Rantalicious

So yeah. Been a little while. I haven't done much in the awesome department here lately. Been in a major funk.

But, to be honest, I don't really wanna talk about that right now. I'd rather talk about this...



Recently, as in within the last year or so, a fundamental shift of my understanding of myself was revealed to me. After more than a decade of belief that I was almost entirely intrinsically motivated, the self-delusion was pulled back and I realized that there is a much more significant chunk of extrinsic motivation than I'd like to admit.

In this context, Intrinsic Motivation is the ability to be motivated by yourself. Your own wants, needs and ideas. Extrinsic is the opposite. You're motivation comes from the wants, needs and ideas of others.

Simply put, extrinsic motivation is hard for me to accept considering how much of a control-freak I can be and yet it is so glaringly obvious on retrospection how almost everything I ever accomplished and enjoyed was extrinsically motivated. I played in the band because I enjoyed playing music with people. As soon as the group band disappeared from my life, I almost never broke out the sticks. I learned programming because I wanted to design games, which I did because I wanted to tell stories. I wanted the recognition for telling great stories, not because I was naturally a story teller.

The problem with extrinsic motivation is it depends highly on the people you're around. Since you're looking for recognition, affection or just simple reactions your actions are dictated by the quality of human beings around you. If you have shitty friends, you will do shitty things and live a shitty life. For an intrinsically motivated person, it can be as simple as making up your mind and all of a sudden you're on a completely new path.

For someone who is primarily extrinsically motivated, you need to change the people around you. Some will try to literally change the people around them by trying to help them improve their own lives. Others will change their circle of friends and build a social structure of people who are more aligned with their goals. A primarily extrinsically motivated person that wants to quit smoking can either try to get all of her  smoking friends to quit or at least support her in her attempt to quit (which likely means not smoking around her) or she can find new friends who don't smoke.

Now, I want to say that no one is purely extrinsically motivated or purely intrinsically motivated. No one healthy anyway. A sociopath, for example, might be completely intrinsically motivated. They, literally, only care about their own wants and needs.

This ties full circle to my theories on light and dark side mentalities. Intrinsically motivated people would be more aligned with dark side mentalities. It would be much easier to think about improving your own life if your motivation all comes from you. Similarly, the converse it makes it a lot easier to think about improving others' situations if your motivation came primarily from them. This isn't exact of course. The darkside extrinsically motivated person would be doing anything she could in order to make her look better in the eyes of others. The lightside intrinsically motivated person would be the ultimate altruist.

The issue comes back though of which motivation affects me more strongly and how to use this to further my goals. I know the extrinsic ones are much easier to use. I will throw away plans at the drop of a hat if a friend needs my help. It's a lot easier for me to go do something I may not like if I know that I will be doing it with someone I like or respect.

However, I think the intrinsic ones are ultimately closer to my core. I don't cave easily to peer pressure most of the time. I stick up for my morals even if they're not popular.

However, I can't discount the fact that the easiest way for me tap my motivations is if they're extrinsic.

So... The conclusions I can draw is that the most effective way to get my goals done is to increase the availability of extrinsic motivators that are aligned with my goals. Which means finding friends and partners who mesh with my goals.

I think a worthwhile activity would be to better delineate what my goals are.