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Intrinsic motivation 🔥

I’ve often felt like a bit of an outsider when it comes to discussions about what quality is, which features to build, or what a successful product is. The reason is that I rarely feel motivated by external measures of quality, how commercially successful the product is, or even how happy its customers are.1

A happy seedling feeling intrinsic motivation.

I’ve found that I am more often guided by an inner sense of satisfaction.

This has sometimes made me feel a bit weird. Shouldn’t customer satisfaction or commercial success be the ultimate measurement of the outcome of my work?

Stoic mindfulness to the rescue #

After reading an article on Stoic mindfulness many years ago, things started to get clearer. I realized why I prefer the inner measurement of success, and why it may even be better. The reason is that while I can ensure I do my best while working, I do not have any control over how happy customers are with the result. Nor can I directly affect how many people will pay for what I build. I may have poured my soul into making a product which users will love, and then they don’t love it anyway. I can try to influence, but in the end it is out of my control.

The Stoic teacher Epictetus illustrates this, using a singer with stage fright as an example.

‘When I see man in anxiety, I say to myself, “what can it be that this fellow wants? For if he did not want something that was outside of his control, how could he still remain in anxiety? That is why when singing on his own he shows no anxiety, but does so what he enters the theatre, even though he has a beautiful voice. For he does not wish merely to sing well, but also to win applause, and that is no longer under his control.’

Now, obviously I’m not arguing that you should not try to make the customers happy. But you probably should not have it as condition for whether you feel happy about your work or not. Like the person whose daily mood is determined by the whether the sun shines, a person whose professional sense of worth is based on whether customers like their product will often feel bad even though they did the best work they could. A healthier approach would be to feel good about having done good work, and then see it as a bonus if if customers also like it. Or in the terms of the Stoics, customer happiness is a “preferred indifferent”.

Finding intrinsic motivation #

It turns out that scientists also have a term for this; they call it intrinsic motivation.2

Intrinsic motivation comes from within the individual and is driven by internal factors, like enjoyment, curiosity, or a sense of fulfillment. […] It is associated with genuine passion, creativity, a sense of purpose, and personal autonomy. It also tends to come with stronger commitment and persistence. Intrinsic motivation is a key factor in cognitive, social, and physical development. […] In the field of education, intrinsic motivation tends to result in high-quality learning.

To me this becomes a positive feedback loop. If I do work that I’m satisfied with, I tend to do good work, which tend to result in a good product, which benefits my employer, which in turn allows me to continue do more work.

Now, I know that not everyone loves their job. But assuming that you at least find it tolerable, you may want to try “this one weird trick” (as the click bait titles used to say). Cal Newport, in his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, argues that we’ve got it all backwards. We shouldn’t look for work that matches what we are passionate about. If we truly want to love our work, he argues, we should try to perform our work as good as we can. He suggests that passion comes after you become good at something, not before.

Can you find inner satisfaction in doing good work? If not, try focusing on doing the best work you can, and that feeling may well start to appear.


  1. I should clarify that I love to hear from happy customers, and also want to get feedback from not-so-happy ones. But I am not particularly motivated by anticipated future customer happiness. ↩︎

  2. The opposite of intrinsic motivation is extrinsic motivation, which “arises from external factors, such as rewards, punishments, or recognition from others.” ↩︎