OVERVIEW: This in-depth guide explores the differences between intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation and provides ample examples of intrinsic motivation.
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Why do we do what we do?
Turns out, there are two primary reasons.
One of them often reinforces anxiety, frustration, and depression.
The other type of motivation puts us on the path to internal freedom, contentment, and satisfaction.
Let’s take a closer look at each one …
Intrinsic Motivation versus Extrinsic Motivation
With extrinsic motivation, we do something because of an external force. Here, our motivations are driven by an external reward or to meet an external need.
This reward may be greater self-esteem, approval from others, or some other basic human need.
With intrinsic motivation, we do an act because we genuinely want to do it. That is, the task or activity is meaningful or important to us.
With intrinsic motivation, the reward is derived from within us.
Examples of Extrinsic Motivation
Let’s look at some examples of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation.
The motivations of the average individual are mainly extrinsic.
That is, most people do what we do in an attempt to meet our basic human needs.
| Extrinsic Motivation | Intrinsic Motivation | |
| Description | Do the task to get an external reward. | Do the task because you enjoy it and you find it satisfying. |
| Examples | Making money, avoiding punishment, avoiding getting in trouble, seeking approval | Drawing; journaling; learning an instrument |
So with extrinsic motivation, you do the task to get an external reward.
Examples of extrinsic motivation include getting a job and working to make money.
Also, doing anything specifically to avoid punishment or getting in trouble is considered extrinsically motivated.
Posting updates on a social media platform to get the approval of others is another example of extrinsic motivation.
Examples of Intrinsic Motivation
With intrinsic motivation, you do the task because you enjoy it and you find it satisfying.
Drawing, journaling, and learning to play an instrument can all be examples of intrinsic motivation, assuming they are done for one’s enjoyment, inner satisfaction, or internal growth.
For example, if you’re learning to play the guitar mainly to impress someone, this is an example of extrinsic motivation.
If you’re learning to play the guitar for the pure interest in making music, this is an example of intrinsic motivation.
Extrinsic Motivation and Maslow’s Hierarchy
Before we take a closer look at more specific examples of intrinsic motivation, let’s examine these rewards in the context of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s discoveries.
If you recall Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, we each have a series of basic needs.
Basic human needs include:
- Physiological needs like water, food, and clean air.
- Safety needs like clothing, shelter, and familiarity.
- Belonging needs like affection and connection to others.
- Esteem needs including self-respect and recognition from others.
When these needs aren’t met, they make us feel deficient and lead to anxiety and depression.
All of these basic needs are extrinsically motivated. In Toward a Psychology of Being, Maslow referred to them as deficiency motivation.
That is, in seeking to meet our basic human needs in adulthood, we are always seeking something outside of ourselves.
Examples of external rewards can be:
- Money to buy food and clothing, or pay our mortgage or rent.
- Approval, acceptance, or connection with others.
- Feeling elevated about ourselves in comparison to others (esteem).
So, most of us invest a great deal of our time pursuing extrinsic rewards in an attempt to meet our basic needs.
Intrinsic Motivation and Maslow’s Self-Actualization
Now, Maslow pointed out that a vital shift can occur in the course of human development.
This shift occurs when we move from focusing on extrinsic rewards to intrinsic rewards. Maslow called it growth motivation.
That is, the individual goes from focusing on the basic needs we just highlighted to internal growth needs.
Maslow called this shift to intrinsic rewards self-actualization.
Self-actualizing individuals focus more of their attention on doing things that support their internal growth and personal satisfaction.
Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivations
Said another way, self-actualizing individuals are less neurotic and aren’t driven to meet the expectations of others.
Consider all of the energy most people invest in meeting our external needs. For example:
- Trying to be accepted by their family and friends
- Seeking the approval of others
- Competing with others to demonstrate their self-worth
- Presenting a persona or social mask to be respected by others
Then, imagine what we’re capable of if that energy was invested in ourselves—in our growth, self-expression, and sense of inner meaning.
Intrinsic Motivation leads to Intrinsic Rewards
As a consequence, self-actualizing individuals have more peak experiences, or what’s often called flow states.
In a flow state, we become fully absorbed in the task at hand. All personal problems fade away and we perform at our best.
These creative flow states become more common when we’re doing things for ourselves (intrinsic motivation) as opposed to meeting the approval of others (extrinsic motivation).
5 Examples of Intrinsic Motivation
Now, with the above foundation, let’s run through everyday examples of intrinsic motivation contrasted with extrinsic motivation.
