{"id":16053,"date":"2020-10-12T17:26:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T21:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=16053"},"modified":"2020-10-13T12:41:16","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T16:41:16","slug":"motivation-and-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Motivation and Action: How to Get Things Done"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>What is the relationship between motivation and action? Can you have an action without motivation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/hooked-loop\/\">Hooked loop<\/a>, triggers are followed by action. Without your action being done habitually, motivation and action must go together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read on to understand motivation and action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Action Phase<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>After the trigger, the user needs to perform the desired action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>To initiate action in a habit, doing must be easier than thinking<\/strong>. An action has three requirements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Sufficient motivation<\/li><li>Sufficient ability<\/li><li>A trigger to activate the behavior<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider how you behave when you hear your phone vibrate. The trigger is there, but you might not have the motivation (it\u2019s the end of the day and you want to shut the world out). Or if the phone is buried at the bottom of your bag, you have insufficient ability to get the phone. And if the phone is muted, you have no trigger to activate the behavior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Relationship Between <strong>Motivation and Action<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Motivation and action go together because motivation is the \u201cenergy for action.\u201d <strong>All humans are motivated to:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Seek pleasure and avoid pain<\/li><li>Seek hope and avoid fear<\/li><li>Seek social acceptance and avoid rejection<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Advertising commonly employs these desires.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Obama\u2019s 2008 campaign posters inspired hope, and publicly belonging to the movement incurred a feeling of social acceptance.<\/li><li>Sexual imagery is used often, from Victoria\u2019s Secret to Carl\u2019s Jr. (though the target market needs to associate sex as a motivator, like teenage boys).<\/li><li>Budweiser rarely advertises the beer, instead showing men bro-ing out, associating the beer with good times. Coca-Cola is similar, showing friends and families having a good time.<\/li><li>Using negative emotions as cautionary tales also works, invoking pain, fear, and rejection <em>if you don\u2019t buy this product<\/em>.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Shortcuts to Increase Motivation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/cognitive-heuristics\/\">Cognitive biases<\/a> affect all of us, causing things to see things as quite not objective. You can use cognitive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/heuristics-and-biases-2\/\">biases and heuristics<\/a> in your favor to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/increase-motivation\/\">increase motivation<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Scarcity effect <\/strong>&#8211; the less of something there is, the more valuable it seems.<\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/framing-effect-definition-examples\/\">Framing effect<\/a> <\/strong>&#8211; the context around something changes its perception.<\/li><li><strong>Anchoring<\/strong> &#8211; people over-weigh the first piece of info they receive.<\/li><li><strong>Endowed progress<\/strong> &#8211; you complete more progress when you feel you have already made some progress.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the relationship between motivation and action? Can you have an action without motivation? In the Hooked loop, triggers are followed by action. Without your action being done habitually, motivation and action must go together. Read on to understand motivation and action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,9],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-16053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motivation","category-psychology","tag-hooked","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Motivation and Action: How to Get Things Done - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is it possible to get things done without being motivated to do it? 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Read more here.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-10-12T21:26:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-10-13T16:41:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/start-with-why-motivation.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"962\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"575\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"Motivation and Action: How to Get Things Done\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-10-12T21:26:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-13T16:41:16+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/\"},\"wordCount\":381,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/start-with-why-motivation.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Hooked\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Motivation\",\"Psychology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/\",\"name\":\"Motivation and Action: How to Get Things Done - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/motivation-and-action\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/start-with-why-motivation.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-10-12T21:26:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-10-13T16:41:16+00:00\",\"description\":\"Is it possible to get things done without being motivated to do it? 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