Understanding Intrinsic Motivation: The Unlock to Sustaining Difficult Change

Can you think back to your younger self and remember an activity you could do for hours—effortlessly, joyfully, and without anyone asking you to?

For some, maybe it was the pull of a video game? An entire weekend in a friend's basement could vanish in what felt like the blink of an eye. Or maybe afternoons spent practicing your footwork with a soccer ball in the yard and only realizing when you sat down, famished, at dinner that you'd forgotten to eat. Perhaps it was long, meandering conversations with a best friend, laughter echoing for hours as all awareness of the outside world dissolved around you.

Those moments weren’t about being compelled to do something by an outside force (i.e., money) They were about being fully immersed in something that lit you from the inside out.

Thinking about this very special category of activity is the starting point of a powerful kind of motivator: reconnecting with what moves you intrinsically—the things you do not for praise, prestige, or compensation, but because something in you wants to do them for their own sake. This is where sustainable, often joyful change begins. 

What Is Intrinsic Motivation?

Researchers like Edward Deci and Richard Ryan have spent decades studying motivation, at my Alma Mater, The University of Rochester, where I wrote my Thesis in part on their theory of Self-Determination Theory. One of their key findings is that there is a fundamental difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation is driven by genuine interest, curiosity, enjoyment, or a sense of internal alignment. It's what compels you to do something simply because it feels meaningful, engaging, or right and is governed by our needs for Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness.

Extrinsic motivation, by contrast, is driven by external rewards—money, validation, recognition, or fear of consequence. And here’s the big finding their reserarch uncoverd years ago: the presence of external rewards can actually dampen your intrinsic drive. Let me explain with a story from my life.

Pizza, Pages, and the Cost of Extrinsic Reward

If you grew up in the U.S. in the '80s or '90s, you might remember a few cultural staples of public school life:

1. The D.A.R.E. program (with that one cop and his briefcase of "scare-you-straight" drug props).

2. An irrational lifelong fear of quicksand.

3. And… the Book It! program, where kids earned personal pan pizzas for reading books.

I loved reading long before Book It! entered my world. I memorized The Monster at the End of This Book before I could read it, and would "read" this to anyone who would listen when I was four. By the first grade I was a strong reader who would be put in charge of reading to my classmates while my teacher slipped out for a smoke. I read voraciously for the sheer joy of it.

Then came the pizzas.

The Book-it program came to school and we could earn a free personal pan pizza for each book we read. As a poor kid who did not ever get to eat out at Pizza hut, this was a real treat! Suddenly, I was flying through the short, grade-level books I had already outgrown so I could cash in for cheesy rewards for me and my siblings.

When my teacher quickly capped my “pizza quota,” something strange happened: I didn’t go back to the big, challenging books I loved. I should have. This was the perfect excuse to return to the more challenging books I had paused to maximize my pizza earnings. Instead, I felt… demotivated. The game had changed. My internal reward system had been disrupted.

And that’s exactly what research tells us happens when intrinsic motivation is replaced by external incentives. We lose touch with what once felt natural, joyful, or self-directed.

Why This Matters for Change Design and Sustainment

In the world of behavior science and coaching, thinkers like Adam Grant and Daniel Pink have emphasized the importance of habit formation, strategic pairing of enjoyable and unenjoyable tasks, and emotional anchoring. All of that is easier, and more effective, when built on the solid foundation of intrinsic motivation.

When you're designing a major life change, whether it’s a career pivot, a new relationship to health, or the pursuit of a long-held dream, it’s essential to ask not just what you want to do, but why it truly matters to you.

Start with the things you do for their own sake. Then, go deeper: What is it about them that moves you?

For example, say you're considering a career change and you know that reading is a core passion. That’s a great start—but what’s underneath that?

Do you love reading because it gives you solitude and time to reflect? Or because it creates a sense of connection with the shared human experiences? The thrill of discovery? A love for synthesizing facts? An interest in connecting the dots on how one moment in history interweaves across time and cultures to another?

Each of those motivations points toward a very different kind of role, environment, or lifestyle. One might steer you toward thought leadership and deep solo work. Another toward facilitation, community, or research. Another still toward strategy, policy, or design.

Anchoring Change with the Truth of You

Understanding your intrinsic motivators, and the emotional and cognitive needs they represent, is one of the keys to designing change that sticks.

It’s not just about doing what you love (although wouldn't it be great if it were just that simple?!?!) It's about recognizing that changes stick when they echo back to you the deeper activities that motivate you. When the hard parts of change arrive (and they will arrive), those echoes will help you stay on track.

So, here’s your reflection prompt:

What have you always loved (in whatever forms it has evolved across your life), and what does that love say about what comes next?

When you're staring down a real change, it's worth going back to that list before you go anywhere near an action plan. The plans that hold up under life's inevitable pressures are the ones built on what actually moves you, not on what you think should. Grit gets you through a bad day, but it's a weak foundation for an entire life, and it cannot sustain a big change. It just isn't enough of a foundation. But the things you have loved since before you understood rewards or recognition? Now those will get you through anything!