It doesn’t take a Stanford PhD to recognize that many of us have difficulties explicitly committing ourselves, especially in any areas of our life that we care deeply about. Paradoxically, the higher a person values an outcome, the less likely they are to have articulate goals to achieve their desire. I say “paradoxically,” since it’s relatively straightforward to persuade others that they have a means to get more of what they want, but it's incredibly difficult to get them to act on that knowledge.
Suppose you say “Oy, am I thirsty.” It should suffice to inform you where to find fresh water nearby. What if you continue to say “Oy, am I thirsty”? The reader has already found some way to make sense of this. Possible ‘explanations’ come for free (physical inability? some other invisible obstacle?). If someone says they’re thirsty, but they’re still not moving toward a drink, the one thing we know for sure: It’s still too hard, even after being given all the necessary information.
Surely, in many areas of our life, we do NOT execute on principles and values that we are fully committed to (cognitively).
Anxiety Management
Anxiety can overpower desire, and is the aspect of motivation that I’ve most thought about in my career. Experimentally, I found early on that people can be encouraged to build out dreams for their life’s top priorities. Yet, it was discouraging, on net, to try the most direct forms of encouragement. In studies where people were prompted to write down memories of past successes, this ‘self-affirmation’ exercise turned out to be more discouraging than helpful. Looking closer, I found that recollections of doing well previously risked triggering anxiety about one’s future performance, as if one’s previous height may feel too difficult to match.
This intuitive sort of encouragement, by asking people directly to think more deeply about aspirations, aggravates the very avoidance behavior it was aiming to address.
There was a path that motivated people, but it was experienced by only one of the groups (“cells”). When people were reminded to think back on successes in a completely distinctive domain, they did not succumb to the Delmore Effect. Every other group in my study showed a reliable gap that I had labeled the Delmore Effect. All participants had been asked to articulate their goal across their top 3 to 5 areas (social, spiritual, financial, academic, etc). Surprisingly, each study revealed how skimpy the goals people set in areas they most valued. Let’s say Ariel rated academic achievement more highly (#1) than Dan (where academics is #3). Consistently, we can predict that Dan’s goals for academics are rated more detailed than Ariel’s. So, rating something as important is not enough.
Motivation Mechanics for Product Experiences
My research and subsequent industry experience show that it’s relatively ineffective to prompt people to say what they want. To be sure, there are successful forebrain products, like what Mint or Evernote once signified. They succeed in spite of our general reluctance to commit to something as universal as fitness, retirement or budgeting goals.
It’s important to develop alternative paths for the 60-90% of us who struggle to overcome our own personal Delmore Effect. I’ve worked on a range of techniques for this motivational quandary. No matter how completely we believe in our passionate pursuit, mechanisms for anxiety management can powerfully improve that experience.
So, here’s the first technique that I found that defeated Delmore: There is some juice in levers as simple as inspirational prompts, yet the cue must be tailored to a person’s situation. If you value family connectedness more than personal fitness, you can oddly end up more motivated after boosting your sense of accomplishment in the lower priority area of fitness. This spills over, increasing your self-efficacy as evidenced by your ability to set articulate goals for the aspects of your life that you feel matter most.
No product has the power to induce motivation or authentic desire. Every human already possesses deep and powerful aspirations, which great product design can help them enjoyably fulfill. I aspire for experience designers to emulate the profession of midwifery. We don’t create people's goals. Yet our products generate endless opportunities for eliciting user-affirming cognition. Entering into an ethical relationship with our customers begins with a commitment to respect and fulfill their desires. In my next post, I’ll discuss a few more methods for effectively helping counteract anxiety and negative self-attributions, so people can focus on satisfying their actual desires and objectives.