Motivational (Im)balance
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Picture this: You wake up on a Monday morning, sluggish and groggy-eyed. You roll over in your bed to turn off your blaring alarm. You stare up at the ceiling, thinking: Do I have to get out of bed? If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. It’s a typical thought among college students throughout the world. Where are the boundless levels of energy and purpose you felt yesterday planning out your important tasks? Why do you feel this way? Is there an issue with your motivation levels? Do you even understand motivation as a general concept?
What is Motivation?
Motivation is the internal drive that propels us to take action toward our goals, aspirations, or needs. It's the force that helps us get out of bed in the morning, work toward personal and professional development, and navigate life’s challenges. Put more simply, motivation is why we do things (Cherry, 2023). Motivation can come from intrinsic sources, like personal growth or enjoyment, or extrinsic sources, like rewards or social recognition. Ideally, motivation provides balance: pushing us forward without overwhelming or underwhelming us. However, motivation often tips too far in either direction, resulting in overmotivation or undermotivation—both of which can hinder progress towards our goals. Here’s a closer look at these two extremes and strategies to manage them.
What is Overmotivation
Overmotivation occurs when one’s drive to achieve a goal becomes excessive or potentially obsessive. Rather than fueling productive and balanced actions, overmotivation can lead to burnout, stress, and unhealthy perfectionism. A person experiencing overmotivation might struggle to "switch off" from their tasks or feel intense disappointment when they don’t meet their exceptionally high standards. This state can drain mental, emotional, and physical energy, making it harder to sustain long-term goals.
Causes of Overmotivation
There are several explanations for overmotivation. One such explanation can be observed in an article titled “Does Social Media Influence the Motivation to Exercise?” published by Dr. Martin Graff in Psychology Today. The connection between social media use and exercise motivation is explored within it. The findings reveal that increased exposure to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest often correlates with heightened body dissatisfaction and compulsive exercise behaviors. This phenomenon arises because social media frequently encourages users to compare themselves to idealized body types. This leads to negative self-assessment and sometimes drives people toward excessive exercise and restrictive dieting. This article underscores how social media and comparison culture can interfere with balanced, long-term motivation (Graff, 2024).
Signs of Overmotivation
1. Constant Pressure: Feeling constantly "on" or pressured to achieve, often to the detriment of personal life and health. The more pressure you put on yourself to succeed, the more likely you feel anxious. This anxiety can distract you, draining your creativity and clouding your judgment. When you're focused on the fear of failure and its consequences, your attention shifts away from planning and doing your best work (Seltzer, 2021).
2. Perfectionism: Setting unrealistically high standards that lead to frustration when they aren't met. Over-enthusiasm for a project or task could lead you to spend far more time and effort than is fit. At times, perfectionism can even cause you to strive for things unrecognizable from your initial goals (Seltzer, 2021).
3. Anxiety or Burnout: Experiencing stress or burnout from overextending oneself. When you're overly motivated, you might be pushing yourself too hard. Stretching your limits can be helpful, but only if it's within your capacity. Pushing too far can lead to exhaustion, leaving you vulnerable to burnout and even depression (Seltzer, 2021).
Strategies to Manage Overmotivation
1. Set Realistic Goals: Break large tasks into smaller, achievable goals to prevent feeling overwhelmed and focus on progress over perfection (Knight, 2021).
2. Practice Self-Compassion: Remind yourself that it’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are often opportunities to learn rather than signs of failure (Health Direct Team, 2022).
3. Balance Work and Rest: Schedule regular breaks and allocate time for hobbies, friends, and family to maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life (Knight, 2021).
4. 4. Reflect an Reassess: Periodically check in on your motivations. Are they still meaningful? Do they align with your values, or have they become too focused on results (Health Direct Team, 2022)?
What is Undermotivation?
Undermotivation is the opposite extreme of overmotivation. In situations where the magnitude of a need decreases or abates, individuals may experience a reduction in motivation to fulfill that need. This shift can lead to undermotivation in the area where the need has diminished, as resources are disproportionately allocated elsewhere (Kruglanski, et al., 2021). When someone lacks the drive to pursue their goals, it’s often due to feeling disconnected from the purpose or reward of the task. This state can lead to procrastination, disengagement, and even depression if prolonged. Undermotivation can stem from feeling overwhelmed by the scope of a task, lack of confidence, or simply a lack of interest in what needs to be done. It can take many forms, ranging from simple laziness to severe dissociation.
Causes of Undermotivation
The causes for undermotivation are similar to overmotivation. One example is taking on too much to the point that you feel as if you cannot do it anymore. At times, undermotivation could stem from a period of overmotivation. The key difference between the two is that rather than being obsessive about the goal as with overmotivation, undermotivation typically describes a state of being detached from it(Ivan, Parasick, Robinson, 2024).
Another notable cause of undermotivation is something called delay discounting. Delay discounting is the tendency for a reward's perceived value to decrease as the wait time to receive it increases (Odum, 2011). For instance, going to every class to be prepared for the final exam. The exam is so far away that it is hard to motivate yourself to work towards the reward of a good grade on it. Time is therefore a large factor in the intensity of undermotivation.
Signs of Undermotivation
1. Avoidance of Tasks: Habitually procrastinating or avoiding work; You find yourself constantly putting off tasks for another time: “I can do this tomorrow”. You feel as if you need to take a break, even though you only did 5 minutes of work and took a 2-hour break. (Reeve, 2018)
2. Low Energy and Enthusiasm: Feeling indifferent or unexcited by tasks that previously held your interest; being possessed by low levels of energy and enthusiasm. This contributes to other signs of undermotivation, and what makes you avoid that massive pile of homework due at 11:59 pm for PSYC 330 (Reeve, 2018).
