I think the words you want are “intrinsic” vs “extrinsic” motivation.
“Intrinsic motivation” is when you do something for it’s own sake, when the action is the goal.
“Extrinsic motivation” is when you do something in service of another goal.
It’s complicated, right? A conscientious person might actually enjoy the process of cleaning their room...they might get a little reward buzz out of doing that little task, because they know it’s one more thing off the checklist. To oversimplify neuroscience (but this actually isn’t as oversimplified as you might think), the nice thing about the dopaminergic system is that it can be trained to make extrinsically rewarding activities become intrinsically rewarding. I think much of what we perceive as “driven, motivated” is the ability to make extrinsic rewarding activity intrinsically rewarding.
Ambition sets the height of the intrinsically rewarding goals, whatever they may be. Would you enjoy lots of money? Would you enjoy power? Would you enjoy helping people?
Motivation helps you to assign intrinsic reward to the activities which are in service of your goals. Perhaps yet another trait (Willpower? Grit? Perseverance?) enables you to power through it anyway, even if you are unable to find anything intrinsically rewarding about it.
Curiosity and Creative impulses are different from both of these things in that they are themselves forms of intrinsic motivation, and neither set nor serve any higher goal. We do those things because it feels good to satisfy, and it hurts to not satisfy it. It’s fun—the same way that drinking with friends is fun. It’s an impulse—the rewards are intrinsic, immediate, and it would actually require willpower not to do it.
So I’ve got impulses which are creative and curious—I spend my time learning because it is fun and I’d keep doing it even if nothing would ever come of it. I can visualize a world where those impulses are satisfied to a greater extent than they currently are, and want to bring about that world—that’s an ambition. There are many college courses I don’t enjoy, but I try to grit my teeth and work through them in the service of my ambition. That is willpower—it’s in short supply, but it is present. I unfortunately don’t have any motivation, but I imagine it would consist of a feeling of satisfaction in response to good grades, a feeling of contentment when my work is done, and things of that nature.
You said you wanted to be a nurse, so I’m assuming (correct me otherwise?) that “helping people” is your thing. Is helping people your ambition or your impulse or both?
Impulse form: Helping people feels good and knowing pain exists feels bad, so you are intrinsically motivated to do help.
Ambition form: You envision a world where people are helped and feel a desire to manipulate your environment such as to bring about that world.
EDIT: Or, I guess “neither” is an option too—the entire thing could be a means to some yet more abstract end.
I’ve known a few people who choose professions because of social obligation, or some abstract sense that they “should” be doing the thing in question. People who manage to be successful with this set of priorities generally have a lot of either motivation or gritty willpower.
For the “social pressure’ variety, the ambition or impulse is to please some other set of people.
The “self acceptance” variety can often be very hard on themselves when they fail—for them, the ambition or impulse is the achievement of self-respect and self-worth. The whole thing is a quest to be the sort of person they would admire.
On being a nurse: helping people is more an impulse than an ambition now. Bedside nursing is soooo instantly-gratifying, and fulfills the needs of some deep, primitive, social-grooming-craving part of my emotional system, I don’t know if it was different four years ago; I don’t trust myself to perfectly remember my past motivations. I think that for a long time “ambitions” had very little power to move me, because of the part of my brain that was convinced they were immoral and/or led to doom.
I do have ambitions to help people in strategic ways (nursing might be a strategic way, but it might not be), and hopefully they will gain more power to affect my actions in the future.
The nice thing about the impulse form is that it allows you to succeed at what you do despite being lazy and not having much in the way of motivation or willpower.
hopefully they will gain more power to affect my actions in the future.
Strategically fulfill your impulses. If I just wanted science to be done in the abstract, I’d lobby for funding to science or donate money to research. I, personally want to do science, and so I strategically plan my life so as to increase my ability to fulfill that impulse. It’s an ambition to do science, but I’d never be able to motivate myself if I took the route of going into finance and donating my large income to research (unless I intrinsically enjoyed finance—insufficient data to know),
I’m saying that ambition needs a carrot at the end of the pole. The carrot is the instant gratification of the act of being helpful. Strategically make it so your ability to carry out this “act of being helpful” is increased, so that you can squeeze more gratification out of it. Without the carrot, ambition will fail due to lack of willpower and motivation. So if you are “strategically helping people”, the end goal of the strategy must ultimately include something that furthers your own enjoyment and gratification, something you know you’ll actually feel good about.