Scenario #1: Learning a Musical Instrument
Extrinsic Motivation: Some kids are almost forced to play an instrument in high school. Yet, in adulthood, they stop because their motivation is external (e.g., the approval of others or avoiding punishment).
Example of Intrinsic Motivation: Learning to play the piano because the act of learning and playing it is enjoyable or interesting to you.
Scenario #2: Participating in Sports
Extrinsic Motivation: You play basketball with your friends on Saturday because you don’t want to miss out or feel left behind. That is, your main drive in playing basketball is to fit in.
Example of Intrinsic Motivation: You play basketball because it’s a lot of fun for you and you enjoy the exercise. Whether you’re playing with people you know or a random pick-up game, it’s enjoyable to you.
Scenario #3: Visiting with a Friend
Extrinsic Motivation: You visit with a friend because you feel lonely or because you want to improve your social standing.
Example of Intrinsic Motivation: You visit with a friend because you enjoy being in their presence, you like relating to them and having an interesting dialogue.
Scenario #4: Exercising
Extrinsic Motivation: You go to the gym because you want to lose weight, improve your image, or build muscle to compete with your friends or colleagues (or to impress someone). Or, you go to the gym to meet your internal self-esteem needs (to feel better about yourself).
Example of Intrinsic Motivation: You work out because you enjoy the sensations in your body or the feeling of physically challenging yourself. You enjoy the internal feeling of strength, balance, and mobility.
Scenario #5: Volunteering
Extrinsic Motivation: You volunteer locally so that your family and friends on social media will think you’re a good person.
Example of Intrinsic Motivation: You volunteer simply because it’s rewarding to you (whether or not anyone you know finds out that you do it).
Extrinsic Motivation and the Gold-Star Syndrome
According to Maslow’s research, which is corroborated by over 60 years of research in developmental psychology, most people are predominantly extrinsically motivated.
That is, very few individuals reach the point where they are mainly focused on self-actualization.
There are many important reasons for this, but the first cause starts in early childhood.
Our cultural conditioning reinforces extrinsic motivation.
Meaning most parents and the public education system raised us with a focus on meeting external rewards. (Any “standardized” system is likely to do this.)
I call this the “Gold-Star Syndrome.”
Did you get rewarded for completing simple tasks in school or at home?
Psychologist Carol Dweck’s four decades of research point out that praise fosters a fixed mindset that limits personal growth.
Praise wires us to seek extrinsic rewards. We become more interested in how we look and how others perceive us than in the natural process of learning.
Once we’re conditioned to expect praise (or rewards like a gold star) for doing normal activities like drawing a picture or completing a report, this tendency sticks with us.
And once we’re conditioned with praise during our formative years, it can be difficult to shift to a focus on intrinsic motivation.
3 More Reasons Many People Are Extrinsically Motivated
Praise isn’t the only culprit.
Here are three more significant reasons many individuals fail to shift toward intrinsic motivation:
- Many individuals are genuinely struggling to meet their external needs. This often boils down to financial challenges in earning a living and providing for oneself and/or one’s family.
- Unrecognized psychological trauma can keep us in an endless loop of trying to extrinsic motivation even when it doesn’t support us in doing so.
- Only a few of us get to know our shadow.
The shadow represents everything we don’t know about ourselves.
When we don’t know our shadow, we often don’t know what’s driving us—even when we think we do!
Let’s see how this often plays out…
Shadow Intentions Behind Our Motivation
The tricky thing about motivation is that it’s relatively easy to convince ourselves why we’re doing something.
Take any example of intrinsic motivation listed above and you’ll see what I mean.
How easy is it to convince ourselves that we work out because we like the way it makes us feel (even though we mainly do it to boost our image)?
How many of us believe we play an instrument because we enjoy it (when we really do it to impress others)?
Don’t most of us play sports because we want to dominate others or simply win?
As is usually the case with developing self-knowledge, we most often only know the truth about ourselves by looking back.
Sometimes, it can take years for our true motivations to reveal themselves.
Reflecting on my own experience, I can say that most of my actions in the first 38 years of my life were extrinsically motivated—even though I was engaged in self-development for a full 20 years!
Yet, if you asked me at the time, I would have told you I was doing it all for myself.
The Endless Downward Spiral of Extrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic motivations have a way of keeping us in an endless downward spiral.
For example, if you’re earning money to compete with a “friend” who earns more than you, you’ll never find contentment. You’ll always need to earn more to compete—even if you start to “win”.
If you’re exercising to improve your outward image and sexual appeal, you’ll always have an underlying feeling of anxiety and insecurity. Age will become your enemy and will defeat you over time.
