It is rare that a book devotes almost half of itself to explaining the concrete implementation of its core ideas. In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink includes a toolkit which he says, “is your guide to taking the ideas in this book and putting them into action.”
The toolkit covers ways to increase your motivation in the context of individuals, organizations, parents, educators, and even exercise.
Pink dedicates a section in the toolkit to Strategies for Awakening Your Motivation. There are a few great tips here that are worth highlighting.
Give Yourself a ‘Flow Test’
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi did more than discover the concept of flow. He also introduced an ingenious new technique to measure it. Csikszentmihalyi and his University of Chicago team equipped participants in their research studies with electronic pagers. Then they paged people at random intervals (approximately eight times a day) for a week, asking them to describe their mental state at that moment. Compared with previous methods, these real-time reports proved far more honest and revealing.
You can use Csikzentimihalyi’s methodological innovation in your own quest for mastery by giving yourself a ‘flow test.’ Set a reminder on your computer or mobile phone to go off at forty random times in a week. Each time your device beeps, write down what you’re doing, how you’re feeling, and whether you’re in ‘flow.’ Record your observations, look at the patterns, and consider the following questions:
- Which moments produced feelings of ‘flow’? Where were you? What were you working on? Who were you with?
- Are certain times of day more flow-friendly than others? How could you restructure your day based on your findings?
- How might you increase the number of optimal experiences and reduce the moments when you felt disengaged or distracted?
- If you’re having doubts about your job or career, what does this exercise tell you about your true source of intrinsic motivation?”
Just Say No – With a List
Most of us have a to-do list. But legendary management guru Tom Peters also has what he calls “to don’t” list – an inventory of behaviours and practices that sap his energy, divert his focus, and ought to be avoided. Follow his lead and each week craft your own agenda of avoidance. Staying motivated – directing your own life, making progress, and pursuing purpose – isn’t easy. So get rid of the unnecessary obligations, time-wasting distractions, and useless burdens that stand in your way. And the first step in bulldozing these obstacles is to enumerate them. As Peters puts it, “What you decide not to do is probably more important than what you decide to do.”
Stop-doing lists are not new. If you’re wondering what you should stop doing, here are 9 unproductive habits you can stop right now.
Move Five Steps Closer to Mastery
One key to mastery is what Florida State University psychology professor Anders Ericsson calls deliberate practice – a ‘lifelong period of… effort to improve performance in a specific domain.’ Deliberate practice isn’t running a few miles each day or banging on the piano for twenty minutes each morning. It’s much more purposeful, focused, and, yes painful. Follow these steps – over and over again for a decade – and you just might become a master:
- Remember that deliberate practise has one objective: to improve performance. ‘People who play tennis once a week for years don’t get any better if they do the same thing each time,’ Ericsson has said. ‘Deliberate practise is about changing your performance, setting new goals and straining yourself to reach a bit higher each time.’
- Repeat, repeat, repeat. Repetition matters. Basketball greats don’t shoot ten free throws at the end of team practise; they shoot five hundred.
- Seek constant, critical feedback. If you don’t know how you’re doing, you won’t know what to improve.
- Focus ruthlessly on where you need help. While many of us work on what we’re already good at, says Ericsson, ‘those who get better work on their weaknesses.’
- Prepare for the process to be mentally and physically exhausting. That’s why so few people commit to it, but that’s why it works.
The toolkit also includes a summary of each chapter and even a ‘Drive Discussion Guide;’ a list of twenty questions designed to start a conversation and help you think more deeply about the concepts he has covered. These are some of the fundamentals of active reading and also remind us a bit of the Feynman Technique for learning concepts more deeply.