The Motivation Hacker

by Nick Winter

Hack like this: first pick your goals, then figure out which motivation hacks to use on the subtasks that lead to those goals—and then use far more of them than you need, so that you not only succeed, but that you do so with excitement, with joy, with extra verve and a hunger for the next goal.

By increasing Expectancy or Value, or decreasing Impulsiveness or Delay, you hack motivation.

The biggest hack a motivation hacker can perform is to build her confidence to the size of a volcano. An oversized eruption of Expectancy can incinerate all obstacles in the path to any goal when you combine it with good planning.

The motivation hacker learns to steer his life towards higher Value and to have fun demolishing boring necessities in his way.

It takes superhuman effort to focus on a task when you’re surrounded by distractions. But when you remove distractions in advance, no such effort is required: concentration flows. The motivation hacker learns to anticipate and eliminate distractions and temptations, making it trivial to follow through with her plans.

The motivation hacker learns to structure goals so that the perceived Delay is not so great. Intermediate milestones, process-based goals, and willfully optimistic planning are his tools here. With the right mindset, success is ever right around the corner.

That is, will is simply the process of making personal rules for ourselves that will help us reach our goals, and how much willpower we can muster is precisely how good we are at setting up these personal rules so that the we always prefer to keep our rules than to break them. This is a learnable skill.

The tip which worked for me was to focus on input-based process goals (write for five minutes) rather than output-based results goals (write one page), and to keep the required inputs minuscule at first.

These rationalizations dilute the impact of failures, and they dilute future efforts, since you can always find a reason why it wasn’t your fault and another thing to half-try next time.

“enjoy the experience” and not “survive the torture,”

To precommit is to choose now to limit your options later, preventing yourself from making the wrong choice in the face of temptation. Publicly announcing your goal is a common form of precommitment.

Many stories are told of ordinary, unfulfilled folks who, late in life, suddenly challenged themselves and changed everything to realize their dreams. Many more such stories are never told, because their protagonists never protagonized. Effort can solidify almost any dream, and motivation hacks can ensure effort.

Merge your goals into the lifestyle that you want to lead.