This Is How to Motivate Your Brain for Long-Term Success

Motivation is the engine that drives productivity, creativity, and success, yet many of us have no idea how to jump-start our brains and harness it effectively to achieve our goals.

Traditional wisdom suggests that external rewards—such as bonuses, prizes, or allowances—are great ways to motivate people to put extra effort toward desired behaviors. However, research shows that this approach can often backfire.

After a certain point, rewards can actually lead to decreased productivity and creativity over time.

To unlock sustained motivation, you need to understand how your brain processes rewards and how generating intrinsic motivation plays a crucial role in achieving long-term success.

The Science of External Rewards: Why They Fall Short

In their book, The Winner’s Brain: 8 Strategies Great Minds Use to Achieve Success, Jeff Brown and Mark Fenske highlight research from Harvard showing an inverse relationship between productivity and external rewards after a certain threshold. External rewards, like money or material items, can initially boost motivation by focusing attention on a specific task. However, this focus often narrows too much, prioritizing the reward over the process.

Here’s what the research found:

1. Reduced Creativity: External rewards encourage individuals to work quickly and avoid risks, stifling creativity and innovation.
2. Eroded Intrinsic Motivation: When the focus shifts to solely obtaining a prize, people feel controlled and limited by the reward, diminishing their intrinsic interest and determination.
3. Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Losses: While external incentives may help overcome initial hurdles to get started, they fail to sustain motivation over time.

A meta-analytic review of experiments found resoundingly that extrinsic rewards undermine intrinsic motivation. This is called the overjustification effect.

Motivation and the Brain: A Neurological Perspective

In reality, motivation is more than just a feeling. It’s a process deeply rooted in brain function. The amygdala, your brain’s emotional processing center, plays an important role in sustaining motivation. It turns out that when you frame tasks positively or tie them to personal meaning, your amygdala activates and Releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward.

How to Spark Motivation in Your Brain

• • Framing Matters: Reframing mundane tasks as steps toward a personally meaningful goal stimulates your amygdala and triggers dopamine release. This creates a feedback loop that helps keep you motivated and encourages you to continue your efforts.
  • Small Wins, Big Impact: Celebrating your minor accomplishments along the way provides incremental dopamine hits, reinforcing your behavior and keeping you on track to reach your goal.
  • The Power of Intrinsic Motivation: Science shows that tasks aligned with personal values activate brain regions associated with self-determination, enhancing both persistence and satisfaction.

Intrinsic Motivation Is the Key to Long-Term Success

In their book, Brown and Fenske define motivation as the ability to translate potential and intention into action. Unlike external rewards, intrinsic motivation is driven by personal meaning, curiosity, and enjoyment of the process. Lucky for us, it’s a skill that can be cultivated.

How to Develop Intrinsic Motivation

• • 1. Assign Personal Meaning: Tasks that resonate with your values are more likely to generate intrinsic motivation. For example, focusing on how your job helps you make money that will allow you to buy a house transforms work from being a chore to a purpose-driven activity that can help you reach your goal.
    2. Celebrate Small Wins: Acknowledge your minor achievements along the way to a bigger end goal. This will help you maintain your momentum and build confidence. Research overwhelmingly shows that success breeds more success and reinforces motivation.
    3. Stay Present and Positive: Viewing everyday tasks as opportunities rather than obligations keeps your brain engaged and focused on growth. I know it sounds cheesy, but it works. For example, washing the dishes could be reframed as a quiet time to practice mindfulness and gratitude.

A Personal Story: Learning to Jump Rope Again

When I was in the early stages of recovering from a brain injury, I faced a challenge that seems rather trivial now, thank goodness, but felt insurmountable at the time: jumping rope. I was exercising daily to oxygenate my brain, aiding in recovery, and moving my body to regain coordination. During a “jump and pump” aerobics class at the YMCA, I couldn’t coordinate the timing of swinging the jumprope and my bodily movements to complete even one successful jump over the rope. My feet would get tangled in the rope every time. Instead of getting disgusted and giving up, I decided to focus on what I could do. I could jump up and down in place while holding the rope.

So, I did that.

And then, I practiced jumping rope at home—every single day.

It took a while, but gradually, I got better, and I celebrated every small win. Soon, I could manage 20 jumps over the rope without getting tripped up. Wohoo! Then I hit 50 and 100. Over time, my determination paid off.  Because of my perserverance in doing that and many other specific exercises to rebuild my brain, I made a full recovery.

While it was no fun at all, my brain injury taught me the value of tenacity, small victories, and the power of intrinsic motivation.

How to Cultivate Motivation in Your Life

Whether you’re a manager aiming to inspire your team, a parent encouraging your child, or an individual striving toward a personal goal, understanding how to nurture intrinsic motivation in your brain is key to success. Here are actionable strategies to develop and sustain motivation:

1. Set Meaningful Goals

• • • Break larger goals into smaller, actionable steps tied to personal values.
    • Example: Instead of aiming to “lose weight,” focus on “building strength to have more energy for my family.”

2. Celebrate Progress

• • • Recognize and reward yourself for small milestones, not just the end result.
    • Brain Boost: Each small celebration provides a dopamine release, reinforcing motivation and focus.

3. Reframe Tasks Positively

• • • View mundane or challenging tasks as stepping stones toward your desired outcome.
    • Example: Cleaning your workspace becomes “creating an environment where I can thrive.”

4. Encourage Autonomy

• • • Allow yourself and others the freedom to approach tasks creatively and independently.
    • Fact: Reseach shows that autonomy enhances intrinsic motivation by fostering a sense of control.

5. Build Habits Around Motivation

• • • Be consistent and pair tasks with more enjoyable activities to create positive associations.
    • Example: Listen to your favorite podcast or music while exercising or tackling mundane chores.

A Motivation Mindset: Focus on the Journey, Not Just the Destination

Motivation is not just about achieving goals; it’s about finding joy and meaning in the journey.

By understanding the science of motivation, reframing challenges, and celebrating small victories, you can rewire your brain to stay motivated for the long haul.

Remember, the secret to sustained motivation lies not in dangling external rewards but in fostering an environment where your intrinsic motivation thrives. When you embrace this approach, you’ll not only achieve your goals but also enjoy the process of getting there.