Fuelled From Within: Understanding Motivation | Jax Aitchison

Jax Aitchison, guest · [10:41]It doesn't actually, not necessarily, and, and I think that's very important for the, the kids to understand that. This has got nothing to do with your talent. It's got nothing to do with your innate skills that you don't develop. Competence is, is just the feeling, the feeling of getting better at something. and teachers know this, it's, it's part of your learning theory when you study teaching, you are, you're trying to find a sweet spot. People learn best when the Goldilocks zone is in play. So you know yourselves, if you are continually doing something that's too easy, you get bored, you lose interest. If you are continually doing something that's too challenging, You get anxious and you avoid it, right? So we've got to find that sweet spot in the middle to allow you to feel that you are getting more and more competent. And competence isn't about increasing by ten percent on every test. It's about maybe a two percent increase. Then you have competence as long as you are feeling it. and an example that you guys might relate to better is think about gaming. For example, gaming's a good, a good example because gaming, when you play a game, the game is calibrating your ability level as you go. It's, it's a calibrating your ability level in real time. So it's constantly keeping you on the edge of challenge. And isn't gaming one of those things where you just lose time? You sit down and you think, I'll just quickly play for ten minutes and then I'll go and do my homework, and suddenly it's an hour and a half later and you're thinking, oh, you know, what happened? And it's because your competence level is continually calibrated to keep you stimulated at a maximum level. Essentially, so yeah, it's not an attitude problem, it's where your competence level's being calibrated. And remember, competence is also not about somebody else telling you your competence, so it's not about the teacher giving you the gold star, it's about your feeling of competence. You can have fifteen gold stars, but if you don't feel that you're getting any better at it, the competence is still missing.

Jax Aitchison, guest · [15:42]And this was a large part of the research that Ryan and Desi did. we tend to internalize the value systems of the people we relate to. So if we understand them and we feel a connection with people, we internalize the value system. Okay, so this is why your parents don't want you hanging around the wrong people, because they don't want you internalizing those value systems. but if we put it back into the school capacity, there was a lady, who did a TED Talk, Rita Pearson, and her TED Talk was amazing, and it, it was called Every Child Needs a Champion. And that was her whole premise, that you, a, a great teacher will be a champion to certain children, because children don't learn from people they don't like. We can like that or not like that, but it is the way it is. they need to feel connected and related to the people who are trying to impart a value system, a set of pedagogy, whatever it is upon their child. it's, sorry, there just sounds like there's some nonsense going on out there. The thing is, a teacher can be as passionate and as knowledgeable about the subject as anyone. They can be a professor in the subject, but if they can't create relatedness with their children, it doesn't matter how great that lesson is. That value system is not gonna translate across the child, and they're not gonna be able to adopt. I'm sure you've all heard that expression, children do what they see us do, not what they, what we tell them to do. It's the same principle. We enact a value system, they adopt the value system. So for you guys, think of a subject that you've really liked in the past, and think of a subject you've really not liked in the past. Because there's a differentiation between was it the subject, or was it that you couldn't get a grip on the subject because you were struggling with that teacher. Those are two separate things to explore.

Jax Aitchison, guest · [26:03]So hold that in your mind, that one that you have zero investment. The next one up the spectrum would be external regulation. So it's the, the no intent. I can't see the point of this. I do it because I'll get into trouble if I don't do it. I'll get into trouble if I don't do this. If I don't hand in the project, I'm gonna be in detention. If I don't pack the dishwasher, my cell phone's gone for a week. Okay? The problem with that one is the moment that threat disappears, so does the behavior. That, it's not gonna happen. You go away for the weekend, that dishwasher's not getting packed. Okay. So we've got amotivation, external regulation, then we move into introjected regulation. You guys don't have to remember the words, but just think about tasks or subjects or activities that fall into this space. And this is a big one, particularly for teenagers, and most of you are gonna find a lot of what you do in this space. The introjected regulation is, I do it so that I don't feel guilty. I do it so that I don't feel ashamed of myself. I do it because I fear failure. Okay, is that resonating?

Gershom Aitchison, host · [27:28]So it's internalized fear that is driving this.

Jax Aitchison, guest · [27:33]it looks a lot like motivation because it looks like you're sitting at your desk doing a lot of work. And it looks like the right kind of motivation, but your reasoning behind spending those hours at your desk are completely unsustainable. You will burn out at some point if that is your level of motivation for what you are doing. It is not sustainable.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [27:56]It also sounds quite fragile.

