14 Day Plan – Day 13

What drives change? And how to stay motivated

Our penultimate motivational tip could have been our first. We are going back to basics. At the most fundamental level humans have two basic drivers. We seek to move away from pain and towards pleasure. The stick and carrot are the two sides of these motivators. Hunger is pain, food is pleasure – we are driven to find food and eat. Loneliness is pain, companionship is pleasure – we are driven to socialise and mate. These are the most basic pillars of survival instincts.

I'm going to lob out a potentially controversial observation, which follows from these facts about basic motivation: If you know what to do, but aren't doing it, at a fundamental level the pleasure of where you could be and/or the pain of where you are now is/are not great enough to motivate you. You're actually more content than you realise. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's worth being aware of.

Our article today looks at how we can keep our motivation going – when it is at its highest…