Despite being one of the seven deadly sins, pride is actually an important factor in staying motivated towards long-term goals. Tracy warns that there's an important distinction between using the absence of pride productively and suffering from a problematic lack of confidence -- i.e., shame. In contrast, feelings of low authentic pride push you to restore feelings of fulfillment and achievement by working harder and more efficiently. Embracing distractions instead of fighting through them certainly goes against conventional wisdom about motivation -- a quick Google search for "motivation and distraction" reveals a list of articles about "killing" or "eliminating" distractions as a strategy to stay motivated. Oliver Burkeman, the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, believes the typical way of approaching distractions as the enemy of productivity is misguided, and could counterintuitively be causing us to become even more distracted. "The good news is that when you see distraction for what it really is, you're much better equipped to fight it," Burkeman wrote in 99u. All you can focus on is the hardship to come: the effort you'll have to expend, the hours you'll have to put in, and how taxing the project will be from start to finish. Carson Tate, a productivity coach and business consultant, calls this phenomenon intellectual discomfort, and pretty much everyone has experienced it at one time or another. To start increasing your tolerance for work that requires your full attention, consider using a structured framework to manage your working hours. If you force yourself to get super motivated to start your next big project -- but in reality, you're really not feeling it -- you could actually end up feeling more unmotivated than before.
You can’t “hack” motivation. There’s not a quick trick in existence that’s going to motivate you to do something if you just don’t want to do it.
But you can make an effort to understand the psychology behind motivation, and use this to your advantage.
The things that keep us on track towards our goals might surprise you. In this article, we’ll discuss four perspective changes that can help keep you motivated — even when you feel like giving up.
4 Surprising Things That Keep Us Motivated
1) Overcoming a setback.
Despite being one of the seven deadly sins, pride is actually an important factor in staying motivated towards long-term goals. Pride comes in two different forms: There’s hubristic pride (the kind that inflates your ego and gets you into trouble) and authentic pride, which describes those warm, rewarding feelings you get from making progress on meaningful work or accomplishing a hard-won goal.
Jessica Tracy, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, and author of Take Pride: Why The Deadliest Sin Holds The Secret To Human Success, has extensively studied the effects of authentic pride (i.e., feelings of accomplishment and fulfillment) on human motivation.
In a recent study, Tracy and her colleagues examined the effects of authentic pride on students’ test taking abilities. When students reported feeling a low sense of authentic pride after receiving a poor test score, they were more likely to change their study approach and work to improve their results for next time. Students who did not report feeling a low sense of authentic pride after receiving a poor test score were much less motivated to improve.
In other words, having your ego bruised a little bit will actually motivate you to work harder in the long run. So if you’ve recently suffered from a setback or disappointment at work, channel that energy into changing up your approach and improving your results, rather than pushing those feelings away and ignoring them.
But be wary of taking it too far. Tracy warns that there’s an important distinction between using the absence of pride productively and suffering from a problematic lack of confidence — i.e., shame.
Shame, Tracy explained, is characterized by feelings of uselessness, and thoughts of “I’m not going to try to work hard because it’s just going to end up in failure.” In contrast, feelings of low authentic pride push you to restore feelings of fulfillment and achievement by working harder and more efficiently.
2) Being at peace with distractions.
Embracing distractions instead of fighting through them certainly goes against conventional wisdom about motivation — a quick Google search for “motivation and distraction” reveals a list of articles about “killing” or “eliminating” distractions as a strategy to stay motivated. But resisting all distraction can actually make it more difficult for our brains to stay focused.
Oliver Burkeman, the author of The Antidote: Happiness for…
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