What motivates us? For many that is one of life’s mysteries – and those who crack the code seem to be vastly more happy and successful.

Two highly-credentialed researchers address this question in their recent New York Times article, “The Secret of Effective Motivation.” Here’s what they say:

There are two kinds of motive for engaging in any activity: internal and instrumental. If a scientist conducts research because she wants to discover important facts about the world, that’s an internal motive, since discovering facts is inherently related to the activity of research. If she conducts research because she wants to achieve scholarly renown, that’s an instrumental motive, since the relation between fame and research is not so inherent. Often, people have both internal and instrumental motives for doing what they do.

What mix of motives — internal or instrumental or both — is most conducive to success? You might suppose that a scientist motivated by a desire to discover facts and by a desire to achieve renown will do better work than a scientist motivated by just one of those desires. Surely two motives are better than one. But as we and our colleagues argue in a paper newly published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, instrumental motives are not always an asset and can actually be counterproductive to success.

What motives you?

Read more here…

America has an identity crisis – and we are all part of it. In her prescient op-ed “Who Do We Think We Are?” Maureen Dowd notes how the recent World Cup exemplified our confusion. She notes:

America’s infatuation with the World Cup came at the perfect moment, illuminating the principle that you can lose and still advance. Once our nation saw itself as the undefeatable cowboy John Wayne. Now we bask in the prowess of the unstoppable goalie Tim Howard, a biracial kid from New Jersey with Tourette’s syndrome.

“The 23-year-olds I work with are a little over the conversation about how we were the superpower brought low,” said Ben Smith, the editor in chief of Buzzfeed. “They think that’s an ‘older person conversation.’ They’re more interested in this moment of crazy opportunity, with the massive economic and cultural transformation driven by Silicon Valley. And kids feel capable of seizing it. Technology isn’t a section in the newspaper any more. It’s the culture.”

Walter Isaacson, head of the Aspen Institute and author of the best-selling “Steve Jobs,” agreed that “there’s a striking disconnect between the optimism and swagger of people in the innovative economy — from craft-beer makers to educational reformers to the Uber creators — and the impotence and shrunken stature of our governing institutions.”

“The more we can realize that we’re all making it up as we go along and somehow muddling through making ugly mistakes, the better. We’re not destined for greatness. We have to earn that greatness. What George Washington did right was to realize how much of what he thought was right was wrong.”

Read more here.

Do people today look at reading as a chore – or as a path to fulfillment? Finding the answer to that question is may be the secret to inspiring children to read. Here’s what Frank Bruni suggests in his op-ed, “Read, Kids, Read.”

As an uncle I’m inconsistent about too many things. But about books, I’m steady. Relentless. I’m incessantly asking my nephews and nieces what they’re reading and why they’re not reading more. I’m reliably hurling novels at them, and also at friends’ kids. I may well be responsible for 10 percent of all sales of “The Fault in Our Stars,” a teenage love story to be released as a movie next month. Never have I spent money with fewer regrets, because I believe in reading — not just in its power to transport but in its power to transform.

In terms of smarts and success, is reading causative or merely correlated? Which comes first, “The Hardy Boys” or the hardy mind? That’s difficult to unravel, but several studies have suggested that people who read fiction, reveling in its analysis of character and motivation, are more adept at reading people, too: at sizing up the social whirl around them. They’re more empathetic. God knows we need that.

Books are personal, passionate. They stir emotions and spark thoughts in a manner all their own, and I’m convinced that the shattered world has less hope for repair if reading becomes an ever smaller part of it.

Read more here

Can talking to yourself really be O.K.? Be honest. Do you talk to yourself. New research shows this can be a tremendous help to all of us. Researchers say talking to yourself, out loud, is more common than many of us might care to admit. Psychologists call it “self talk” and say how we do it makes a big difference in both our mood and our behavior.

Here is how Elizabeth Bernstein explains it in the Wall Street Journal:

Self-talk is what happens when you make yourself the target of your own comments, advice or reminders. Experts consider it a subset of thinking. You’re having a conversation with yourself.

Most people engage in self-talk, experts say, though some do it louder and more often than others. When I asked, I heard from people who talk to themselves in the basement, in their cubicle at work and at the urinal in the men’s room. One woman turns the car radio down so she can hear herself better.

When people think of themselves as another person, “it allows them to give themselves objective, helpful feedback,” says Ethan Kross, associate professor of psychology and director of the Self-Control and Emotion Laboratory at the University of Michigan.

