Chapter Content
Okay, so, you know, I was reading this thing, right? And it was all about, like, finding your inner flame. Sounds kinda cheesy, I know, but, like, bear with me.
It started with this quote, right? It said, like, don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive. Which is actually pretty cool when you think about it.
So, basically, the idea is that work is changing. Like, with all the AI stuff, it’s not as predictable as it used to be. It’s more like a hilly landscape than a flat road, you know? You gotta, like, push hard sometimes, and then you can kind of coast. And to navigate that, you need, like, a rhythmic way of working, which I guess makes sense. Pedal hard up the hill, coast down.
And to do that, you need three things: goals, motivation, and feedback. A goal kind of sets you on your way. Curiosity and interest motivate you to climb. And feedback, well, that helps you roll back down. It's like, you need all three to keep going.
The thing is, a lot of work environments, like, don't really encourage that. They want you to be productive all the time, and goals can seem, I don't know, kind of rigid. So, the suggestion is that you kind of transform your work, make it more rhythmic, have clear but flexible goals, and, yeah, use intrinsic rewards. That means the rewards that come from inside. And also, try to improve a little bit every day.
So, getting into goals, work is becoming more like an obstacle course, right? You gotta have short-term goals that help you with the immediate hurdle, but still keep the long-term goal in mind. Like, you might have to go slow down a muddy hill to not slip, even if your goal is to get to the end as fast as possible. You gotta be able to switch between those short-term and long-term goals.
And then there's motivation, which is like the engine power that gets you over those obstacles, you know? It can come from inside or outside.
Intrinsic motivation, that's the good stuff. That's when you want to learn something, get better, overcome a challenge. You’re not in it for the money or the status, but for the feeling of doing it. It makes you, like, a self-driving car, it’s that thing Thurman was talking about, where it "makes you come alive."
Extrinsic motivation is more about tangible goals, like money or a job title. It's tied to the outcome, not the process. And in the AI age, that’s becoming less reliable, right? You need to focus on the intrinsic part. Because tech is changing the traditional relationship between tangible rewards and the workplace. You need your motivation to be anchored in the process itself, not the outcome, you know?
Like, there was this story in here about this rugby player, Jonny Wilkinson, and how when he was just playing, he was in the flow, but when he had to kick a penalty, he'd get all anxious because he was focused on the result, and not letting his country down. That's the extrinsic motivation kicking in and screwing things up, you know? So, the thing about extrinsic motivation is everything depends on the outcome. And that can create tension.
Extrinsic motivation is like, can be a challenge or a threat. And threats can be bigger motivators because they fire up the emotion networks in your brain. But the way to downgrade a threat to a challenge, is to find something you can control in the situation. And if you are facing a challenge and suddenly lose control, it can feel like a threat.
Oh, and there was this thing about penalty shootouts in soccer, right? Turns out, players were way more likely to score if they were motivated by the thought of winning rather than the fear of losing. The fear of loss makes you lose focus.
And that's why, like, workplaces that have a "blame" culture make people play to avoid failure, instead of trying to win. They get stuck in that gear three state of mind, which kills creativity. Innovation, entrepreneurship, those just die.
Competition can be a good thing, but only if it's fair. When it’s safe and transparent, it can be motivating. But if there's opportunism or dishonesty, it feels like a threat. It’s all about protecting people’s self-worth, giving credit, so people feel valued, and in control. Then competition can become a motivator, not a threat.
So, intrinsic motivation is like, you find a spark in your work. It makes it feel lighter. You want to do it, you enjoy it, you want to keep doing it. It's what makes you "come alive." Claude Shannon said that the people who have the biggest ideas are driven by a desire to find out what makes things tick.
And the secret to switching it on is, like, turning your work into a journey of progressive improvement. Learning progress. We’re wired to improve ourselves, master the unknown. Learning makes the changing world a little more controllable.
The feeling of making progress, it’s satisfying, it’s energizing. It fuels intrinsic motivation. It’s not just learning facts, it’s learning progress, like doing things that narrow the distance to some goal. You have to be consistently aware of making progress.
Historians think that's why there was a boom in innovation in Britain in the 18th century, people had an "improving mentality." It's woven into the human condition. Like a baby kicking a mobile toy. At first it's random, but then they realize, “I can make the world move!” They stop being random, they behave with purpose.
That bond between action and result instills a desire to do the action again. The baby learns new details, the feedback confirms Learning Progress. It happens without any external bribe. It's deeply pleasurable. It's that progress part that stops you from just, you know, gorging on useless information. It keeps you focused on the next step, not the finish line. It makes your journey less daunting.
And it's different for everyone, right? Your progress will be fastest if you already have a base, or a natural flair. It's most likely to emerge from activities that fit your skills and talents.
So, how do you prime your mind for this? Like, you're sitting at your computer, tired on a Wednesday morning. Well, first, find learning progress. Scan the thing until you find something interesting. Start there, and then use that to find another crumb of interest, and so on. Instead of going through it sequentially, chip away at it using Learning Progress as a guide. It’s like a crossword puzzle!
Or, if there's nothing interesting, then manufacture learning progress. Break the thing into actions you can measure, and add a feedback signal at the end. A box to tick or whatever. Progress, feedback, progress!
And you want the difficulty level to be just right, right? If it's too hard, you can't make progress. If it's too easy, there's no opportunity for progress. It should be somewhere in the middle. They found that, like, neural networks learn fastest when they get about 15% of the answers wrong. Because learning happens when they are wrong.
Too easy, you're bored. Too hard, you're in gear 3. You want that middle Goldilocks zone, you know? Gear 2. Stretch your skills, and you make progress.
So, the last thing I wanted to touch on was like, pleasure after effort. Our ancestors, they had to work hard to get food. The more effort, the more reward. But industrialization messed that up. Now, a keystroke can change the market, and hours of coding might just lead to some trivial improvement.
But that old connection is still there in our minds. Even if your effort doesn’t impact the tangible reward, it does impact how satisfied you feel afterward. Recent experiments show you are more likely to enjoy a prize if you have worked hard for it. Even better, if you reward effort consistently, effort itself turns into a reward. You get joy just from putting in the effort! The process becomes pleasurable.
You can summon this joy just by putting in effort, which means the effort of engaging with your work generates its own intrinsic motivation. If investing the effort generates its own intrinsic motivation, the strain kind of just melts away.
It doesn’t matter where your brain learns to associate effort with pleasure. And if you put effort into fun things outside of work, then that can kind of compensate for having a bad experience with the effort-reward thing at work.
So, if you take all this, right? Consistent improvement, the right level of difficulty, and the pleasure of achievement after effort... and you mix them together just right... you can create, like, the ultimate state of mind... which they call "flow." And, yeah, that's what it’s all about, I guess.