I’ve always wondered why a lot of successful people are described as the ones who defied the status quo. They are mostly the people who set out paths for themselves and chose to ignore the norm to choose their own unique course. The world has a lot of defined steps toward having a certain kind of lifestyle and achieving a particular amount of success. For most, the plan is this: go to school, study well, land a good job, have a family, and live happily. Unfortunately, millions of people are living proof that following the first four steps does not result in the fifth. A lot of people are broke, unmotivated, bored with their jobs, and are generally unhappy and unsatisfied.
I came to a realization about this topic from the book Smarter, Faster, Betterby Charles Duhigg. The first point he made in the book was the importance of decision-making and its relation to motivation. He describes an experiment where people were made to play a very boring game while scientists were monitoring their brain activities. The game was played like this: Each participant would see a number between one and nine. Before they could see the number, however, they had to guess if the number was more or less than five. The activity seemed relatively monotonous and unengaging, but the scientists were surprised to see that the participants were actually enjoying the game and would play for hours on end. The results of the MRI showed that the subjects’ brains’ central dispatch, the striata, lit up whenever they played, regardless of whether they guessed correctly or not.
This experiment and many others led to the revolutionary discovery of the nature of motivation in people—we are more motivated when we perform activities we know we are in control of. Our ability to make decisions make the process more engaging and more interesting to us than simply following a series of steps and a set of rules. Think back on your group projects before. Weren’t you more motivated to work on projects where you were part of the decision-making process compared to the ones where you had to do exactly what you were told? Employees who are given the chance to speak up and participate in making important decisions are more devoted to the projects than those who are not. This is not only because making decisions have a direct effect on your image, e.g., losing face when you choose poorly; it is also because it makes you feel more in control, and the project feels “more real” and important. This is why people who go with the flow and choose passivity over activity are less likely to succeed and are more likely to feel unmotivated.
“The trick, researchers say, is realizing that a prerequisite to motivation is believing that we have the authority over our actions and surroundings. To motivate ourselves, we must feel like we are in control.”
We need to believe that our life and situation is a result of our choices rather than external factors that might have hindered or promoted our plans. This belief is what scientists call our internal locus of control. Having more of this and less of its opposite—external locus of control—gives us more drive to do the things we set out to do. This idea challenges the belief that people are successful because they were born in certain circumstances like having a rich family, having more resources, and being innately smart. We know from history that successful people are made and not born. The notion that we are ultimately headed for a boring and unexciting life because of our current situation will be thrown out the window when we accept the fact that we could be in control of our future. God did not give us the willpower to choose in order to just settle for a life that we dream of escaping someday.
The book also talked about a study done in nursing homes in the nineties. They found that seniors who changed up their bedroom furniture even though they were told not to and who exchanged food items to make a meal different from the ones given to them flourished more than those who didn’t. These seniors were “more alive” and happier because they felt a sense of control by breaking the rules and choosing to live in an environment that they modified according to their liking and not just settling for what’s laid in front of them.
These and many more incidents in human history have resulted to the success of many people and the happiness of many more. The ability to make decisions and the power to choose the life you wish to live results in increased motivation, happier dispositions, and longer lives. Choose to choose, and be rebellious every now and then.
It's a Ping Thing 