Both positive and negative words can influence us in positive and negative ways. Say to yourself, “This job interview is going to be a cakewalk,” and you might not get pumped up enough to ace it. Conversely, tell yourself, “You just lost that match, you need to focus harder,” and it could spur you to do better in the future.

Read more here

Social media surrounds us: at home, at work, at play, in our cars, on public transportation – even in our dreams. But is it causing us more anxiety than we can bear? Here’s what Bruce Feiler suggests:

We are deep enough into the social-media era to begin to recognize certain patterns among its users. Foremost among them is a mass anxiety of approval seeking and popularity tracking that seems far more suited to a high school prom than a high-functioning society. Mark Zuckerberg said recently that he wants Facebook to be about “loving the people we serve,” but too often his site and its peers seem far more interested in helping the people they serve seek the love they crave. ABC has also embraced the madness by picking up a comedy for the coming season called “Selfie,” about a woman in her 20s who is more concerned with her followers than her friends.

Read more here.

In “Life Lessons From Navy SEAL Training, Admiral William McRaven, U.S. Navy SEAL and now the commander of the United States Special Operations Command (where he has stewardship over all U.S. military special operations forces), and the man who, as the Commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command was responsible for the planning and execution of the takedown of Osama bin Laden offers ten lessons gleaned from Navy SEAL training. In his words:

The training also seeks to find those students who can lead in an environment of constant stress, chaos, failure and hardships. To me basic SEAL training was a lifetime of challenges crammed into six months. So, here are lessons I learned from basic SEAL training that hopefully will be of value to you as you move forward in life.

Read more here

What harm could come from having your head down looking at that important e-mail or interesting text. This may give you pause – and inspiration.

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Sue Shellenbarger takes on the familiar topic of work-life balance – but with a new twist. She begins with what likely sounds familiar to most of us:

A friend you admire just asked you to head a fundraiser. You have a full-time job, and this sounds like a lot of work. But look at her: a working mom who is active in the school PTA, just ran her first marathon, does Suzuki violin with her daughter and even carries on an active social life. Why can’t you do as much as she can? And just how do you tell when you have taken on enough?
The sweet spot is different for everyone. Unfortunately, most people don’t know when they have reached their limits and need to stop saying yes to new activities. Many take their cues from others, such as a boss who never says no to new demands or a colleague who juggles career, family and board duties.

Read more of this Wall Street Journal article here.

In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Lowry reviews Roman Krznaric’s new book, How Should We Live? Her entire review is enriching and well-worth reading in its entirety, but briefly here is some of what she has to say:

Once living was not an art, merely a question of survival. That was before the dawning, in the affluent West, of the era of choice. Today we are dazzled by an unprecedented range of possibilities in almost every sphere of our lives, assailed from every side by messages about what we should buy, wear, eat and look like, and how we should spend our time.

Mr. Krznaric’s appealingly provocative book contends that contemporary culture trains us not just to think but to see, feel and desire and that we must strive consciously to “deprogram” ourselves if we are to live more authentic and satisfying lives. In a series of essays drawing on thinkers from the ancient Greeks to Gandhi, “How Should We Live?” considers such topics as love, family and empathy; work, time and money. What distinguishes this book from other self-help manuals is that Mr. Krznaric’s approach is rooted in a historical appreciation of how our modern muddle came about and what we might do to sort it out.

Read the full article here at the Wall Street Journal.

In a recent article in the New York Times, Akhil Sharma, author of the novel, Family Life, talked about the vexing challenges any writer faces, but offered insights all of us can use to navigate life’s treacherous highways. For Sharma, it’s all about getting outside yourself and actually praying for other people.

After leading into her story about massive writers block and then moving on to a story about how her brother almost drowned, she says this:

So, sitting on the bench by the river that day, I remembered having read in Reader’s Digest — a periodical my family has undue reverence for — that when you are feeling bad, one way to make yourself feel better is to pray for others.

I began to pray for the people who were passing by. I prayed for the nanny pushing a stroller. I prayed for the young woman jogging by in spandex. I prayed for the little boy pedaling his bicycle. I prayed that each of them got the same things that I wanted for myself: that they have good health, peace of mind, financial security. By focusing on others and their needs, my own problems seemed less unique and, somehow, less pressing.

Read the full article in the New York Times here.