Motivating Persistence – Design Small Steps
Tuesday, December 11th, 2012
Scientific American has a short article that does a good job summarizing the Three Critical Elements that Sustain Motivation. While we have covered the elements extensively on the Cognitive Design blog, it is worthwhile to review. The elements that sustain motivation include self-determination, value and competence. To keep going on tough tasks it is important to feel in charge, that the activity is worthwhile, you have the skill to get started and those skills improve with time. This helps to explain why some children avoid math and spend hours on video games.
While this seems simple, a complicating factor is that many of the challenges we face are forced on us by external factors. There is a change at work that requires we learn new skills or the doctors tells us its time for a lifestyle change. In both cases there is no sense of autonomy, a differed sense of value and a perception of incompetence. Many of the motivational remedies offered seem straight forward but take considerable skill to use in practice, especially on groups.
For example, to help me feel like I am setting direction my boss puts me on a team to help define the details of the change or my doctor lets me select a plan of exercise and diet. The hope is I will become engaged in making critical decision and develop a sense of ownership. After a while I might even think it is my idea. Of course I need to have enough motivation to work on the team or make the lifestyle decisions. And unfortunately, I was assigned the task, won’t see the immediate value to it nor feel particularly competent at it. Not much motivation for doing the task that is suppose to help me get motivated. A bit of a regress.
