I did some reading of the literature on intrinsic motivation and came to a conclusion I hadn’t seen anywhere else, which is that people are intrinsically motivated to complete tasks that raise their status.
Yes, I think that the situation is that people are biologically hardwired to pursue their comparative advantage because doing so was was historically what was most conducive to becoming higher status, so that people’s motivation goes way up when they’re pursuing their natural comparative advantage (relative to their subjectively perceived communities).
You’ll never get quality feedback from that kind of environment. If the bar is so low that you need only exert minimal effort to outclass everyone around you, then how will you ever be able to excel?
Worst case, you put yourself in a toxic environment and lose all motivation. If those fine folks around you don’t find something important, then why should you? You can pick up bad habits that way. For example, there’s one study which found that if your friends are obese, then you have a much higher chance (57%) of becoming obese yourself.
“No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch.” If the choice is between lacking motivation entirely and having some motivation, the second seems better. One possibility is that you could find an environment that motivates you intrinsically, then once intrinsic motivation was acquired, start setting challenges for yourself.
I’ve found a mixed approach helpful: spend some time with people who don’t know how to do X, because you can add a lot of value to their lives by showing them how to do it better. Spend some time with people who are much better at X than you, so you consistently improve (and have new things to teach.)
I think most people tend to be far too hesitant to teach things they know, because they know that someone else understands it better. But if that person isn’t doing the work to teach, then simply talking about what you know can be incredibly valuable.
Yes, I think that the situation is that people are biologically hardwired to pursue their comparative advantage because doing so was was historically what was most conducive to becoming higher status, so that people’s motivation goes way up when they’re pursuing their natural comparative advantage (relative to their subjectively perceived communities).
That suggests one way to motivate yourself to do something is to surround yourself with other people who are doing it badly.
You’ll never get quality feedback from that kind of environment. If the bar is so low that you need only exert minimal effort to outclass everyone around you, then how will you ever be able to excel?
Worst case, you put yourself in a toxic environment and lose all motivation. If those fine folks around you don’t find something important, then why should you? You can pick up bad habits that way. For example, there’s one study which found that if your friends are obese, then you have a much higher chance (57%) of becoming obese yourself.
“No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch.” If the choice is between lacking motivation entirely and having some motivation, the second seems better. One possibility is that you could find an environment that motivates you intrinsically, then once intrinsic motivation was acquired, start setting challenges for yourself.
I’ve found a mixed approach helpful: spend some time with people who don’t know how to do X, because you can add a lot of value to their lives by showing them how to do it better. Spend some time with people who are much better at X than you, so you consistently improve (and have new things to teach.)
I think most people tend to be far too hesitant to teach things they know, because they know that someone else understands it better. But if that person isn’t doing the work to teach, then simply talking about what you know can be incredibly valuable.
In practice I think it would promote laziness and mediocrity much more than motivate you to excel.