When attempting to change behaviour: Motivation is temporary. Ability is permanent.
A lot of behaviour change interventions rely on increasing the motivation of the user to perform the desired behaviour. Usually through risk/reward amplification of some kind. And unfortunately, almost all of our creative talent is put to the task of increasing motivation. But the fact of the matter is that these motivation spikes are extremely short-lived. Just like the behaviours they were trying to induce.
When my friends and I joined guitar class, our motivations were varied. For some of us, it was to learn our favourite song. For others, it was to impress our crushes. But after a few days of class, only a handful of us actually remained and continued to learn the instrument. Was it that the dropouts no longer wished to learn their favourite song? Or that the intensity of their infatuation had waned? Or was it something else that was at play here?
Ask any guitar teacher and s/he will tell you how the maximum number of dropouts is in this initial learning phase. Same for gym-goers as well. And, for that matter, any behaviour that advocates the 21-day habit fallacy.
The reason for these dropouts, as BJ Fogg puts it, is very simple: Their ability to play the guitar did not increase proportionately to their drop in motivation.
Now, when we attempt to solve a problem like this, ‘creatively’, our instant reflex is to attempt to replenish motivation. Something that amplifies either:
The pleasure of being able to play your favourite song.
Or
The hope of being able to become a big, bad rockstar one day. #Nickelback
Or
The social reward of being recognised as ‘different’ and ‘creative’ and being the most popular person amongst your peers.
Maybe, just maybe, this would work once. Or twice. But if you really want to sustain the behaviour, some creative thinking could be applied to increasing the person’s ability instead. In this case:
How might we break down the task to make it feel more approachable, less intimidating — and feel like it’s really easy to do?
Or
How might we make even miniscule progress more tangible?
Or
How might we leverage an already existing behaviour and couple this new desired behaviour with that?
Ideas to motivate the user are often the easier way out in attempting to solve a problem — monstrous or manageable. Paradoxically though, they’re perceived to be more tangible — thanks to the more well-defined and more accepted measuring/awarding systems in place. In contrast, the only real way to measure ability-enhancing interventions is the behaviour itself — which also makes it more susceptible to the other factors at play in the real environment.
But very often, the game-changing invisible problems are hidden in the barriers to ability. These might take longer to discover, to solve for, to test for and to prove results for. But are the only way to effect long-term, sustainable behaviour change. Behaviour that sustains beyond the short-lived motivation spikes.
Motivation is analogous to a wave on the surface of the ocean. Ability is analogous to the depth of the ocean on which that wave rides. A deep ocean without waves might still have meaning. But a wave without the ocean definitely doesn’t.
