The Science of Motivation

The answer to this question depends on the definition of motivation you use. If you define motivation as direction to act multiplied by the energy to act then you can predict that motivation is high if people have high expectations of success, have high incentive value, and at the same time have a strong need to reach or consume the incentive.

If you conceive of positive thinking in terms of positive daydreams and fantasies about the future, it can be problematic to maintaining motivation. The mental experience of having fulfilled your wishes and dreams makes you feel accomplished, and people relax. No wonder then that energy and effort decrease.

Defensive pessimism is a concept by Norem and Cantor, who observed students doing really well in their academic lives. Some of them strategically lowered their expectations for success in upcoming tasks. This elicited negative thoughts that they might fail. It is these negative thoughts that motivated them to put in the necessary work.

Defensive pessimism relates only to those who are high achievers. But it beautifully demonstrates that positive fantasies and daydreams about the future are not necessarily helpful to perform well. In any case, they are not enough to provide the impetus to perform well.

A fun sketch discussing some of our work is here.

Or follow this link to the woopmylife.org

There are many benefits of positive thinking. Having positive thoughts and daydreams allows you to explore the possibilities of your future. You can heighten your momentary mood, and it is the starting point for goal achievement. But positive thoughts and daydreams are not enough to realize a desired future. That is the problem. It gives action a direction, but at the same time, it saps the energy.

Positive thinking in terms of expectations of success is very different to positive fantasies and daydreams. While positive expectations, which are judgments on how likely it is that positive events will happen and negative events will not, are based on past experiences, positive fantasies are based on momentary needs.

Self-regulation techniques and strategies are at least as important as traits such as conscientiousness. Research in self-regulation focuses on such strategies and the openness to use these strategies to better ones and other people's lives.

Our research has shown that teaching the WOOP strategy can help people live healthier, improve their social life, and better their academic performance. Here are some of our study results.

• People doubled their physical activity and had a healthier diet.

• People with relationship anxiety became less anxious and more committed to their partner.

• Children at risk for ADHD found it easier to do their homework.

For these and many more research articles regarding the outcomes of using WOOP visit the Psychwire resources page or woopmylife.org

Use WOOP (Wish - Outcome - Obstacle – Plan). In our 20 years of research in motivation science we have discovered a straightforward cognitive strategy to overcome procrastination: WOOP. In the scientific literature, WOOP is known as mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII). It is the combination of mental contrasting (WOO) and implementation intentions or if-then plans (P). If-then plans have been the result of research by Peter M. Gollwitzer.

Learn about the science behind WOOP here.

Learn about the practice of WOOP and download the WOOP Kit here.

That depends on the person, the context and the interaction between the person and the context. What we see as internal obstacles are often emotions, irrational beliefs, and ingrained habits.

That's a good question. Only a few of us spontaneously use the self-regulatory strategy of mental contrasting during our daily lives, most of us indulge in positive fantasies of having already achieved what we want. Research suggests that anywhere between 10% to 25% of people spontaneously use the strategy, depending on the study. We know that those who are more achievement-oriented and face an immediate task use it somewhat more, but not substantially more, which is why we need to learn how to use the strategy to help ourselves.

Our work is good news for everyone. To find out how it can benefit you visit the WOOP website.

Mental contrasting of the positive future with the obstacle of reality is a mental or imagery strategy to understand your wishes, set preferences and fulfill your wishes. At the same time, you can use it to let go from wishes that are either not as important to you or simply not feasible.

Being unmotivated is a complex phenomenon. The word lazy is a negative attribute and feeling unmotivated is undoubtedly not always negative.

A block may be that their positive fantasies and daydreams of already having successfully executed the plan will take centre stage in their mind and thus they feel they have already executed their plan. A solution is to take 5 or 10 minutes to go through a WOOP practice.

To make this process simple, we have developed an app that guides you through the four steps of WOOP, Wish - Outcome - Obstacle - Plan. You only need a few minutes, but you need to be focused and stick to the four steps' correct order.

The app is available in Chinese, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, IsiXhosa, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, and Spanish and can be downloaded for Android or iOS

In my book Rethinking Positive Thinking I answer the question as follows:

"The solution isn't to do away with dreaming and positive thinking. Rather, it's making the most of our fantasies by brushing them up against the very thing most of us are taught to ignore or diminish: the obstacles that stand in our way."

A person who struggles with self-regulation and has low motivation is the exact type of person WOOP is designed for. They can learn by taking a little time to go on a discovery tour of the website. Practicing WOOP will lead them to discover their own true wishes and the crucial obstacles in themselves. In addition, they will discover how the world around them will improve once they have started using WOOP and changed their behaviors.

People who self-report good self-regulation indeed use more mental contrasting. However, they by far do not use mental contrasting in all the situations they could benefit from.