The Science of Self-Motivation

A lot of formal research has gone into how our brain handles motivation and how we can improve our motivation. Here's what we've learned. We know that about 70% of our motivation levels are psychological -- how we think. The other 30% is biological (fatigue, instinct, etc.). Let's focus on the psychological part of our motivation, the biggest part. Scientists have identified how our brain's motivational system works, and five things we can do to super-charge it.

#1: Chunking.

Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time! "Chunking" is when we take a big task and break it down into bite-sized pieces. Chunking is a widely recognized technique for self-motivation. The U.S. Navy Seals use it as a mental technique to help them get through physically or mentally demanding situations. Rather than focus on the entire task ahead and getting overwhelmed, they break it down into bite-sized chunks that they can focus on one at a time. The Twelve Step program employs chunking very effectively with its focus on staying sober "one day at a time." Rather than be overwhelmed by the thought of having to stay clean and sober for months or years, they break down sobriety to bite-sized chunks - one day at a time. The Twelve Step program also uses the same concept for helping people cope with life when they are overwhelmed. Rather than focus on dealing with all their problems, they break it down to what they can do to help their problems today and stop worrying about the rest. The reason that chunking works is that our brain's willpower system is designed to be as efficient as possible. We have an unlimited amount of willpower, but we reach a point where our brain says nope, you've used enough willpower on that task for today. So, when we are faced with a huge task our brain says nope, we don't have enough willpower to do it. However, when we are using chunking and focussing on one small piece at a time, our brain says "We can do this! Here's some willpower to do it!" So, when we have a big task to complete, we are best to motivate ourselves by breaking the task into chunks and focussing on each chunk - one chunk at a time - and motivating ourselves to complete each chunk as we go. Something as difficult as recovery from drugs or alcohol is definitely a huge task, so we should use chunking to motivate ourselves.

#2: Confidence

The more confidence we have about our ability to accomplish a task, the more willpower we will have to accomplish it. If our mind doesn't believe a certain task is do-able, then it won't waste any motivation on the task. If I ask people who are actively using drugs or alcohol how confident they are that they can go a year without drugs or alcohol, they will probably be pretty iffy about it. However, if I ask them how confident they are that they stop drinking or using for one day and talk to someone about their problem that day, they are much more likely to be confident that they can do this. Their brain will assign willpower to the task they are confident they can achieve, but none to the goal they are iffy about. This is one of the reasons that chunking works: it gives us smaller goals that we can be confident about. After we get through that one sober day, then we focus on a goal of not drinking or using for another day. Accepting help on that first day - help detoxing and help figuring out how to live life without drugs or alcohol - gives us the outside help and supports we need to boost our confidence. Again, our brain will give us the motivation to do this, because we are confident that we can do it. Or, if we have to, we can go hour by hour to increase our confidence. These are goals we can be confident of achieving. As we get small wins - making it through one day on track - our confidence grows, and our willpower grows with it. The greater our confidence, the less will power we need to accomplish the task.

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#3: Change How We View Willpower

Studies have shown that our belief in willpower will greatly affect our levels of willpower. If we believe that our willpower is limited, we will lose willpower quickly. However, if we believe that our willpower is unlimited - which it actually is - we will have much greater access to willpower. Research has shown that the amount of willpower we have far exceeds the amount we use in a day, but our brain likes to set a limit on it to conserve it and use it efficiently. So, learning about willpower allows us to tap more into it. By learning the information we are discussing today we are learning how to tap into willpower more than the average person. By adopting this belief, we will have greater access to more of that unused willpower. So to have more access to your brain's unlimited amount of willpower, believe in your brain's ability to provide this willpower.

#4: Identity

By aligning our identity with our goal we reduce the amount of willpower we need to achieve that goal. In other words, if we want to stop using or drinking we should stop seeing ourselves as someone who drinks and uses, but instead self-identify as a person who is in recovery from substance use, a healthy, fit person who lives a healthy and disciplined lifestyle. One effective way of aligning our view of ourselves with our goal is by changing our language about ourselves. People with addiction must admit that they are addicted, and acknowledge that they will always return to the life of an addict if they pick up that first drink or drug. However, we can start using positive language about ourselves. We should stop using words like I can't, I must, I have to and replace them with I want to because this agrees with our new identity. It's about moving from the "I can't drink or use" frame of mind to the "I won't drink or use" way of thinking. Over time, our brain adopts this new identity, this new view of ourselves, and we require less willpower to stay on track with our healthy lifestyle in recovery. We start seeing ourselves as someone capable of recovery.

#5: High-Level Thinking

Once again, we turn to scientific research to help us boost our willpower. In this case, studies have shown that people who spend more time doing high-level thinking have higher levels of willpower than those who concentrate on low-level thoughts. Low-level thoughts are short-term thoughts about specifics. They usually start with "how:" How will I get detoxed? How will I stop using? How will I live without drugs or alcohol? High-level thoughts are long-term thoughts about the general. These are thoughts that give the reasons behind our actions, and start with "why:" Why do I want to get detoxed? Why do I want to stop using? Why do I want to live life in recovery? In terms of more routine activity, low-level thoughts are like: "How will I get to the gym?," or "How will I get back to school?" High-level thoughts are: "Why I go to the gym?" or "Why do I want to go back to school?" To be sure, we need low-level thoughts to plan out our actions and our day. These are needed to carry out our plans. However, many people limit themselves to low-level thoughts when they are going to the gym, or deciding whether or not to go back to school, or deciding to get free from drugs or alcohol. After all, it takes conscious effort to include high-level thoughts while we are doing these things because we don't need them to carry out our plans. However, we need them to boost our motivation. Higher-level thoughts create a sense of purpose and meaning, and our motivation follows from that. So, it's about developing the habit of thinking high-level thoughts as we carry out our actions. At first, this takes conscious effort, but after a while it becomes automatic. As we get used to focussing on high-level thoughts our level of motivation becomes automatically boosted. Try this: take a sheet of paper and write out all the reasons you can think of that you want to stop using or drinking, or why you would like to start going to the gym, or why you would like to go back to school, or whatever you need motivation for. Think it out, reach down deep, spend some time doing it. This exercise will give you a frame of reference for your higher-level thoughts that will help motivate you as you seek to improve your life.

Don't do it alone

Self-motivation is important, and often it's what we need to take that first huge step to escape from addiction. However, experience has shown that doing it alone is unlikely to be successful - for most people - and that accepting help is key. By having outside help and supports, we have good reason to be more confident in our abilities, break down our recovery into bite-sized chunks, start seeing ourselves as people in recovery, thinking high-level thoughts, and seeing that our willpower is there for us. In other words, by getting outside help we are boosting our self-motivation.

Summary

These principles of increasing our motivation are not gimmicks, they have been well-established by research done by cognitive psychologists. In summary, this is how we make maximum use of our brain's motivation system: Chunking: breaking up our big goal into bite-sized chunks Increasing our confidence by believing that we can achieve our goal Changing our view of willpower by realizing that we can use our knowledge of willpower to increase it Changing our self-identity from that of someone who is stuck in addiction to someone who is in recovery Increasing our high-level thinking by reminding ourself why we are pursuing our goal.