Intrinsic versus Extrinsic

This chapter is about intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation. This guide has told you all sorts of things you can do to learn effectively—but you still need to do them. Where do you find the motivation? How do you accomplish that?

As always, my Productivity course explains this more in-depth. It is, after all, about productivity.

But below is a summary of the important parts and some added information through the lens of this course: how to learn.

What are they?

Intrinsic means something comes from within you. You have the motivation and desire. You do something because you want it, because you long to do it from deep inside you.

Extrinsic means something comes from the outside world. They give a reason to be motivated. They perhaps provide rewards, or challenges, or constraints. You don’t want to do something yourself, you to do it for external reasons.

Not surprisingly, intrinsic is better than extrinsic.

If something comes from within you, there’ll be no shortage of passion and motivation to learn the skill. It is your choice. You’re not forced to do it. You’re not sad if you failed and get no reward, because just pursuing the skill is the reward for you.

But it’s also way harder to get and maintain. Many people have entirely lost their intrinsic motivation for anything, thanks to—as usual—the educational system.

In school, all motivation is extrinsic. You go to school because you must go to school. You sit in class and pay attention because you’re punished if you don’t. You study and learn useless facts because you are rewarded with a good grade.

Why is extrinsic bad?

First of all, this is psychologically damaging. You lose a sense of self, of purpose, of what you want. You feel like a sort of slave—because you are.

Research shows that extrinsic motivation will destroy intrinsic motivation.

A kid might like to draw, just because it likes drawing. It creates hundreds of drawings every month and loves doing it. Now school issues homework: draw this specific thing, before Friday, and you’ll be graded. The kid does so … but now they work because of external reasons, erasing their own desire. Repeat this enough times, and the desire is washed away.

The kid will only draw if they get a grade or some reward for it.

Many people report this as they leave school. They have to make decisions now about their career or their life’s path. And usually, this causes them to reminder what they liked to do as a kid. What they used to enjoy, but now they don’t anymore. Sometimes, that’s a natural part of growing up or changing personality. But often it’s because school replaced that intrinsic motivation by putting everything in the context of grades, of punishments and rewards.

For me, this was taken to an extreme. I hated school from the moment I set foot inside one as a little kid. I was forced to go through the system until I as 23, finishing my Bachelor’s. By that time, I had lost all sense of “wanting something” or “liking something”. I just lost it entirely. I didn’t want anything anymore. I didn’t have opinions, desires, or any emotions anymore. Because I was told, for 20 years, what to do every day of my life, in all ways.

Secondly, studies have shown that this hampers learning. Participants promised a reward for solving a problem perform worse, and are less creative, than those not given a reward at all.

Hopefully, as you read more of this guide, you agree with me how mind-bogglingly stupid the educational system is. It’s sole purpose is to help you learn. It’s sole accomplishment is to do exactly the things that will destroy learning.

But it works! Right?

Many people say this. But the kids will do their homework, right? In the end, school teaches them some things, right?

Or they use this technique on purpose. For completing a chapter of their novel, they allow themselves to eat a bar of chocolate. If they don’t finish their novel by Friday, they’re not allowed to go out on Saturday.

But now you know the real consequences of this.

• Tricking yourself this way will destroy intrinsic motivation
• As soon as the reward/punishment is removed … you stop doing the thing
• You have a mindset for “getting the reward”, instead of “learning” and “doing the job well”. This makes you less creative and the action itself useless.

What is the value of learning to do something … if you never actually want to do it again? What is the value of learning facts if you have to treat your kids like slaves to do it?

My opinion will be clear.

Foster your intrinsic motivation and try to reduce the impact of external motivation

Sure, if you just have to do something, reward yourself for doing. If that novel needs to go to the publisher on Friday, just do what’s needed to get it done. If you’re not interested in learning or creativity, extrinsic motivation is a great tool.

