There is a theory of motivation that is quite widely accepted, which appeals to me. It is called “Expectancy Theory.” This theory says that we will be motivated if we believe that a particular level of effort, will be followed by a particular level of performance, and that a particular level of performance, will lead to a desired reward. These are also called “Expectancy, Instrumentality, and Valence.” Let me simplify it with an example.
First requirement for motivation: A Need
Motivation always has to start with a need, desire, or want. For the sake of the example, we will call anything that I want to achieve or obtain, whether it is really a need, or merely a whim, a “need.” Let’s say I had a need to listen to good quality music. In Order to fulfill this need, I would want to have a good Hi-Fi system, and this would cost me $ 1,000.
Valence
Valence is the ability of something to satisfy my need. I believe that the Hi Fi system would meet my need. If I had a Hi Fidelity sound system, this would provide me with the means to obtain the necessary satisfaction. This is called “Valence.” The ability of a reward to satisfy me, is its valence. An MP3 player would have a lower level of valence for me, than a good Hi-Fi system, because good quality music is important to me. If portability of my music were more important, the MP3 player would have a higher level of valence. Money would buy the Hi-Fi, and it is therefore easy for me to attach a high level of valence to $ 1,000.
Instrumentality
Instrumentality refers to the ability of a certain level of performance, to be directly linked to a certain reward. Let’s say that I’m working in a Restaurant, as a waiter, and earn $ 2 per hour basic pay, on top of which I earn gratuities. The gratuity is voluntary – so if I impress the customers, I tend to get more. I know that the more customers I can serve in a shift, the more gratuities I can get. So, I have reason to believe that serving more customers, getting larger tips and working more hours, will get me to my $ 1,000 goal faster. This is called “Instrumentality.” Instrumentality says that if I perform at a certain level, I will receive a certain reward. In this case, the higher my level of performance in these areas, the sooner I’d get to obtain the high-valence reward.
Expectancy
Expectancy is my level of belief that a certain effort will result in a certain level of performance. Suppose I believed that by smiling at all my customers, trying to anticipate their needs, and paying special attention to the children, I would get larger gratuities. I also believed that by getting the kitchen to produce food for my customers faster, I’d be able to turn over tables faster. By working more shifts, I could make more on my basic rate. So I would do all these things, because I believed that this effort, would result in a certain level of performance. So working from the beginning, I would be willing to put in a certain level of effort, if I believed that this would result in a certain level of performance (Expectancy), which, in turn, would give me a reward (Instrumentality), which would enable me to obtain something, that would satisfy my need (Valence).
Absence of one link destroys motivation
The moment any of these links are broken, my motivation fails. Now let us say that what I really crave, is not listening to good music, but more time with my friends. The first two parts of the link are still there. The same effort, will still provide the improved performance, which will give me more money, and the money could still buy a Hi-Fi – so expectancy and instrumentality are both there – but valence has disappeared. That money has no ability to buy me more time with my friends.
Or, let’s say I want the Hi-Fi, but the Hi-Fi I want, has been declared illegal in my country. It doesn’t matter how much money I earn, that Hi-Fi is simply not available. Valence is there – the Hi-Fi would have met my need – but instrumentality is now absent – the money cannot buy me the Hi-Fi, no matter how much of it I earn. My performance cannot influence the receipt of my reward.
Or I want the Hi-Fi, it is for sale, but I work in an area where it is not the culture to give gratuities to waiters. Apart from that, it’s a tourist lunch stop-over, so I can’t even try to impress some regular customers, to try and get them back more often, or to try and get them to sit at my tables. There’s a legal limit to the amount of shifts I can work – so I can’t work any more than what I’m already doing. And on top of that, I’m convinced that nothing I could do could ever convince the kitchen staff to work any faster. So no matter what I do, I cannot impact my performance. I still have valence and instrumentality. If I had the Hi-Fi, I could listen to my music, If I could earn gratuities, if I could turn over tables faster and if I could work more shifts, I would get more money, but my effort has no effect on this performance. Nothing I do, can influence these factors in any way. So I will not be motivated to put in the effort. Expectancy is missing.
So you see that in order to motivate yourself, you need to first understand your true needs and desires, and then you need to build back from there the reward you would need to fulfill that need, the performance that is likely to earn that reward, and the effort that is likely to get you to that level of performance
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Determination and Faith in the path to success
Success requires determination, determination requires faith, and faith requires support.
Success Requires Determination
In order to succeed in anything, we need determination. Stories abound of people that have overcome obstacle after obstacle to finally reach success, but I cannot think of even one, telling of a simple smooth road to unbounded success. Without determination, we tend to stop at the first obstacle. And obstacles there will be.