If you’re staying connected with friends on social media because you’re concerned with how others perceive you, you’ll become more depressed and lonely over time. Yes, loads of research now to confirm this.1https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/jscp.2018.37.10.751,2Dylan Walsh, Study: Social media use linked to decline in mental health, MIT Sloan, September 2022.
Take any personal interest you may have. If your motivation for doing something is extrinsic, you will eventually lose interest or burn out. It’s that simple.
Once you see this fully within yourself, you’re in the position to make a conscious shift.
Why Intrinsic Motivation is So Important
The closer you examine this issue of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, the more you’ll likely realize that most of what we do is for external reasons.
This externally driven focus is the source of much of our internal resistance, lack of focus, and daily frustrations.
As children, we mainly had to do what authority figures wanted because our survival was dependent on them.
So we sought the approval of others for our survival (biological and safety needs).
But as adults, when we do things mainly for the approval of others or to satisfy our need for self-esteem, we are actually quite unhappy.
Why? As self-determinism theory highlights, as adults we seek:3Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, 2011:
- Autonomy,
- Personal mastery, and
- Purpose.
All three of these drivers are intrinsic motivations, not extrinsic.
But Isn’t Intrinsic Motivation Selfish?
This question speaks to an aspect of our cultural conditioning discussed above.
The meaning of intrinsic motivation suggests that it’s better to do things for yourself instead of for others. And we’ve learned to incorrectly label that as “selfish.”
Selfishness is doing things for yourself excessively, exclusively, or at the expense of others.
Intrinsic motivation speaks to our basic need for personal contentment and enrichment.
As strange as it may sound to some, due to early childhood conditioning, it’s actually more important to serve our internal needs first.
Why? Because if we don’t, anything we do for others will come at a psychic cost to both us and them.
Why You Need to Focus on Yourself Before Serving Others
First, we will be disingenuous and incongruent in our actions.
Second, and more importantly, when we do things because of external, unmet needs, it fosters rage and discontent within our unconscious.
That repressed rage often expresses itself in subverted ways: subtle forms of sadism, aggression, passive-aggression, and manipulation.
These mechanisms often operate within us without our conscious knowledge. These behavioral patterns express themselves through one’s shadow.
But when we are driven by intrinsic motivation, we feel more content within ourselves. As such, we can genuinely support the well-being of others.
Note: by “focusing on yourself,” I’m not advocating common narcissistic behaviors like “spa days” and “self-care days” that are popular in the younger generation. Tyrannical behavior is not developmental or healing.
More Intrinsic Motivation Examples
As you can see from the above examples of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, the particular action or activity isn’t the main concern.
The main thing with motivation is understanding what’s driving us: is it something outside of us (extrinsic) or within us (intrinsic motivation)?
Here are more intrinsic motivation examples:
- Writing a novel to bring your inner world to life instead of writing it to publish it or in the hopes of having a bestseller.
- Painting a work of art to capture an image from your imagination instead of painting it to get public recognition.
- Practicing meditation or yoga because it makes you feel calmer and more centered—not because it’s the “in thing” to do.
- Learning another language because you want to explore other languages as opposed to needing to learn it for your work.
Do you see the Pattern?
From these examples of intrinsic motivation, you’ll notice a pattern:
Intrinsic motivation is doing the activity for yourself, often as a form of self-expression.
With extrinsic motivations, we almost always do things to elevate ourselves in front of others.
Remember, the more you do things for the approval of others, the more anxiety and frustration you’ll have in your life.
In contrast, the more you move toward intrinsic motivation, the more contentment and fulfillment you’ll experience.
(Read the last two sentences a few times. Subconsciously, we are taught the opposite.)
One Final Example of Intrinsic Motivation
I’d like to give you one more example of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation that may be upsetting to some readers.
The scenario is getting married, starting a family, and having children.
Just like the above examples, getting married can be either intrinsically or extrinsically motivated.
In the majority of cases, basic life events like marriage and having a child are driven by extrinsic motivation.
That is, these events are culturally conditioned and driven by social pressure.
For example, you get married because your parents want you to, or because your friends are getting married and you don’t want to fall behind.
This example helps illustrate the high cost of being unconscious of our true motivations.
The Cost of Remaining Unconscious of Our True Motivations
What happens when we make a major life decision based on extrinsic motivations (parental approval, peer competition, etc.)?
Struggle. Internal tension. Heartache. Suffering.
Why? Because we’re not doing what we intrinsically want to do (or what we may be ready to do).
In the language of depth psychology, this means that we have archetypes within us that conflict with one another.
