April A Month Of Motivation

How intrinsically motivated are you?

Here we are now in the 4th month of the year. Traditionally April is a month where we can take full advantage of the increasing light in the northern hemisphere and are able to rebalance and reset our circadian rhythym.

We can get into flow and and be motivated to fulfil the driving forces of our human psyche.

Motivation can be split into two factions, intrinsic and extrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation refers to people’s spontaneous tendencies to be curious and interested, to seek out challenges and to exercise and develop their skills and knowledge, even in the absence of operationally separable rewards.

Intrinsic motivation to predict enhanced learning, performance, creativity, optimal development and psychological wellness. Only recently, however, have studies begun to examine the neurobiological substrates of intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is closely related to flow, curiosity, trait plasticity (the ability to alter our personality).

These human abilities are not new skills but are ancient mechamisms that underpinned by dopaminergic systems.

This is really important to understand as our dopamine mechanisms can be and are abeing highjacked by influences that are not of our own.

We need to take control of our own systems and not allow them to be highjacked and commodified.

In a natural environment ‘rewards’ (remember these are actions to meet a need) were gained through time and effort.

We are not living in a natural environment.

We are living in an environment where we are all surrounded by influences that are seeking to get as many of us into an addiction state.

Addiction as a word, has roots in latin, and means to be enslaved to or bound to.

Experiences of additction are persistent and compulsive dependence on a habit or substance.

We have to collectively realise that the socially acceptable image or stereotype of addiction is not the full story. Addiction is far more insidious than that.

It has the face of an ordinary human being who doomscrolls, who craves a like on social media, who is unable to be parted from their smart device, who gets a dopamine hit from an extremely false and dangerous source. Is vulnerable to suggestion, is lonely, is isolated, does not feel valued, does not feel like they matter, feels wrong, all of those things.

It also has the face of the person who seeks the magic pill. The quick fix, the easy to do, the overnight transformation.

Sadly, this is not how the central nervous system works.

The central nervous system works off ancient mechanisms that have evolved not to give us a life of end to end pleasure, but to keep us alive.

We increasingly are subjected to extrernal forces that have been created to make us feel less than, powerless, broken. The remedy is then suggested with the suggestion that it is easy to get, and easy to implement. This though is often a masking device that has no longevity in its application.

Understanding how your brain and body works within a system is key to you discovering how to live your best life, in the best version of you.

A huge part of this is understanding how your dopamine pathways function.

I have explained before about dopamine and how it holds a paradox of opinion within me.

We need dopamine to learn new behaviours, to reinforce that which is beneficial for us.

However, within the brain, there is no good there is no bad, there just is the mechanism to reinforce behaviour. To notice when we have ‘rewarded’ a need. To give us a boost so that we are more inclined to do more of it.

It was once propsoed that the experience of pleasure alone was enough to prompt people to continue seeking an addictive substance or activity.

More recent research suggests that the situation is more complicated.

Dopamine not only contributes to the experience of pleasure, but also plays a role in learning and memory — two key elements in the transition from liking something to becoming addicted to it.

According to the current theory about addiction, dopamine interacts with another neurotransmitter, glutamate, to take over the brain’s system of reward-related learning.

This system has an important role in sustaining life because it links activities needed for human survival with pleasure and reward. The reward circuit in the brain includes areas involved with motivation and memory as well as with pleasure. Addictive substances and behaviours stimulate the same circuit — and then overload it.

This overloading is met by the brain reducing the amount of dopamine produced, to reduce the volume of feel good. So the person experiences a lesser feel good each time they repeat the behaviour, the compulsion is therefore to do more, and more often to attempt to recreate the feel good that is stored in memory.

The habit is formed and consolidtaed, and it will take time and effore to form a new habit.

During this time of new habit formation there is likely to be low mood, low motivation and little ability to feel optimistic.

No wonder it is so difficult to do different.

Going back to intrinsic motivation then.

Intrinsic motivation is associated with patterns of activity across large-scale neural networks, namely, those that support salience detection, attentional control and self-referential cognition.

It is the ability to find reward in the activity itself.

Knowing that you are able to direct attention to what you want to, not allowing distractions, not allowing focus to be watered down.

Feeling connected with and valued by the activity we are doing.

We need to start to take stock of how much our motivation has been highjacked. If we have done this and made movements to restrict the influences that damage us then we need to be kind to ourselves and realise that we may be feeling really low, really unmotivated and kind of rudderless.

This is an expected state.

Remember the brain does not like change so will want to get you back to a familar state, even if that is not good for you.

What is really important to remember to do is to celebrate every single small gain towards the behaviour you want.

So every day, and more importantly if you feel awful, you need to celebrate the fact that you are not doing anything that is harmful to you, or detrimental to your wellbeing in general.

These celebrations are going to eventually be recognised by the brain as being something good and that they should be repeated. This, over time, will make it all easier.

Collectively we need to stop allowing ourselves to be harvested by highjackers for their gain and our pain.

This is so important.

I cannot understand why anyone, now, would not be aware of the dangers associated with limbic system highjacking through gadgets, marketing and advertising. I especially cannot understand why children are being allowed access to these devices.

THEY ARE DAMAGING TO US ALL - ESPECIALLY THE DEVELOPING BRAIN!

Restrict the use of gadgets, restrict your exposure to marketing campaigns, restrict the ability for others to get to your emotional world.

This is so important to our wellbeing and humanity.

In our natural state we have primal motivational instincts.

They are -

Connection - seeking out the bonds that value and sustain us.

Hunger - seeking out sustenance that satiates us.

Acitivities - seeking out difference, play and travel.

Reflection - seeking awareness, understanding and wholeness.

Magnificence - seeking how to create greatly.

So I ask you to do this, how does CHARM figure in your life?

Which of our primal motivations are you neglecting?

Which are overly evident in your life?

How can you balance your motivations?

What motivation needs to be acknowledged?

What needs are crying out and how are you rewarding them?

I speak to many people on a weekly basis. People I work with, people I see at school, people I encounter in shops, the hospital, the surgery, the park. I speak to many.

The majority have disclosed they are feeling so low, so demotivated, unwell, fed up. I completely understand, as I too am not immune to those feelings.

The environment in which we live is not kind to humanity.

There is so much that leads to feelings of despair, learned hopelessness, inertia and dissociation.

And yet.

The glimpses of humanity and the ability for us all to be the best kind of humans can still be seen, if looked for.

Be wary of the doom and gloom pedalled by the media. That is not going to support your intrinsic motivation, it will instead render you addcited to what is destroying you inside.

Be more appreciative of yourself and what you need. Meet those needs by rewarding them with what they do truly need not what is a quick and easy plaster.

Remember, tiny steps will build into huge actions.

Look at the CHARM model and start to answer those questions. Awareness and Acceptance are the beginning of this journey for you.

Shake off the shackles of quick hit dopamine that keeps you frozen. Embrace the time and space of your real ‘reward’ system.

I guarantee it is worth it.

“Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular.”