For what reason do we remain motivated to arrive at certain goals, but not others? Why do we give up on something which initially was our focal point? Why do we naturally stay motivated and stay on our path? What is the difference between motivated and aim dormant people?

Researchers have been reading motivation for quite a long time. While there is still a lot to learn, one of the most steady discoveries is that maybe the most ideal approach to remain motivated is to deal with assignments of “simply reasonable trouble.”

Tasks that are altogether beneath your present capacities are exhausting. Tasks that are fundamentally past your present capacities are demoralizing.

However, Tasks that are directly on the fringe of accomplishment and disappointment are unfathomably motivating to our human brain. We don’t need anything more than to ace an ability just past our present skyline.

We can consider this marvel “The Goldilocks Rule.”

The Goldilocks principle is named by analogy to the children’s story “The Three Bears”. In which a little girl named Goldilocks tastes three different bowls of porridge and finds that she prefers porridge that is neither too hot nor too cold but has just the right temperature. This concept is applied to a wide range of disciplines, including behavioral psychology, astronomy, economics, and engineering.

When we start a new habit, we need to keep the behavior fairly easy so that we can stick with it even when conditions aren’t perfect. 

But once the habit has been established, it’s important to continue to advance in small ways. 

These little improvements challenge us and keep us engaged and enabled us to live out the Goldilocks Rule and achieve a flow state. Which is a state of being fully absorbed and committed to an activity?  Scientists have quantified that to achieve that flow state, a task must be roughly 4% beyond our current ability. 

In real life it may not be feasible to quantify a task or habit that way  – but we get the point – we need to keep upping our game just a bit at a time.

One of the significant sources of human satisfaction is taking a shot on tasks at a reasonable degree of trouble, neither too hard nor excessively simple.

P.S – Something life’s changing moments will happen once you form the micro habits and stick to them by implementing this golden rule. For those who are still looking for motivation to start, more or less – Motivation is just a state of mind.

This blog was originally posted on gulshanmemoria.com

Author – Gulshan Memoria