Jax Aitchison, guest · [27:57]It's extremely fragile. It's brittle. one bad grade, one bad test, and everything collapses. It's, it's meltdown, complete meltdown, because you have no, no ability to manage that. yeah, a lot of, a lot of high achieving teenagers run on this introjected regulation, and it works for a while, and it works until it's not working.

Jax Aitchison, guest · [46:59]Yeah, and this one's surprising. It's very counterintuitive. Yeah, teachers and parents, we know, we fall into this all the time. Especially when our children are little, if you're teaching a younger grade or when your children are little with the star charts and, and that sort of thing, right? And a lot of the parents, yeah, make it visual, put it on the wall, give them stars. The research actually shows that giving rewards consistently ultimately undermines intrinsic motivation. And parents for your workplace, it's the same thing. When you continually give rewards, it undermines the intrinsic motivation. So Ryan and Desi, one of their, one of the studies they did was they took people who were very good at solving puzzles, they loved to solve puzzles, and they started paying them for every puzzle that they solved. When the study ended, or when the, when they said, right, the payment phase is over, people reported doing far fewer puzzles going forward. They were like, I'm not getting paid anymore, so what's the point? anyone who's offered, we've got this, we wanna hit the sales target, so the person who hits the sales target gets a five thousand rand bonus this month, hypothetically. And then six months later you run the same thing, and the person goes, yeah, but, you know, it was five thousand rand last time, why is it not five and a half thousand this time? Now you're not pushing your sales because you love what you do, and you invested in the product you're selling, and it, it aligns with, all of those things have gone away. So you've actually completely undermined your intrinsic motivation at that point. So taking it to children, we can put the stars on the chart, but the moment you take the stars away, they're going, well, why would I do that then?

Jax Aitchison, guest · [68:52]one of the most powerful things that a parent can do is give reasons You can give reasons for the instructions that you are giving, because remember, autonomy-supportive parenting isn't just taking the rules away. The boundaries have to be there. Your child doesn't feel safe if you remove the guardrails. They, they operate in an optimal space when they feel safe. And as the adult, that's your job to, to keep the guardrails in place and let them bounce in between. So autonomy-supportive parenting isn't saying you can do whatever you like. This is how we do things here. I'll discuss it with you. Up to a point, you know, there are going to be the odd things every now and then, well, why can't we go on holiday to the Maldives for ten days? Well, you know what, that one's above your pay grade. That's okay too. You're allowed to say that as parents. When it comes to why do I have to do my homework, why do I have to pack the dishwasher, all this, you know, give them the reasons and then move on. They don't get to negotiate their reasons with you because it's your house. And they're not running it, you are. You are the adult in the room. I get that you don't love it. I hear you. I hear that this is hard for you. I, I hear you. I can see that it's hard for you. But we can't take it away. I can't make it go away. I can help you find a way to work with this. Let's have a conversation. I can't have a conversation when you're screaming in my ear. When you stop screaming in my ear, we can talk. I can't have this conversation when you're crying so hard that you've got

Jax Aitchison, guest · [74:45]Well, I think for you guys, the most important thing to remember is if you are feeling demotivated about certain subjects, certain activities that you have to do, you, you don't feel that because you are lazy. You don't feel that because you are stupid. You don't feel that because you aren't getting it right. That's not the case. You're feeling it because one of those three nutrients is probably missing, and you just need to identify what it is, and then it can be worked on, and it can, it, we can get you further up. You can work yourself further up that ladder by starting with the question, what's missing? I'm not sure. I can't figure it out. Come and talk to one of your teachers. We spend five hours training on this over the holidays. Your teachers have this information, and they can help you with this now. A lot of the time you go into avoidance mode when you are very demotivated. You, you try and avoid more and more and more, and then your anxiety grows because now you're missing homework and you've missed an SBA and now it just compounds, compounds. So your anxiety is going up and it snowballs into this whole monster that it never needed to be in the first place. If you had just identified, why am I so demotivated right now? And there's one more thing I want to say to you that is key to this. A lot of the time you're sitting around waiting to feel motivated before you start the action. You've got it back to front. Action comes before motivation. When you start the activity, you realize, oh, I maybe don't have the skills that I need to finish this, or I'm struggling with that. Then I can go and get the right help at the right time to fix that. But if you're waiting for motivation to fall out of the ether and smack you on the head, you're gonna be waiting a very long time. Action precedes motivation.