This internal conflict will influence our feelings, moods, attitudes, and actions.
The result is often divorce. Or, it may simply lead to an unhappy marriage (and potentially an unhappy life).
When you meet a couple that genuinely got married based on their internal compass, you can often visibly notice the difference. (It’s quite rare.)
Shifting from Extrinsic to Intrinsic Motivation
Now, if you’ve read this far, you might have this question:
But can’t you have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for the same activity?
Occasionally, yes. However, in most cases, the answer is no, not really. Extrinsic motivations tend to trump our internal needs.
The more conscious you become of what’s blocking your innate internal drive, the more likely you are to shift toward it.
Above, we covered four reasons why we often don’t access intrinsic motivations:
- Cultural conditioning
- Life circumstances
- Psychological trauma
- Unconsciousness (of our shadow)
All four of these reasons can be formidable.
Bringing Consciousness to Our Motivational Drives
With cultural and social conditioning, it’s helpful to cultivate emotional self-awareness and pay more attention to what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.
In terms of your life circumstances, it’s usually helpful to create a plan and take consistent action. If your challenges are mainly financial, start by examining your psychology around money.
For issues related to psychological trauma, it’s important to understand what happened to you, feel the emotions, unlock stored trauma related to past events, and come to terms with them.
Finally, we must constantly be bringing the unconscious to consciousness, which was Carl Jung’s way of saying to do shadow work.
How to Access Intrinsic Motivation
Removing the blocks to intrinsic motivation doesn’t happen overnight.
It’s a process of awakening yourself as you strip away everything that you’ve been dragging with you.
Along this path, it’s important to emphasize self-honesty.
For example, when you’re engaging in an activity and you believe it’s for altruistic reasons, can you challenge your conscious intent?
Are you really being altruistic or do you have a “shadow motivation” that you’re not being honest about?
If you assume there’s a hidden intention, you may begin to see it.
Once you know your shadow intent, it’s significantly easier to access intrinsic motivation.
More Ways to Access Intrinsic Motivation
Here are a few other tips that may help you:
- Come to better understand the nature of your basic human needs
- Become more conscious of the qualities of self-actualizing individuals
- Focus on your strengths and do things that you’re innately good at
- Follow your bliss by engaging in activities that genuinely interest you
All of these things can help you become more conscious of when extrinsic rewards are driving you.
They can also help you make the shift to intrinsic motivations.
Finally, access the healthy child within you. Find the part of you that’s playful, curious, and willing to explore.
Immerse yourself in your interests without focusing on “achieving a goal.”
Just dig in. Start to tinker and play. Do this with earnestness and see what happens.
What Do You Think?
Share your thoughts, comments, and experiences below:
I have struggled with my choice of profession. I realize that not being happy with the situation, I have not just been able to move on but have put myself in worse situations..poor relationships, bad choice of friends, not being able to make money.
If I understand you properly, Extrinsic motivations are really living someone else’s (commercial) agenda. Sometimes driving into the city with millions of other vehicles, I think this is total madness. The pollution, the road rage, not mention the numerous accidents resulting in death and life changing injuries.
We use to spend fifteen minutes driving to work and spend two hours have dinner with out families. Now we spend two hours travelling to work and maybe fifteen minutes having dinner with our families. the air was clean and the food was wholesome.
I have read (Tolle?) that we need to heal ourselves to heal the planet. Your writings are intuitive and part of my journey to self actualization. Thank you.
Thank you for your comments, Andrew.
Yes, extrinsic motivation is like going with societies current down a polluted and congested river (which tends to put us in a state of dis-ease).
Intrinsic motivation is like creating your own tributary and flowing down the stream in clear water.
Thank you for this guide. Yes, polluted waters can only bring polluted solutions, polluted waters can never bring wholesome solutions.
I have a question— can the desire to be an actor or model be intrinsic?
If an actor’s desire is to understand the human condition and connect with other performers, that seems intrinsic. But acting is almost always created for an audience, which seems extrinsic — desire to entertain others, wanting attention, wanting praise.
I’m trying to evaluate my own life-long desire and love for performing. I wonder if it reeeally deep down it comes from an extrinsic desire. On the other hand, it does help me reach a state of flow.
How do you pursue an activity like performing while maintaining a health intrinsic vs. extrinsic balance?
Thank you!
Lisa
Great question, Lisa.
When it comes to motivation, it’s less about the act itself and more about the intention behind it.
Can someone be intrinsically motivated to act or perform? Certainly.
These individuals will find just as much enjoyment in acting whether it’s in rehearsal or in front of a small community audience.
