Before I dive into how I set my goals, I want to talk about the 3 types of motivation/ desires that have been analyzed by psychologists and behavioral scientists. Every goal you make or action you perform can fall into one of these 3 categories. The first type has a few different names so for the sake of sanity, I will be referring to this as Instinctual Motivation/Desire, these are the desires and motivations that come as part of human nature. The desire to eat, drink, and care for your family. The second type is Extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation/ desire is driven off a reward system such as going to work to get money or running in a race to get a medal. These are the desires of social acceptance or praise. The final is Intrinsic motivation/ desire, which is the deepest type of desire and motivation there is. These are the motivations and desires that are driven by morals, values, and ethics. Intrinsic desires and motivations come from internal acceptance and purpose. Now that I have scratched the surface of these 3 categories, I would like to explore each type deeper to understand their purpose and how we can use them to set better goals.
Instinctual Motivation is driven from survival, family loyalties, and overall human instinct. When nighttime rolls around we go to sleep because it has been ingrained in our core behavior to fall asleep when it gets dark at the end of the day. When our stomach growls we get up to go get food because of instinct. Instinct is how humans survive and listening to that instinct keeps us safe and moving forward to continue to survive. But oftentimes we feel tired of surviving and we want to truly live, which leads us into the next 2 types of motivations.
Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation take us from humans doing what we need to do to survive and to live life more fully. Extrinsic desires are what we do for the reward and for other's views on your status. These types of desires are oftentimes superficial and the happiness we receive from them afterward is shortlived. These are the achievements that we brag about on social media that friends often reply with a simple "good job" and we feel really good until we need to move on to the next spur of happiness to get praise for. Let me be clear, extrinsic desires and motives are not bad, they just don't last past a few days or even weeks of happiness. I have done several virtual runs, and I will continue to do them as I know they are good for me, but my main desire for doing these runs is to get the medal or T-shirt that comes with registering for the run and entering a finish time. Extrinsic desires are different for everyone and, again, they are not bad and do have a purpose in our lives, to get us to try new things.
The third and final type of desire is intrinsic. This is sort of a "top tier" motivation and is the goal in almost everything we do. Intrinsic desires are what we find purpose and true, lasting joy within. Intrinsic desires are often moved and decided upon by our core values and the moral code that we live by. Everything we do can be done intrinsically with the right mindset, the mindset of purpose. This is often what pushes us outside of our comfort zone to really get us to what our souls desire, to love and accept ourselves, and to have a purpose in life.
Something I like to keep in mind while I am setting my goals is which level my desired outcome of the goal is at. I have noticed for myself is my goals are more successful and easier to accomplish when they are more geared toward that "top tier" of Intrinsic desire or motivation. I've noticed that my desire to accomplish a goal dwindles after a few days when it's more superficial and geared toward gaining that praise or recognition from an outside source or a specific person. For example, I started my college journey majoring in Astronomy and Astrophysics because I love to learn about space but also in large part because I liked how it felt when I told friends from high school and people I would meet that I was studying to become an Astrophysicist, I felt cool. But, I was miserable the first year and half of college and took Calculus 1 over the time span of three semesters instead of one. I hated the math, I felt cool solving problems but I didn't know what I was doing half the time. I knew that continuing on this path I would have to still take Calculus 2 and 3 before getting into the cool Physics and Astronomy classes. I eventually sought a different degree, one with less math and settled on my current degree course of Spaceflight Operations, and I love it so much. I still get to learn about space which I love, while also studying the laws of spaceflight, the types of rockets and space suits used today, how the body responds in 0-gravity and amazing events in spaceflight history.
My point in that little story is to show that while I enjoyed the responses I received from people hearing "Astrophysics", I wasn't truly happy, I was the opposite actually, stressed and suffering with myself. Now I sit in classes every day having a near out of body experience watching myself take notes thinking to myself, "I am actually here, I'm doing the thing, I'm going after my dreams". It is an amazing feeling and that self awe, joy, and feeling of purpose is something I couldn't buy. Find out what truly brings you joy and motivation and go after it. This theory of these desires is something I learned in high school in my Social Leadership class and I am thankful to my mentor and teacher every day for teaching me this as a skill that I can use for the rest of my life. I hope that the little information I have provided as well as one of my experiences can provide some help to you as you begin to set your goals.
