The message addresses students and anyone struggling to find motivation for tasks they find unexciting but necessary. The speaker shares client stories of high-performing athletes who feel disengaged from schoolwork, seeing it only as a requirement to please others or secure scholarships. Upon deeper questioning, these athletes admit they enjoy tasks when they understand them, revealing two contrasting objectives: completing work for external validation versus pursuing knowledge for personal growth. The speaker argues that humans are fundamentally driven by a desire to feel powerful, independent, and effective. He suggests reframing homework as an opportunity to acquire skills that enhance long-term capability, shifting motivation from external pressure to internal desire. This shift makes tasks feel rewarding, encouraging consistent engagement. To illustrate, he shares a personal story: as a child, he practiced skateboarding daily without any long-term plan or external prompting, simply to master a kickflip and prove his own competence. Despite falls and scrapes, he remained endlessly motivated because the goal was personal capability, not obligation. He encourages viewers to apply this approach—focusing on internal growth and mastery rather than external expectations—to boost motivation in their own lives. He invites comments and personal stories in response.
Here is a message specifically for students, however it is related to anyone trying to muster up the motivation to get something done that they are not excited about, they are not engaged in, but they know they need to get it done anyways. A few client stories that relate to this, high performing athletes that do not feel as excited or as engaged with their schoolwork as they would like to be. And I said, what's it like when you pull out your math work? Why do you do it? And they say, everyone else wants me to do it. And I know I need to get it done because I want to get this scholarship and I know I need certain marks. From my understanding, I see math now as a means to an end. I see no internal desire, not compelled to want to get this done. So we're constantly forcing ourselves to complete these tasks. Of course, I went a little deeper and here is where we uncovered something very interesting. I said, is there times where you do enjoy it? Are there times where it is exciting? And they all said across the board when I understand it. Now right there, we see two different objectives. Getting the homework done to get it done for other people and as a means to an end or for the pursuit of knowledge, the pursuit of something that's going to make them greater, stronger, more effective, more capable. And as I like to say, more dangerous up against the demands of life, I would argue that that is what all humans are after is the feeling of being powerful, of independent, effective. And so I said, next time you pull out your homework, what if you didn't make it about getting the homework done? You didn't make it about the specific paper that you had to complete or the readings that you had to do, but rather the pursuit of acquiring more skills and how that's going to make you more effective in the long run. Now here's this incredible shift. We're no longer doing it for external reasons of just getting things done and keeping people happy. We're actually doing it because we have this internal drive, this desire and things that feel good, we usually want to come back to. Now, I'm going to share a story of my own that I think other viewers of this video can relate to. So I want you to comment below if you did the same thing as me. When I was in grade 5, 6, 7, skateboarding was intriguing. Every day after school, even though I was busy, I had so many things going on, I would go out and skateboard. I had no plans of being a skateboarder, I had no plans of going to a skatepark doing anything like that. I just wanted to land a kickflip. I wanted to know that I could do it, that I was capable of flipping that board and landing on it. Yet there was no long term plan. No one was telling me to do it, yet I kept showing up. Even when I fell, scraped my leg, I kept doing it because I wanted that feeling, the competence to flip that board and land on it. There was endless motivation, endless desire to do it. But it wasn't a means to an end, it wasn't because someone else told me I had to. And it wasn't because anyone else was doing it. It was because internally, I wanted to know I had that ability. And there was endless motivation to do it. So maybe you can apply this little bit of a shift in approach to motivation to your life. Thanks so much for watching, comments, feedback, stories of your own. Please leave them below. Thanks for listening.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
Motivation often drops when tasks are viewed as obligations for others or as a means to an end (e.g., homework for grades or scholarships).
Enjoyment and excitement increase when tasks are understood, highlighting the difference between completing tasks externally versus pursuing knowledge and skill.
Shifting focus from "getting homework done" to "acquiring skills that make you more effective" taps into internal drive and the universal desire for competence and independence.
A personal example
Applying this internal-drive shift can improve motivation in any task, not just for students.
Summary:
The message addresses students and anyone struggling to find motivation for tasks they find unexciting but necessary. The speaker shares client stories of high-performing athletes who feel disengaged from schoolwork, seeing it only as a requirement to please others or secure scholarships. Upon deeper questioning, these athletes admit they enjoy tasks when they understand them, revealing two contrasting objectives: completing work for external validation versus pursuing knowledge for personal growth.
The speaker argues that humans are fundamentally driven by a desire to feel powerful, independent, and effective. He suggests reframing homework as an opportunity to acquire skills that enhance long-term capability, shifting motivation from external pressure to internal desire. This shift makes tasks feel rewarding, encouraging consistent engagement.
To illustrate, he shares a personal story: as a child, he practiced skateboarding daily without any long-term plan or external prompting, simply to master a kickflip and prove his own competence. Despite falls and scrapes, he remained endlessly motivated because the goal was personal capability, not obligation. He encourages viewers to apply this approach—focusing on internal growth and mastery rather than external expectations—to boost motivation in their own lives.
He invites comments and personal stories in response.
FAQs
The main message is that motivation improves when you shift from doing tasks for external reasons, like pleasing others, to focusing on internal growth and acquiring skills that make you more capable and effective.
Students often lack motivation because they see schoolwork as a means to an end, done for others or for grades, rather than as an opportunity for personal growth and skill acquisition.
Instead of focusing on completing the task itself, focus on the skills you're gaining and how they make you more effective and powerful in the long run, which taps into your internal drive.
The recommended shift is to stop doing tasks solely for external reasons and instead pursue the feeling of competence and capability, which naturally creates endless motivation.
The speaker shares a story about skateboarding as a kid, where he practiced landing a kickflip repeatedly without any external pressure, because he wanted to prove to himself he could do it.
They struggle because they view schoolwork as a means to an end (like getting a scholarship) rather than as an opportunity for internal growth, so they lack internal desire to complete it.
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