The average actor, however, is more driven by money, fame, praise, attention, and recognition (extrinsic motivations). If they aren’t receiving these things, they don’t like acting (which means they aren’t doing it for own enrichment).
An intrinsically-driven writer, for example, will write because he/she needs to — he/she wants to. Not because the work must be published or must become a bestseller.
So the honest intention behind the action or endeavor is what’s important when it comes to understanding motivation. And to arrive at your honest intention, you must first know your shadow and integrate it. Otherwise, we remain forever driven by extrinsic needs.
Thank you for all of your content I love it! I want to learn as much I can on the subject of Self-mastery because I struggle with it. I have several activities that I do that are both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. I know you said its rare that this is the case but I feel in this case it is true. I love fitness. I really do do it for the love it, for the fun of it, because I am curious to see what my body can achieve before I die. But I’m also a coach and work in gyms. So my personal practice which I feel is intrinsically motivated overflows into my work, which is very extrinsically motivated due to all the ego driven rewards, and to stay relevant I have to post about myself. Will I never reach my full potential if I have intrinsically rewarded activities that are also extrinsically rewarded activites?
So here’s a thought experiment to consider:
Imagine that you eliminated social media posting from your life …
And you never again received ANY ego-driven rewards from your fitness efforts (meaning no one ever looked at you, acknowledged you, envied you, praised you, or cared about your body image) …
How much motivation would you have for fitness then?
Would you work out as often? And as consistently? Would you still love it as much as you say you do?
Now, only you can answer these questions for yourself.
But you’ll be surprised how challenging it is to answer these questions honestly because few of us have sufficient self-knowledge and self-awareness to be truly honest with ourselves. We don’t really how much the external world drives our actions, attitudes, identities, and behaviors.
great response!
I take it your response hasn’t ruled out there could be some intrinsic value. Using your energy on an extrinsic task?
In regard to Niki Thompson’s question, I’m too interested if an extrinsically motivation can become intrinsically. I have a quote from step 9 of the hero’s journey you outlined from Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.
“Having defeated the enemy and slain the dragon, the hero receives the prize.
Pulling the metaphorical sword from the stone, the hero achieves the objective he set out to complete.
Whether the reward is monetary, physical, romantic, or spiritual, the hero transforms.
Usually, the initial prize sought by the hero is physical—the sword in the stone or a physical treasure of some kind.”
This would indicate intrinsic value can be obtained from extrinsical goals. Would you agree? Thank-you.
It’s a bit more nuanced than that. First, the hero often doesn’t obtain the original reward he sought. The “ultimate boon” is an internal transformation that shifts his values and understanding of himself.
But can something you do that’s fueled by extrinsic motivation become an intrinsically motivated activity? I suppose it’s possible, however …
Jung gives the example of a person who likes to garden — something that’s purely enjoyable to this individual (intrinsic). If, however, this person decides to make a gardening business (extrinsic) his personal interest in gardening will dry up.
See also Joseph Campbell’s observations from “The Power of Myth” that I excerpt here:
https://scottjeffrey.com/personal-vision-statement/
(Under the subheading, “Before You Start Dreaming Up Your Vision”)
HI Scott. Maslow’s theory is well known but many have debunked it. It is possible for someone who is homeless to question existence, religion, purpose etc. His idea that these needs are heirarchical is not strictly true, and many co-exist for a long time. The order of importance changes too. Why is this model still utilised as a way to illustrate motivation etc?
Maslow’s model is still used, Mark, because it’s accurate.
Anyone “debunking” Maslow likely hasn’t actually read what Maslow said about needs.
Someone who is homeless will have more pressures trying to meet their lower-level needs. But that doesn’t mean that a homeless person can’t also question his/her existence.
Maslow didn’t put the level of needs into a pyramid in his work. And if he mentioned “hierarchy” at all, he did so sparingly.
Clayton Alderfer’s adaption is more accurate as a conceptual framework. He used a continuum instead of a pyramid.
You can learn more about Maslow’s model here:
https://scottjeffrey.com/basic-human-needs/
First of all, thank you. Your website is comprehensive and clear and wonderfully free of opinion. (Think you used ‘I’ five times in the whole article). So great so informative and really good practical guidance that we get our teeth into daily.
Regarding ‘winning’ I can see that this could be a purely extrinsic reward but I’m struggling with the notion of it only being that. We have evolved as a species and ‘survival of the fittest’ is at the heart of this process, so couldn’t it be argued that there is actually nothing more intrinsic or primordial than wanting to win?