Otherwise, refrain from using it. However tempting it may be. When you feel motivation lacking, do not reach for the nearest external motivator. Instead, ask yourself why. Ask yourself what you could change to align with something you personally value. Something that motivates you.

Perhaps you’re motivated to help other people. Find a way to combine that skill you want to learn with helping others.

Perhaps you’re motivated by a strong moral compass. Find a way to combine your goal with discussing or communicating about morality.

Perhaps you’re simply motivated by money. Find a way to get the most money possible out of what you want to do :p

Any motivation works, as long as it’s intrinsic. Use it, foster it, don’t destroy it by doing the things school teaches you.

Example: my unique situation

I explained above that I’ve lost that internal motivation entirely, thanks to school (and other circumstances in my life). This is not a complaint or a “feel sorry for me”: it’s just a fact and it’s an important one to talk about.

How do you continue from that? What do you do?

You start searching for that intrinsic motivation.

I tried to do it the other way. I tried to be disciplined and just create projects that would give me an income. Maybe, if I was successful and had money, I would get my motivation back?

But that was the wrong approach. Most of those projects weren’t finished. I just burned out on them. I gave up as soon as any extrinsic motivation disappeared or turned out to be hollow. If I finish them, they are my worst projects and I hate the time spent on them.

So I flipped that switch. There were times, though rare, that an idea popped into my head and I would be like: “yeah that would be cool”

I held onto those ideas for dear life. Even if they were risky, or stupid, or I could never generate income from them. For a while, I did only the weird ideas for which I could feel something.

Most of them indeed never amounted to anything. Some of them did. Most importantly, that kept me going and always reignited some fire inside me for the creative work I do. After writing a stupid short story in a day, just because I wanted to, I’d always be more ready to tackle a larger writing project.

In the end, the most important skill to have is just the motivation to get up each day and do stuff. Anything else, any other expertise or facts in your head, does not matter if you’ve lost all motivation to do something with it.

That’s what I recommend. Don’t allow excuses or (well-intentioned) advice to overrule your sense of intrinsic motivation, and replace it with something external. The end result is that you stop liking anything you do. And the moment the external factor is removed, you stop doing the thing entirely.

Example: turning hobby into job

I’ve read this discussion over and over the past ten years. People saying they tried to turn their hobby into their job … and regretting it.

Now you know why.

Let’s say you loved to paint. You did it all the time: on weekends, on free evenings, whenever you felt like it. You just painted what you liked. You tried different styles, brushes, paints, for years. There was no goal, no deadline, no other reason than just the feeling that I want to paint.

You became good. You applied the four principles, so that’s not surprising. Others started saying you “should do something with this” and that you “could make money off of it”. You let it get to your head—or you need the money—and do that. You start taking projects. You start selling paintings. Suddenly, a painting has to be done in this style, by Monday, and your reward will be money.

Do this for a few months, and you’ve lost your own motivation for painting. You don’t want to do it anymore, unless you get paid for it. You don’t enjoy it anymore when there’s no goal or reward.

I struggled with the same thing. I think almost everybody does. But … we have more than enough examples of people turning their passion into their job, right? How did they do it?

By realizing this truth and finding ways to sustain intrinsic motivation.

I usually tell the following to people:

• Yes, you can turn your passion or hobby into a job
• But know that it won’t be the same as before. Accept there’ll be times you hate your hobby. Accept there’ll be days when you just need to push through and treat it like a job more than a passion.
• And keep enough space to pursue your hobby without reward. Keep doing hobby projects with no goal or expected income. Keep learning or executing a skill purely for yourself.

I have many projects online—and it’s not even half of all the things I made. I make an effort to regularly do something only for myself or for some other intrinsic reason. (As always, this can be a stupid or nonsensical reason. You just need a reason that works for you.) I consciously seek self-improvement in areas that are not related to any external pressure.

This, of course, is related to the previous example. When you’ve lost all intrinsic motivation for years, you learn how important it is, and how to constantly fight to get it back.