itSMFA 2017 August Bulletin Bulletin - August - 2017 | Page 14

If you remember the article on the 3 R’s of Habit Change,
then you may realize that your pre–game routine is basically
creating a “reminder” for yourself. Your pre–game routine
is the trigger that kickstarts your habit, even if you’re not
motivated to do it.
This is important because when you don’t feel motivated,
it’s often too much work to figure out what you should do
next. When faced with another decision, you will often
decide to just quit. However, the pre–game routine solves
that problem because you know exactly what to do next.
There’s no debating or decision making. Lack of motivation
doesn't matter. You just follow the pattern.
How to Stay Motivated for the Long-Run
We have covered some strategies for making it easier to get
motivated and start a task. What about maintaining
motivation over the long-run? How can you stay motivated
for good?
How to Stay Motivated by Using the
Goldilocks Rule
Imagine you are playing tennis. If you try to play a serious
match against a four-year-old, you will quickly become
bored. The match is too easy. On the opposite end of the
spectrum, if you try to play a serious match against a
professional tennis player like Roger Federer or Serena
Williams, you will find yourself demotivated for a different
reason. The match is too difficult.
Compare these experiences to playing tennis against
someone who is your equal. As the game progresses, you
win a few points and you lose a few points. You have a
chance of winning the match, but only if you really try. Your
focus narrows, distractions fade away, and you find yourself
fully invested in the task at hand. The challenge you are
facing is “just manageable.” Victory is not guaranteed, but it
is possible. Tasks like these, science has found, are the most
likely to keep us motivated in the long term.
Human beings love challenges, but only if they are within
the optimal zone of difficulty. Tasks that are significantly
below your current abilities are boring. Tasks that are
significantly beyond your current abilities are discouraging.
But tasks that are right on the border of success and failure
are incredibly motivating to our human brains. We want
nothing more than to master a skill just beyond our current
horizon.
We can call this phenomenon The Goldilocks Rule. The
Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak
motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge
of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just
right.
Working on tasks that adhere to the Goldilocks Rule is one
of the keys to maintaining long-term motivation. If you find
yourself feeling unmotivated to work on a task, it is often
because it has drifted into an area of boredom or been
shoved into an area of great difficulty. You need to find a
way to pull your tasks back to the border of your abilities
where you feel challenged, but capable.
14 itSMF Bulletin—August 2017
How to Reach Peak Motivation
This wonderful blend of happiness and peak performance is
sometimes referred to as flow. Flow is what athletes and
performers experience when they are “in the zone.” Flow is
the mental state you experience when you are so focused on
the task at hand that the rest of the world fades away.
In many ways, we could describe flow as your state of peak
motivation. You would be hard-pressed to find a state where
you are more driven to continue the task you are working on.
One factor that researchers have found is linked to flow states
is whether or not you are following The Goldilocks Rule we
mentioned earlier. If you are working on challenges of optimal
difficulty, then you will not only be motivated but also
experience a boost in happiness. As psychologist Gilbert Brim
put it, “One of the important sources of human happiness is
working on tasks at a suitable level of difficulty, neither too
hard nor too easy.”
In order to reach this state of peak performance, however, you
not only need to work on challenges at the right degree of
difficulty, but also measure your immediate progress. As
psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains, one of the keys to
reaching a flow state is that “you get immediate feedback
about how you are doing at each step.”
Thus, we can say that measurement is a key factor in motiva-
tion. To put it more precisely, facing an optimal challenge and
receiving immediate feedback about the progress you are
making toward that challenge are two of the most critical
components of peak motivation.
For more on the importance of measurement and feedback,
check out this article: What Are You Measuring in Your Life?