You said ‘don’t most of us play sports because we want to dominate others or simply win’. I can’t speak for others, but I used to play golf and I loved it often playing 72 holes a day during the summer holidays. I also loved wanting to win, for the natural high it induced, striding down the 18th fairway with everything to play for. Of course, the recognition and pats on the back were nice but short-lived and easily forgotten. Anyway, Scott, thank you and keep up the great work. Regards John.
Hi John,
First, it’s important to point out that “survival of the fittest” is a meme from Darwin. Darwin provided a theory of evolution that has been indoctrinated into our minds as if it was a fact. But that doesn’t make it so. (Do extensive research into the real history of Darwin and evolution and you might be surprised what you discover.)
Second, even if competition was part of our evolution, that would likely imply that it was biologically, socially, and/or culturally conditioned. As such, it would likely represent an extrinsic, not intrinsic drive.
Playing golf by yourself could potentially be an excellent example of intrinsic motivation — IF you’re simply playing it because you love the game (and not because you “have to” lower your handicap). In my experience, when the ego is involved in comparison, it’s quite difficult to truly access intrinsic drives.
Being honest
One Should focus on his/her strength
It cultivates self-awareness
One need a language of deep psychology
Makes one to practice meditation which make him or her more calmer and more centred
Every line on this article sparked up my brain because its actually what am struggling with at the moment.
Thanks for coming up with these.
You’re welcome, Asomti.
Awesome! Spot on. Thank You.
Sure thing, Charles.
Great article, thanks. My intrinsic motivation has pushed me to read your articles (I enjoy them for my own satisfaction) and many of them have been eye-opening.
One question popped into my mind: Could there be a connection between hormonal balance/imbalance and motivations. It sounds like an Dopamine could be related to extrinsic motivation (wants/likes/rewards) and Serotonin to intrinsic motivations (needs/mental stability)? The issue is more complex because Serotonin levels have effect on Dopamine levels and vice-versa, but the premises are that when Dopamine levels are low, we “want” and “crave” more and when Serotonin levels are low, it is reacting to the effects of Dopamine’s “wanting” and becomes also imbalanced: it’s needs aren’t met.
Do you think this could make sense?
There are neurobiological reactions and triggers for all behaviors.
For the neuroscientist, these neurotransmitters are causal (which is the basis of the question you’re asking).
But from the perspective of depth psychology and an understanding of the psyche, neurotransmitters are correlated to behaviors, but that doesn’t make them causalities.
The cause itself is generally emotional in nature. But current neuroscience doesn’t really have a means of examining or addressing this.
This understanding is also consistent with ancient Chinese medicine that sees physical and mental imbalances related to energetic and emotional stagnation of one kind or another.
awesome reply.
Brilliant.Thank you.
Two things that remind me intrinsic is key… A book.. “Do what you love the money will follow” and .. when your a passenger on a airplane, the steward gives cabin directions and tells you to… put on your mask before helping others.
This is a great read. I’ve been thinking and reading about self actualizing. I feel like this is the step I’m currently in but didn’t know how to put it in context. Thank you!
You’re welcome, RyAnn.
Hey Scott, thank you for all your hard work and simplicity of expression! From my experience, and I’m sure you can relate, there is an incredible energy field and support that becomes available when we focus on intrinsic motivations, however in every endeavor one can find extrinsic rewards. For example, providing knowledge with your blog can have a purely intrinsic joy of sharing, but if you begin to focus on your fame as a writer and the respect you will gain, that joy of intrinsic motivation may get endangered. There was a time when I was writing a blog and became so motivated to grow because it was such a joy to share what I learned, and my vision of creating connection and joy kept expanding, however as soon as I shifted my focus (accidentally) to the recognition/fame/respect/financial reward I would receive (inevitably) along the way of growth my intrinsic motivation began to disappear and what felt like divine support for my endeavor also began to dwindle. So it seems like the goal is to access the intrinsic part of the motivation knowing that the extrinsic part will come and want to creep in and steal the purity of the intrinsic. So for the magic of intrinsic energy to continue it seems we must re-focus on the essence of that intrinsic “why” while consciously staying away from allowing the extrinsic gifts to become the motivation and thus rob us of the intrinsic joy. Perhaps even reframe extrinsic gifts not in terms of ego but in terms of the power and ability to create even more positive impact rough credibility, financial ability to give, and connection that will come through positive interaction.
Interesting perspectives, Artem.
In my experience, I’ve found that the key is radical honesty. If you understand your true motivation — whether intrinsic or extrinsic — there’s less resistance because you’re internally consistent.
