Intrinsic Motivation: The Search For Meaning
The search for meaning is key to intrinsic motivation and personal fulfillment. Having a purpose, clarifying what is most valuable to us configures a yellow brick road capable of guiding us on a day-to-day basis so as not to lose our way. Only in this way do we put passion and enthusiasm into our work and fences for those who dare to deviate from that personal path.
As curious as it may be to us, within psychological practice it is common for patients to be often asked a very specific question: what is it that defines you, what are your values? What does life mean to you? Somehow, we have inherited those existentialist foundations that Viktor Frankl left us with logotherapy, where we bring to light the primary motivation of each human being.
Today many specialists point out that this end, that of the search for meaning, is one of the most basic needs of a good part of the population. People are currently experiencing an uncomfortable feeling of emptiness. If a few decades ago religion and spirituality tried to fill in some way those spaces of doubts, personal abysses and drifts, today something more is needed.
We could say that we have already put aside that need to understand our origin or our position in the cosmos. Science gives us valuable answers and we have a great deal of information at our fingertips. However, in this present defined by great technological advances, other deeper voids appear, other anxieties.
What am I here for? What do I expect from myself? That is, instead of asking ourselves about the meaning of life itself, we now question our relationship with life and ourselves.
Intrinsic motivation, a commitment to yourself
We have all been taught that motivation can be of two types: extrinsic and intrinsic. The first is orchestrated by the need to carry out certain behaviors in order to receive an external reward, an objective reinforcement. The second, intrinsic motivation, is that where the person does certain things for the mere pleasure of doing them, without the need for external incentives.
A study carried out at the University of Strathfield indicates that this last motivational dimension is regulated by a series of very specific processes. Thus, realities as important as creativity, curiosity, reflection, critical sense, initiative and proactive behaviors are those that orchestrate all that impulse that generates intrinsic motivation.
Now the problem comes now. For a good part of our lives we have been educated under the parameters that govern extrinsic motivation ⇒ “If you do this, I will give you an A. Be good and I’ll buy you that toy. If you pass the exams, I’ll let you go on a trip ”.
Furthermore, society itself also manipulates us in the purest behavioral style with rewards, punishments and reinforcements. In essence, we have been so aware of that gratifying external hand that we can feel very lost in its absence . Being subject to this external world creates internal voids, blocks initiatives, creative impulse, challenge, the daring to seek personal rewards.
The search for meaning, a personal obligation
The search for meaning shapes our intrinsic motivation. The moment we find a reason, a reason for being, a passion and that golden thread that guides dreams, values and determinations, everything changes. However, how to do it? We are so full of obligations, pressures, conditions and environmental noises that it is difficult to find that reason for being.
However, there is something that we cannot lose sight of: the human being is ingenious, he is brave, he is witty. The search for meaning can be carried out in any setting and situation:
- Talking to someone, allowing us to know new points of view.
- Traveling
- Reading a book, discovering.
- Learning something new, opening the mind to new knowledge.
- Attending a conference.
- Playing a sport.
- Meeting new people.
However, let’s look at some key dimensions.
Commitment to yourself
The search for meaning involves making a commitment to ourselves. Something like this means, for example, not leaving our needs for tomorrow, it means giving us quality time, serving us, allowing ourselves, taking care of ourselves, giving us new opportunities to experiment, discover …
Be curious, challenge, innovate
Sometimes we have no choice but to unlearn to learn again. We’ve been mediated by extrinsic motivation and that need to be validated or rewarded for so long that we’ve forgotten how exciting it is to get out of that fence and challenge the world.
Let us dare to think differently, to be creative, to innovate in ideas, behaviors, projects … Daring brings discoveries, and the search for meaning involves being able to do new things, get out of the routine.
To conclude, finding a vital purpose is a personal obligation that we should all work on. Let’s make our existential emptiness smaller by filling it with experiences, experiences, opportunities. Life can often reveal not one, but multiple meanings in which to place our motivations.
