance:

“Will practicing rowing today make the boat go faster?” Yes. So, do it.

“Will following a strict diet that boosts energy, maintains muscle mass, and minimizes fat gain make the boat go faster?” Yes. So, do it.

“Will going out on Friday night to get wasted make the boat go faster?” Probably not, unfortunately. So, don’t do it.
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It’s a simple question that focuses us on the goals that we are trying to achieve, and then aligns every decision, big or small, in life to get them closer to the goals, in an almost robotic, uncompromising way, leaving no room for excuses or poor judgment.

This type of discipline can be practiced. It may not be easy or intuitive at first, but having this kind of perpetual compass to guide your every move will help you at least objectively see whether an action will get you closer to or further away from your goal. The final call is still yours, but more often than not, just being aware of the ultimate objective is incentive enough to stay on track.

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Be more of a finisher than a starter

If you are guilty of being a Good Starter, but a lousy finisher — at work or in your personal life — you have a very common problem. More than anything else, becoming a Great Finisher is about staying motivated from a project’s beginning to its end. Recent research has uncovered the reason why that can be so difficult, and a simple and effective strategy you can use to keep motivation high.

In their studies, University of Chicago psychologists Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbach examined how people pursuing goals were affected by focusing on either how far they had already come (to-date thinking) or what was left to be accomplished (to-go thinking). People routinely use both kinds of thinking to motivate themselves.

Intuitively, both approaches have their appeal. But too much to-date thinking, focusing on what you’ve accomplished so far, will actually undermine your motivation to finish rather than sustain it.

Koo and Fishbach’s studies consistently show that when we are pursuing a goal and consider how far we’ve already come, we feel a premature sense of accomplishment and begin to slack off.

When we focus on progress made, we’re also more likely to try to achieve a sense of “balance” by making progress on other important goals. This is classic Good Starter behavior — lots of pots on the stove, but nothing is ever ready to eat.

If, instead, we focus on how far we have left to go (to-go thinking), motivation is not only sustained, it’s heightened. When the human brain detects a discrepancy, it reacts by throwing resources at it: attention, effort, deeper processing of information, and willpower.

In fact, it’s the discrepancy that signals that an action is needed — to-date thinking masks that signal. You might feel good about the ground you’ve covered, but you probably won’t cover much more.

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What are my motivations?

In order to get real about what you want, you need to understand your motivations.

We all have higher and lower motivations. Or, as James Altucher writes, good reasons and real reasons.

• Higher motivations (good reason) come from our ‘higher’ selves — the person we want to be, or imagine ourselves to be
  
• Lower motivations (real reason) come from our ‘lower’ selves — driven by guilt, desire, ego, uncertainty, etc.
  

We all have these different motivations. The main question is which ones are driving you more and why?

And more importantly: Which ones do you want to drive you more and why? What kind of a person do you want to be?

The point is not to get rid of the lower motivations (that’s impossible), it’s to manage them (instead of letting them manage you).

The point is to get to know them. To be curious about them.

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Implementation intentions

What to do when plans fall apart?

The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.
—Robert Burns

Sometimes you won’t be able to implement a new behavior — no matter how perfect your plan. In situations like these, it’s great to use the “if–then” version of this strategy.

You’re still stating your intention to perform a particular behavior, so the basic idea is the same. This time, however, you simply plan for unexpected situations by using the phrase, “If , then .”

The “if–then” strategy gives you a clear plan for overcoming the unexpected stuff, which means it’s less likely that you’ll be swept away by the urgencies of life. You can’t control when little emergencies happen to you, but you can control how you want to respond to them.

Planning out when and where you will perform a specific behavior turns your environment into a trigger for action. The time and place triggers your behavior, not your level of motivation.

Motivation is short lived and doesn’t lead to consistent action. If you want to achieve your goals, then you need a plan for exactly when and how you’re going to execute on them; including stating “what .. if ..” scenarios.