I think this is what you were getting at when you said, “we must re-focus on the essence of that intrinsic “why”. This again is where self-honesty comes in.
The challenge is that if you haven’t met some of your basic human needs, “gravity” will generally pull you toward extrinsic drivers.
wow yes, totally resonates! Biggest issue I have with my awakening is how to give it to my kids. I can do my part for sure but they do have a father, friends and a society totally extrinsic driven and I can not isolate them from that … its even illegal not to go to school and learn extrinsic way of living… 😬
I don’t know what country you live in, but in America, you have the option of homeschooling your kids (the details vary from state to state). Millions of parents opt for homeschooling because they understand that public school is a system of indoctrination and mind control. It creates a legion of problems that stay with us for life.
Thank you for replying and for so much good material!!
Totally would do that too if i could but here, in Sweden, it sadly is illegal to homeschool (!)
so true. school is not a safe place for children. i regret sending my child to them, private and otherwise.
❤️
I am considering my relationship if it is intrinsic or extrinsic. Based on conventionality of feeling attached as a couple or that I feel good belonging to society. I am reading back what I just wrote, and it does seem jumbled, which seems appropriate as I’m writing to understand myself. Hoping you can help me.
One way you might evaluate this is:
Are you with your partner primarily because it elevates your status (external) or because you genuinely enjoy being with the person?
For example, many people get into relationships because they subconsciously seek their parents’ approval (external).
Thank-you for your reply, I think for the most part of our relationship is external, I find it hard to admit that.
My life’s expansion could only have happened by being with her, could you tell me if this is external, I’m trying not to feel dependent.
Without knowing you or observing your relationship, Brett, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to make such an assessment.
A proper response to knowing me would be to tell you a summary of my life. I will hold off that for now as I don’t want to lose myself, would rather find some achievement with the subject at hand, that would be intrinsic. Intrinsic to my mind is to find ones subconscious help it be a part of your life to be a better person. For the reason that others will be comfortable with you, establish friends to help one another and a satisfaction of feeling belonged. I want to say the end result seems to me to be acceptance and belonging on the Maslow’s graph, correct me and tell me what you think? Thank-you.
A summary of your life wouldn’t help because it would be a “conscious” report — how you currently see yourself and the situation.
And this relates to the rest of your comments. The reality is that we’re mostly unconscious of what drives us and why we make the decisions we do — at least initially.
For example, most people will ultimately marry the wrong person for subconscious/psychological reasons. (This doesn’t mean they should later get divorced.) The ego/conscious mind is going to make choices based on what it “thinks” it wants. As the Taoists would say, every decision you make will be the wrong decision (because it’s made from the conscious mind and not the Spirit).
Over time, if you continually introspect, pay attention, and observe, you’ll come to understand why you really made the choices that you did. This is part of the process of becoming more conscious where the ego/mind starts to take a backseat. Through these stages, you are getting to know and integrating your shadow and becoming a more mature adult.
Thank-you for focusing on introspect, Seems like practice for now and future, does that mean the past dissipates? If your doing an action and emphasize it to be noticed, realizing it is egoistic, do you integrate this trait or hold it back? If it is not Integrated would that be encouraging a shadow to stay hidden? Hope you can open a path for me.
Thank-you .
With something like that, you might just neutrally observe the behavior. Notice the tendency toward needing to be seen and noticed. It’s just “data” about your ego/personality/self-identity. There’s nothing really to integrate in this context.
If you’re observing the quality, it’s not “hidden,” is it? The problem arises when we deny these types of behaviors/qualities within ourselves. Then, they are relegated to the shadow.
https://scottjeffrey.com/shadow-work/
I appreciate your comment and guidance in that example. Now I have another question (that may be silly), I will quote you here from the link you gave on Maslow’s Hierarchy “As a consequence, most of us have a longing to belong that stems from a fear of being alone (which we subconsciously experienced as children). And this unmet need to belong drives us to identify with social groups, religious institutions, and special-interest groups. It also fuels a lot of people’s impulse to invest time in social media.” It does sound that you mean to identify with these groups as negative. If that is so, would you elaborate on a positive way to meet these needs? PS
sorry If this subject would open a larger area in psychology.
Our original state is one of completeness and at-homeness. Through the conditioning process of this place, however, we adopt a host of tendencies, behaviors, and feelings that simply do not serve us. Obviously, we must meet our physical needs — food, clothing, shelter — in the physical world. But the more one moves toward their center and gets rooted there, much of the tensions related to other basic needs (“mundane conditioning”) fall away.
https://scottjeffrey.com/center-yourself/
Your profile pic, indeed a handsome lad, though you are no longer young.