Determination Requires Faith
In order to be determined, we need to believe that somewhere beyond the obstacles lies success, and that we can -- and want to -- have that success.
Faith Requires Support
Believing something is not an independent, loosely floating concept. Faith in something can be compared to a platform. The supporting pillars are things you believe, which support the platform of your faith.
When you want to strengthen your faith in something, you need to look for supporting evidence that will add pillars under your platform. The more of these you have, the stronger and more stable your faith becomes.
Let's say I want to believe that I will become a successful writer. To strengthen that belief, I would look for supporting pillars.
One pillar might be the belief that good quality writing would improve my chances of success. In order for that belief to be of value to me, I have to believe that I can actually produce good quality writing. By subscribing to forums where I can get feedback on my writing, I might get more evidence to support my faith. Or I could get loads of negative feedback and eventually just give up, because the negative evidence will erode this pillar, until my faith in my ability to succeed at writing, has lost its support.
Another pillar might be that I believe that by being determined and focused on writing, I will get better and better at it. I believe that practice improves skill. This belief, in turn, might rest on some evidence from research that has been done, or maybe on the evidence of having practised, and seen an improvement in my own writing.
To strengthen your faith, find positive evidence and think about it
The process of strengthening a single pillar to support what I want to believe, is not necessarily a hundred percent rational. Our minds form neural pathways, and the size or strength of such a pathway, impacts on the strength of a specific belief. The size and strength of a neural pathway, however, is not related to its truth or rationality, but rather to its use. The more I use a pathway, the stronger it becomes.
So let's say that I believe that practice improves skill, and I have two pieces of evidence, of exact equal weight. One piece of evidence shows a research subject who had improved a certain skill with practice, and another, in identical circumstances, had not improved in skill at all.
The piece of evidence that I choose to think about the most, will cause a strengthening of that specific element of faith, through strengthening that neural pathway. If I continually dwell on the evidence of no improvement, I will find myself holding a stronger and stronger belief that practice does not improve skill.
A Negative focus will erase your ability to believe
Choosing to allow my thoughts to dwell on the negative evidence will systematically erode my confidence in my own ability to improve my skill through practice. I will consequently have lost one pillar of my belief that I will ultimately succeed as an author. I will also lose my motivation to practice, because I have removed the valence of this activity.
By not practicing, my skill will not only stop improving. It will actually deteriorate. Ultimately, I will almost have guaranteed my failure as an author.
A Positive focus will strengthen your belief
If I choose to think more on the evidence that showed practice improving skill, I will strengthen the neural pathway that holds that belief. The stronger it becomes, the stronger will be my expectation that practice will improve my skill. This will cause me to look for more and more opportunities to practice, which is likely to increase my chances of coming across exercises that have the potential to improve my skill.
I will write more, increasing the volume of publishable material I have available, and increasing the chances that someone will notice my writing.
Ultimately, I might not have guaranteed success through this one avenue, but I have at the least shut down one possible path to failure, and I have strengthened one of the pillars that will support my faith.
My strengthened faith will enable to be more determined, and as explained in the beginning, determination is a key ingredient of success.
One swallow doesn't make a summer, but one polar bear can make a winter
On the other hand, it is often possible to guarantee failure through one mistake. In “Determination and Faith in the path to success,” I show an example of how one negative belief can guarantee failure, whilst replacing that exact same belief with a positive one, will merely form one brick in the wall of success. Without many other strong bricks, completing that wall will not be possible.
Circular vs. Purpose driven thinking
I have found in my life that when I dwell on negative thinking, my mind tends to go in circles. I find after a little bit of thinking time, that I am back on a familiar path. That same negative thought that presented itself a few minutes ago, is suddenly here again. As soon as I follow it, I find myself continuing down an ever increasingly familiar path of worry, despair, hatred, anger or whatever other negative emotions I am attaching to these thoughts.
Every time I walk this thought-path, I am strengthening those neural pathways, making it easier and easier for me to believe the negative only, and more and more difficult to believe or even perceive the positive. Ultimately, if I spend enough time in these thought patterns, I will begin to build a set of thought-filters that will not allow any positive experience to enter my thoughts, without first being tainted by these negative filters.
This is a counterproductive use of thinking time.
When I create a positive image of an environment I want, and begin to spend time building that environment, devising plans, steps and tasks to develop that image into reality, things get better. Although there is also a certain amount of returning to familiar thoughts, I find that there are always new thoughts. I see new benefits in the environment I am creating, which I had not noticed before. I find new and innovative ideas on how to create that environment. Instead of filters that taint the positive, my mind begins to build sensitive receptors, looking for every opportunity, however small, and searching through every event for the positive material in that event, that can be gleaned and used to build the new environment.
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