How to use motivation to set goals, why it's critical to get it right
Next time you think about goal-setting, think about this …
In my triathlon days, I did an end-of-season race in Yorkshire. Someone was injured and offered me their place. I didn’t need to do it, but I took the place as something to do, without considering what my ‘why’ was.
During the three hour drive I started to wonder what the point was, but by then, I was almost there.
With the swim completed, about halfway through the lapped bike course, I got back into the transition area, packed up my stuff and went home. I was so bored!
It wasn’t the race’s fault, it was my own for not applying myself and not having a strong foundation for doing it. Just completing it wasn’t good enough and the ‘what am I doing?’ seed was already planted, so I couldn’t draw upon the necessary energy just to get to the end.
Had I thought about it from the start, someone else could have made better use of the place and I wouldn’t have wasted a day of driving and half a triathlon.
It was not my finest moment, and one that I still kick myself for, but it was a perfect lesson and an experience that I have not repeated. Since then, I have learned a lot about different types of motivation and how they can help or hinder you in pursuit of goals.
According to researchers, the two main types of motivation are intrinsic and extrinsic. There is a third minor one which is a contributor: achievement motivation.
Intrinsic means ‘liking the doing’, or in other words, pleasure and enjoyment. Extrinsic has been clarified to mean rewards that come later: ‘means to an end’ such as prize money, sponsorship or perhaps the pressure to fulfil a reputation.
Achievement motivation is ‘competition against some standard of excellence’ whether subconscious or conscious, which means you want to succeed no matter how good you are at it. This is according to Dr Edwin Locke and Dr Gary Latham et al. who updated their original pioneering study in the 1960s on goal setting to expand on the above-mentioned definitions in 2019.
Motivation is tough to define. Ultimately, it is the ‘why’ for doing something. But in order to have a ‘why’ there needs to be a goal, which takes us back to the 1968 study on goal setting.
The research found that setting challenging goals was more likely to lead to success because as long as it was achievable, people were more task focused, their distraction decreased and satisfaction was at its greatest. It also led to increased motivation and performance when participants had something testing to work towards because the overall achievement was greater.
The research defined a framework that was about setting clear, realistic and achievable goals. This is where SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time) comes in, though the acronym came in the 1980s long after their research.
Goal setting and the ‘why’ go hand-in-hand. You can’t really decide upon a goal without knowing what it’s for. This is where intrinsic and extrinsic motivation comes in, and this moment forms a huge part of determining your success and whether or not you have built a solid foundation. Are you doing it for enjoyment or because of external pressure or a financial reward?
The first thing I ask other people when they set a new goal or challenge is ‘why?’ because they need to have a strong reason and it needs to be the right one for that person, otherwise the chances of success are diminished from the beginning. And it’s usually obvious.
I didn’t finish the triathlon because my motivation was all extrinsic and I didn’t have a strong foundation, so it wasn’t enough for me to be ‘self-determined’. But I have completed other challenges primarily through intrinsic motives: I enjoy this activity, or because I want to.
Self-determined theory is a breakdown of intrinsic behaviours. Psychologist Kendra Cherry explains it as ‘motivated by intrinsic rewards, driven by enjoyment, interest or satisfaction’, while non-self-determined is the opposite: motivated by extrinsic reward, driven by obligation or responsibility, and the person feels a lack of control.
You may have heard people say that we can’t be motivated all the time. I can’t tell you whether that’s true or not because everyone is different. But I can tell you that the focus can be misplaced. By now most of you know that sticking to a goal is about consistency, routine and dedication, it’s not really about being motivated. The motivation starts when you set the goal, so as long as your ‘why’ is solid, the rest is about putting the effort in and being task focused.
The desire to put the effort in will wane some days and some weeks, and in others it will be high. It ebbs and flows like the tide, and when it’s vanished in one area it may well reappear in another area.
Furthermore, if your motivation has gone completely then there are several other things at play that you probably need to address.
Next time you think about goal setting, perhaps visualise building a strong foundation of intrinsic behaviours. Having extrinsic factors in there is a bonus as long as they are all stacked in the right way. That way, when the going gets tough your chance of success is still going in the right direction.
There are many more theories and studies on motivation, Locke and Latham is the original, but there are limitations to it that others sought to address over the years. Some are focused on sport, and others in the workplace, but the fundamentals are similar. One warning though, the more you read about it, the more complex it becomes!
Recommendations:
The below are from Business Leader magazine, which is new this year, and I love. They are primarily associated with entrepreneurial characteristics but it has a lot of cross over with sport.
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