What do you mean by moves to the center?
Thank-you.
https://scottjeffrey.com/center-yourself/
In the Maslow’s hierarchy, if I wanted to be self-actualizing, that sounds lonely and vulnerable. Would I need to neglect affection and belonging to others? Could you elaborate on my dilemma? I’m sorry if this is not the place for asking so many questions, you must be busy.
Now thinking about your question as to does one need acceptance from others, I can say yes, there needs a balance of extrinsic and internal. Once Carl young said he needed support from his wife to go deep into his subconscious.
Self-actualization is supposed to happen naturally, but most people get stuck in the lower-level needs (deficiency needs). You don’t “neglect” anything as you begin self-actualizing. Instead, you begin to meet/resolve these needs within yourself which enables you to free up energy/attention to focus on inner growth.
https://scottjeffrey.com/basic-human-needs/
https://scottjeffrey.com/self-actualization/
I had some time to waste and was a little frantic looking for something to do. Then I remembered what you wrote in Maslow hierarchy of needs, I will quote you “Here’s a simple test: If you can’t just sit down and “be”—if you feel like you need to constantly be “doing something” or consuming something (food, media, drugs, work, etc.)—your basic needs aren’t being met.”
So, I sat down, the thoughts of regret were running in my mind. Now regret is not a Maslow need, so I deduced this thought to esteem need not being met which is acceptance.
I composed myself and did my mind forest walk to meet my rejected child. I’m hoping you will agree this is a workable technique. I shed a tear, you also said a quote from David Richo, “Our problem is not that as children our needs were unmet, but that as adults they are still unmourned! The hurt, bereft, betrayed Child is still inside of us, wanting to cry for what he missed and wanting thereby to let go of the pain and the stressful present neediness he feels in relationships. In fact, neediness itself tells us nothing about how much we need from others; it tells us how much we need to grieve the irrevocably barren past and evoke our own inner sources of nurturance.”
Is it really possible to grieve and mourn ( I’m thinking bawling your eyes out uncontrollably) for your past childhood that hasn’t grown a brain yet? Thank-you.
“Is it really possible to grieve and mourn ( I’m thinking bawling your eyes out uncontrollably) for your past childhood that hasn’t grown a brain yet?”
Indeed it is. And I think it would be difficult to move closer to oneself without addressing these childhood wounds — mainly because they create internal tension that stays with us unless they are released.
This is a fundamental part of inner work:
https://scottjeffrey.com/inner-work/
I started reading about chakra’s and found similarities with Maslow’s hierarchy. Do you see it, or can you show me where the difference is?
Yes, there are similarities. In fact, there are well over a hundred existing models that show a similar structure.
Thank-you for the answer. Life of a person, I don’t believe is directional. Sometimes we have these needs then we lose them. Does that mean we can’t reach a higher level without the lower ones being intact or if we have achieved the lower ones at some time in our life, does that still count as it is there? I was inspired to ask this question when in the hero’s journey is a life stage from adolescence to adulthood.
I am wanting to clarify a sentence meaning. “The more conscious you become of what’s blocking your innate internal drive, the more likely you are to shift toward it”.
Is this the extrinsic blocking, it’s likely to stop the internal drive? Thank-you.
I would phrase it as the “extrinsic blocking.”
The four reasons I listed below that statement (why we often don’t access intrinsic motivation) are what’s blocking intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation is natural. External motivation is conditioned from the external world and reinforced by psychological trauma and splits within our psyche.
Quote, “Are you really being altruistic or do you have a “shadow motivation” that you’re not being honest about?”
It is easier to find a shadow motivation. Can you give me an example of a truly altruistic action? Thank-you.
The vast majority, if not all, of altruism is a form of virtue signaling (shadow intent) and manipulation. For there to be genuine altruism, an individual would have to have worked through their trauma and developed psychological maturity (be fully complete within themselves). An external example would be difficult to provide because we’re talking about internal intent. (So the examples might look the same.) If you look at the so-called philanthropy of the ultra-wealthy, for example, it would be difficult to find a single case of genuine altruism.
Thank you Scott.. Your emails and guides are having a profound impact on my life. Your work, analysis and references to other sources and the wisdom it brings is an immense source of knowledge and insight on life to every reader. I write this comment based truly on my intrinsic motivation as I thoroughly enjoy reading your articles. Please continue your good work as it has a profound transformative effect on the reader. Thank you once again.
Thank you for the positive feedback, Vikram. I appreciate it.