Motivation from the mind of an ISTP

All types can bump up against motivation struggles. I think it’s assumed that certain types will struggle more than others, and maybe that’s true, but I don’t think anyone is immune. I’ve seen quite a few ISTPs complain about struggling to motivate themselves, especially in school. So, I’m just going to talk about how I self-motivate. This isn’t really my typical style of article, so we’ll see how it goes.

I felt compelled to throw my personality type into the title of this article, because I’m not sure what types will relate to it. I’d like to assume that ISTPs will relate or will perhaps find it useful, but beyond that… maybe other Se/Ni users? Hard to say. Everyone is different. Maybe after you finish reading this, if you relate to it, you could let me know in the comments along with your type?

The Basic Principle: Hack Yourself

This is my general method for finding self-motivation, that I think could probably apply to all personality types. I know the phrase “hack yourself” sounds odd, but it makes sense if you think about it. We are all motivated by different things. A person can proclaim over and over again that they have no motivation, but there’s always something that can get them excited or motivated, usually something entertainment based at the very least. During those moments where you are “accidentally” motivated, what provoked it? Can you recreate that setting manually in areas where you struggle to motivate yourself? Analyze yourself. For instance, if you’re motivated by a physical reward, can you promise yourself something upon completion of whatever the task is? Are you motivated by being held accountable to a third party? How about fear of consequences? Do you need a specific setting to operate effectively? A certain caffeinated drink? Etcetera. Think about what drives you to do something and figure out how you can trick yourself into being motivated when you need to be.

What Motivates Me

Generally speaking, I am externally motivated. I need something tangible (loosely-speaking) to reach for in some way or another, which is why I’m primarily motivated by two things: short-term goals and competition-based scenarios.

1. An Achievable Goal

Essentially, vision on a small scale. I’ve never been one to look too far ahead. However, I learned that I needed to come up with goals that are achievable in the not-so-distant future in order to self-motivate. I’ve always wished I could be the type that just explored and learned with no specific goal in mind. My ENFP brother excelled at that. He got into Linux and just played around with it, did random things, tested out various distros, etc. I tried it once. I would end up staring at my screen like, now what do I do? Because I just can’t play around with something in that way with absolutely no reason or purpose. It worked beautifully for my brother. He got really good at the stuff he was generally interested in via that method. However, I would need to have a specific goal in mind that I desired to accomplish.

For instance, I got interested in website development. I enjoyed it, but I always had tangible reasons for learning more and more about it. I would have specific projects I was working on, specific goals in mind. I would teach myself a technology because I knew that doing so would allow me to learn what I needed to move on to the next goal. That is me. I am always looking for the next step or the next goal in order to progress forward. It always comes down to “Why am I doing this?”

2. Competition or a Reward Based System

This follows a similar strain, but when I was younger, competition was critical for me. I remember my INFP sister talking about the downside of having a grade based education system, and that education should be more open-ended and flexible… or something like that. I don’t exactly remember, but I just remember my mother chiming in to say something like, “If they abolished grades entirely, people like your sister would fail, because some people need the competition.”

Competition isn’t necessarily always against other people, although that can be motivating as well. But, I was never the type to compare grades, so that wasn’t the type of competition I was crutching on in school. (Although, I have to admit… I did compete with my older sister to a certain degree – middle child syndrome.) In a school scenario, it’s more like competing against the system for that letter grade. As stated earlier, I need something tangible to reach toward. I’ve always naturally been the type to adjust my level of effort to the requirements of the task. If there was no objective way to judge the amount of effort necessary, I would put no effort. If no effort seemingly produces the same end result as effort, then why bother to try? If to get an A, I needed to get a 92.5, I would shoot for a 92.5, not a 100. Both have the same GPA result, so, who cares? I have never been a perfectionist.

When I was in college, I thrived in scenarios where there was a substantial enough reward to make a competitive scenario worth it. For instance, if having the top project could get me out of a final, I would buckle down and put all my effort into it. The recognition didn’t mean anything to me, just the reward. Without that factor, I just went back to achieving the minimum grade that I deemed necessary. I never felt compelled to be top of the class or anything of that nature, because it ultimately didn’t seem to benefit me in any way.

In conclusion…

I’m not sure this was just me rambling, or if there was something useful mixed in there. Hopefully the latter, lol. If you made it through this article, I’d love to hear feedback!