I think the words you want are “intrinsic” vs “extrinsic” motivation.
“Intrinsic motivation” is when you do something for it’s own sake, when the action is the goal.
“Extrinsic motivation” is when you do something in service of another goal.
It’s complicated, right? A conscientious person might actually enjoy the process of cleaning their room...they might get a little reward buzz out of doing that little task, because they know it’s one more thing off the checklist. To oversimplify neuroscience (but this actually isn’t as oversimplified as you might think), the nice thing about the dopaminergic system is that it can be trained to make extrinsically rewarding activities become intrinsically rewarding. I think much of what we perceive as “driven, motivated” is the ability to make extrinsic rewarding activity intrinsically rewarding.
Ambition sets the height of the intrinsically rewarding goals, whatever they may be. Would you enjoy lots of money? Would you enjoy power? Would you enjoy helping people?
Motivation helps you to assign intrinsic reward to the activities which are in service of your goals. Perhaps yet another trait (Willpower? Grit? Perseverance?) enables you to power through it anyway, even if you are unable to find anything intrinsically rewarding about it.
Curiosity and Creative impulses are different from both of these things in that they are themselves forms of intrinsic motivation, and neither set nor serve any higher goal. We do those things because it feels good to satisfy, and it hurts to not satisfy it. It’s fun—the same way that drinking with friends is fun. It’s an impulse—the rewards are intrinsic, immediate, and it would actually require willpower not to do it.
So I’ve got impulses which are creative and curious—I spend my time learning because it is fun and I’d keep doing it even if nothing would ever come of it. I can visualize a world where those impulses are satisfied to a greater extent than they currently are, and want to bring about that world—that’s an ambition. There are many college courses I don’t enjoy, but I try to grit my teeth and work through them in the service of my ambition. That is willpower—it’s in short supply, but it is present. I unfortunately don’t have any motivation, but I imagine it would consist of a feeling of satisfaction in response to good grades, a feeling of contentment when my work is done, and things of that nature.
You said you wanted to be a nurse, so I’m assuming (correct me otherwise?) that “helping people” is your thing. Is helping people your ambition or your impulse or both?
Impulse form: Helping people feels good and knowing pain exists feels bad, so you are intrinsically motivated to do help.
Ambition form: You envision a world where people are helped and feel a desire to manipulate your environment such as to bring about that world.
EDIT: Or, I guess “neither” is an option too—the entire thing could be a means to some yet more abstract end.
I’ve known a few people who choose professions because of social obligation, or some abstract sense that they “should” be doing the thing in question. People who manage to be successful with this set of priorities generally have a lot of either motivation or gritty willpower.
For the “social pressure’ variety, the ambition or impulse is to please some other set of people.
The “self acceptance” variety can often be very hard on themselves when they fail—for them, the ambition or impulse is the achievement of self-respect and self-worth. The whole thing is a quest to be the sort of person they would admire.
Awesome breakdown! Thank you!
On being a nurse: helping people is more an impulse than an ambition now. Bedside nursing is soooo instantly-gratifying, and fulfills the needs of some deep, primitive, social-grooming-craving part of my emotional system, I don’t know if it was different four years ago; I don’t trust myself to perfectly remember my past motivations. I think that for a long time “ambitions” had very little power to move me, because of the part of my brain that was convinced they were immoral and/or led to doom.
I do have ambitions to help people in strategic ways (nursing might be a strategic way, but it might not be), and hopefully they will gain more power to affect my actions in the future.
The nice thing about the impulse form is that it allows you to succeed at what you do despite being lazy and not having much in the way of motivation or willpower.
Strategically fulfill your impulses. If I just wanted science to be done in the abstract, I’d lobby for funding to science or donate money to research. I, personally want to do science, and so I strategically plan my life so as to increase my ability to fulfill that impulse. It’s an ambition to do science, but I’d never be able to motivate myself if I took the route of going into finance and donating my large income to research (unless I intrinsically enjoyed finance—insufficient data to know),
I’m saying that ambition needs a carrot at the end of the pole. The carrot is the instant gratification of the act of being helpful. Strategically make it so your ability to carry out this “act of being helpful” is increased, so that you can squeeze more gratification out of it. Without the carrot, ambition will fail due to lack of willpower and motivation. So if you are “strategically helping people”, the end goal of the strategy must ultimately include something that furthers your own enjoyment and gratification, something you know you’ll actually feel good about.