3. Self-Doubt: Experiencing a lack of confidence in one’s ability to achieve goals, leading to inaction; It makes you question your own abilities. You have a 10-page essay due Friday, and it’s currently Thursday. Due to how long you put it off, something that you know you could do given enough time, now you feel as if it’s an insurmountable obstacle you cannot overcome (Reeve, 2018).
Strategies to Manage Undermotivation
Understanding the signs of undermotivation, are there any ways to pull yourself out of it? There are numerous ways, but here are a few that should get you started:
1. Remembering Long-Term Goals: Remind yourself of why you’re pursuing your goals; it’s easy to get into the habit of doing things just to do them. When it comes to major goals, make sure to have them present in the back of your mind to give yourself a boost when you need it (Patel et al., 2016).
2. Set Small, Achievable Milestones: Start small to gain momentum; doing two pages out of your 10-page paper in an hour or walking ¼ of a mile should be cause for celebration! Allow yourself to be happy over those small victories. Never let someone else tell you that the victory you achieve doesn’t matter; at the end of the day, you are the one to manage your happiness and motivation, and should not allow anyone else to influence it (Patel et al., 2016).
3. Incorporate Rewards/Punishment: Similarly to the previous strategy, rewards are a valuable asset to balance out your motivations. A sweet treat for acing an exam never hurt anyone! But in addition to rewards, punishment can also be an effective incentive. In a study done on people following a plan of walking 7000 steps per day, there were three groups tested. One received $1.40 for each time they completed the step count, the second received nothing, and the third group lost $1.40. Of the three groups, the one that saw the greatest impact was the loss incentive group, as they had a 45% increase in their productivity (Patel et al., 2016). So if you dare to take the risk, you too can incorporate such a measure into your routine, but as stated before, make sure to take time to reward those victories you achieve as well! Just make sure to keep it balanced.
4. Build Self-Accountability: Above all, the only one who can truly make you do things is you. Of course, it’s great to have others around you who can guide and pull you aside when you aren’t on the right track, but relying on that alone is a dangerous path to tread, especially when you’re in situations where you cannot rely on others for help (Fishbach, 2018). Building great habits will only contribute to your success!
5. Consistency: Staying consistent in what you do is arguably even more important than self-accountability; if you aren’t consistently building upon your paper, you aren’t consistently going to the gym, or consistently reading, how can you hope to maintain yourself? Learned habits such as muscle memory come from consistency, so having that build-up first will then allow for those inevitable breaks to not hit you nearly as hard (Robinson, 2024).
Finding a Healthy Balance
The key to sustainable motivation lies in finding a balance between overmotivation and undermotivation. You want to be energized by your goals, but not overrun by them. In the journal article “On the Psychology of Extremism: How Motivational Imbalance Breeds Intemperance Consequence”, it is found that overmotivation of one need can cause neglect or diminished motivation for others, resulting in temporary instability (Kruglanski, et al., 2021). A balanced approach encourages consistent effort and resilience without pushing ourselves to the point of exhaustion or frustration. It allows us to stay engaged with the process and enjoy the journey, focusing on personal growth, teamwork, and perseverance along the way (Exploring Your Mind Team, 2018). Here are some universal strategies to cultivate balanced motivation:
1. Create a Supportive Environment: Surround yourself with people who encourage healthy growth and who will help keep your aspirations in check (Kurland, 2021).
2. Embrace Flexibility: Be willing to adjust your approach when it isn’t working. Motivation often needs to be adaptable to stay effective over time (Razzetti, 2018).
3. Celebrate Progress, Not Just Outcomes: Success is as much about the journey as the destination. Celebrate progress, no matter how small, to reinforce positive habits (Kurland, 2021).
4. Mindfulness and Self-Reflection: Regularly take time to reflect on what drives you, how you’re feeling about your goals, and whether any adjustments are needed. This practice helps you stay aligned with your long-term values and prevents motivation from tipping too far in one direction (Razzetti, 2018).
5. Practice Self-Care: Effective stress management and meaningful connections reduce emotional exhaustion. A study in the psychology journal PLoS ONE sheds light on the powerful role self-care plays in managing burnout. The study surveyed fourth-year medical students and found that resilience and self-care—like stress management, spiritual growth, and strong relationships—are closely linked to lower burnout levels (Micheal, 2024). The takeaway? Building resilience through intentional self-care can be key to sustaining motivation and avoiding burnout.
Conclusion
By understanding and managing the ebb and flow of motivation, we can better navigate the ups and downs of pursuing our ambitions and create a sustainable, fulfilling path toward personal and professional success. Addressing motivational imbalance requires us to shift our focus from solely fixating on the end goal to embracing the process of getting there. By concentrating on the "how" the steps, the challenges, and the learning that comes with each phase we equip ourselves with the experience and resilience needed to overcome obstacles (Exploring Your Mind Team, 2018).
With everything being said, are these foolproof strategies to combat your motivational imbalance? No, not exactly. Even if it was, life will still throw you curveballs, or at times completely derail your entire plan. Either way, our only hope is that with this blog post, you were able to gain an understanding of why you may experience a rush or lack of motivation. Everyone experiences these things in one way or another, but when we come together and share our experiences, we then can learn how to properly fight against it. Thank you for reading, and may your fight against motivational imbalance be in your favor.
► Hungry for more? Listen to our podcast on Motivational Imbalance here.!References