Motivation is not enough!

Motivation drives us. Motivation also helps us to direct and maintain goal-oriented actions. But that is not enough to achieve our goals!

Dec 04, 2022

Motivation is the key that drives us to start working on a goal-oriented action. The factor that motivates us the most is the reward or the goal we would achieve if we put in the effort.

We start working out to “lose 10 kgs” or “have well-defined abs”. Our goals can also be tied to external factors like trophies, money, self-satisfaction, or praise.

In this week’s post, we’ll discuss how motivation drives us, the components involved in it, and why I think it is not enough from a developer’s perspective.

What is Motivation?

The term motivation describes why a person does something. It is the driving force behind human actions.

We all have a goal to achieve we want to achieve. Some of us are still trying to figure out our goal. Some of us are trying to define our goal better to understand it better.

Don’t be demotivated if you do not have a well-defined goal.

Everyone finds what they want to do at different phases of life. The fact that you’re trying to figure it out means that you care and willing to work for it.

To understand the motivating factors better, we’ll dive deeper into the types of motivation.

Intrinsic motivation:
Intrinsic motivation arises from within an individual to perform an action for self-satisfaction. This includes, completing a complicated puzzle or a coding problem to feel good about solving a problem.
Extrinsic motivation:
Extrinsic motivation external, and it ties to external factors and peer recognition, like money or award.

The Dopamine factor

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone directly connected to our body functions and motivation.

When we are motivated, we have a temporary spike in our dopamine level making us more energized and focussed.

Dopamine often spike occurs during these two times:

1) Before starting an action

When an external factor motivates us, there is a spike. We figure out what we have to do to achieve a goal. We imagine the rewards we will get on completing what we are about to do.

The dopamine spike when we set a goal becomes a crucial factor for us to initiate our actions toward achieving it.

2) After achieving the goal

When we achieve a goal (big or small), we feel good about ourselves and experience the rewards we get from achieving it, both internal and external.

This, in turn, makes us motivated enough to take up something more challenging.

Why is motivation not enough?

We’ve seen all the good things motivation does and what we could do if we are motivated enough. Then why do I tell that motivation is not enough for us to achieve our goals?

Let me ask a series of questions to put this in perspective.

How many of us started working out and gave up after a month or two?
How many times have you started reading books and lost touch after one or two books?
How many of us started learning a new tech stack but failed to build a side project with it?

Not everyone gives up. Some people make it a routine and incorporate it with discipline until the action becomes a part of their lives.

We need more than motivation to continue to work on our goals.

We need the motivation to initiate goal-oriented actions. But we need the discipline to continue working on them.

How does this relate to developers?

I believe developers should pursue constant learning and be up-to-date with emerging technologies.

We see many posts on LinkedIn and Twitter about “how to be successful?”. Posts on how someone earned $1M by learning Data Science or the programming language you must learn to be successful.

These act as extrinsic factors to motivate us to work towards that as soon as possible. It creates a sense of “missing out” on success. I mean, who doesn’t want to earn $1M?

Developers tend to do the following due to dopamine spike:

Start learning a new framework or programming language but not building anything with it, and eventually lose touch. I’ve done that several times.
Buy a bunch of Udemy courses to “upskill” themselves, but fail to complete them.
Buy a domain and subscription for a hosting service to host a side project, but never complete the project.
Create an account with a blogging site, but never publish a blog post.

As I mentioned, the dopamine spike before the action motivates us enough to get started.

But due to a lack of discipline and focus, we either do something unnecessary, give up, or jump on to the “next big thing”.

What can developers do?

As developers using a social media platform, we are bound to be exposed to many success stories and many “5 steps to be successful” kind of posts that motivates us.

We all deserve to be successful, and we all want to know the “formula” for being successful.

Here are a few things I learned in my developer journey making many mistakes and wasting my precious time on unnecessary things.

When you are motivated to achieve a goal, evaluate and define your goal first, write down the course of action, and then plan your execution.
Developers don’t have to learn everything, but constant learning is necessary. Focus on what you’re spending your time learning.
Merely learning a tech stack will not make you a better developer. What works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.
Do not learn new concepts only when you’re preparing for interviews. Make learning a continuous process.
Read articles and blogs of other developers. Promote their work. The developer community is great, and you can grow with them.
Push yourself to pursue #LifeLongLearning.

Relying only on motivation to work on productive actions will not end well. Motivation is volatile and varies from time to time. Discipline gives you the push to keep going, irrespective of your mood.

In a nutshell, motivation is essential for us to define our goals and initiate our journey toward them. But discipline will take us to the destination.

This entire post is based on a quote by Andrew Huberman.

Don’t spike dopamine prior to engaging in effort and don’t spike dopamine after engaging in effort.

LEARN TO SPIKE DOPAMINE FROM EFFORT ITSELF!

- Andrew Huberman, Neuroscientist.

Here are three great tools I use daily.

Daily.dev - Daily Dev is a great tool for staying up-to-date with development. Their browser extension is amazing and it shows me relevant articles whenever I open a new tab.
Notion - I use Notion to take notes when I’m learning, maintain bookmarks to articles, notes for my newsletter, and write down any ideas I have. It is a great tool and highly customizable.
Hashnode - Hashnode is a blogging platform focussed on developers. You can read articles written by fellow developers who are also learning and growing. With Hashnode, developers can customize their home page, add custom domain, and create additional pages almost making it into a portfolio.

My topic for next week will depend on the results of the poll on my LinkedIN profile ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/ragavendhar-t/ ). Make sure you follow me and vote for your favorite topic.

Until next time!