{"id":57887,"date":"2016-07-13T10:58:10","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T15:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=57887"},"modified":"2025-09-30T11:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T16:46:11","slug":"become-a-self-starter-autonomy-as-the-key-to-personal-motivation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/become-a-self-starter-autonomy-as-the-key-to-personal-motivation\/","title":{"rendered":"Become a Self-Starter: What the U.S. Marines Can Teach You About the Skill of Motivation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1942:<\/a><\/p>\n

After I graduated from law school, Kate and I decided to move to Vermont for an indefinite stretch of time. The trip was spontaneous and done just because — just because we\u2019d always wanted to try living there, were looking to have an adventure, and desired a break from our normal life and routine.<\/p>\n

Problem was, once we got there, we simply established our old, rather pedestrian routine, in a new environment. Sure, we went hiking a lot more and took in a few quintessentially Vermont activities, but we didn\u2019t get out to local events very much, or do a lot of sightseeing. For example, Boston was only 3 hours away, and though we talked about going several times over the six months we ended up staying in VT, we never made the trip.<\/p>\n

We said it was because we had very little money, which was true. But then we had an experience that made me realize there was something more going on. Kate\u2019s Uncle Buzz, who lives in Montpelier, drew up the ultimate daylong road trip itinerary for us — a tour of the best spots in Northern Vermont. He gave us an exact list of things to do, and marked them on a map, along with the exact route to take to hit them all in a timely fashion. Following Buzz\u2019s map and plan, we had a positively fantastic day — one that not only made me realize how much we had been missing out on, but why we really hadn\u2019t gone to Boston.<\/p>\n

When it came to capitalizing on our leisure time, we were perfectly willing to take action\u2026as long as someone else did the legwork and spelled out exactly what to do. In the absence of such direction, we did nothing.<\/p>\n

We weren\u2019t great self-starters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that I lacked the ability to self-start in all<\/em> areas of my life — I had started a blog, and heck, had decided to go to Vermont in the first place. But in some areas, like getting out the door for family adventures, my personal motivation just seemed to hit a wall.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019m the only one who sometimes has a tough time being a self-starter; in fact, I think it\u2019s one of the<\/em> things my fellow Millennials struggle with the most. They have big dreams and goals for themselves, but lack the motivation to follow through on them in one or many areas of their life. They lack initiative and wait for someone to tell them what to do in order to get started. In the absence of this guidance, and of knowing exactly what steps to take, they feel plain paralyzed.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the inability to self-start can have big consequences beyond whether or not you make it to Boston.<\/p>\n

Mastery of the art of self-motivation has always been one of the qualities that separates the most successful and fulfilled men, from the mediocre and adrift. And it\u2019s a skill that\u2019s become more essential than ever.<\/p>\n

Whether you want to live healthier, get your finances in order, or plan an amazing adventure, you need to be able to take initiative and get things going on your own.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the ability to motivate yourself is becoming increasingly important in our changing economy. While Millennials desire 50% more coaching and feedback from their supervisors than employees<\/a> of other generations, they\u2019re working in an environment where less and less guidance will be forthcoming.<\/p>\n

Back in 1980, more than 90 percent of American workers reported to a boss who told them what they needed to do and when it needed to be done. All you had to do was show up at the office or factory, and your day was scheduled for you. Today, more than a third of the American workforce consists of freelancers and contractors who have to figure out exactly how to allot their time, complete tasks, and promote their work on their own. Even many salaried employees, particularly in smaller, start-up environments, are simply given goals to work towards, and not necessarily much direction in how to get there.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising then that research shows that individuals who know how to self-start<\/a> make more money, are happier, and have more satisfying romantic and family lives than those who don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

If the ability to be a self-starter is so critical to success, and so many folks seem to be struggling with it, figuring out exactly why we\u2019re lacking in personal motivation and how to regain it is obviously crucial.<\/p>\n

Luckily, the U.S. Marines have already diagnosed the problem, and formulated an answer.<\/p>\n

Autonomy As the Key to Self-Motivation<\/h3>\n

The Marines have a 250-year-old legacy of being the first forces in and the last to leave in a conflict. They\u2019re famous for their ethos of improvisation and independent, action-oriented thinking. But in the past decade or so, commanders noticed that many recruits coming in struggled with the same issue that\u2019s hindering their civilian peers: a lack of self-motivation and self-direction.<\/p>\n

Young Marines would wait until someone told them to do something before they did it and when they did take action, they put in the bare minimum effort. As General Charles C. Krulak put it bluntly when describing this new generation of Marines: \u201cit was like working with a bunch of wet socks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wanting to figure out why many modern Marines acted as they did, Krulak immersed himself in research on initiative and self-motivation. He found one study<\/a> performed by the Corps which concluded that \u201cthe most successful Marines were those with a strong \u2018internal locus of control\u2019<\/a> — a belief they could influence their destiny through the choices they made.\u201d<\/p>\n

An individual with an internal locus of control sees himself as an actor, not someone who\u2019s acted upon. He views himself as an autonomous being and believes in his self-efficacy<\/a> — his ability to make things happen.<\/p>\n

Someone with an external locus of control, on the other hand, feels as though things happen to<\/em> him. He blames others or his circumstances for his situation. \u201cIf I didn\u2019t have kids, I\u2019d have time to workout.\u201d \u201cMy boss is getting in the way of my promotion.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t have enough money to travel.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t have the connections to make it in this field.\u201d Feeling like his life is controlled by external circumstances, he sees little point in working towards goals. What would be the point? His only recourse is to wait and hope for circumstances to change.<\/p>\n

An individual with an internal locus of control, however, sees a high correlation between his personal actions and moving from where he is now, to where he wants to be. For this reason, he\u2019s obviously much more motivated to take action in the first place.<\/p>\n

Research from the fields of cognitive psychology and neurology bears out this connection between a sense of control and intrinsic motivation.<\/p>\n

Psychologists from Columbia University found that<\/a> when people believe they\u2019re in control of their lives, they tend to work harder and push themselves more. They earn more money than their peers and even live longer than them.<\/p>\n

Neurological research has presented an even more vivid explanation of the exact connection between a sense of control and motivation. It\u2019s a connection that centers on one specific part of the brain: the striatum.<\/p>\n

The striatum serves as a waypoint between our pre-frontal cortex (where we make decisions) and the more primitive basal ganglia (where movement and emotions emerge). When the striatum is sluggish, decisions we make with our pre-frontal cortex can\u2019t connect with the action- and emotion-oriented basal ganglia. So we can think<\/em> about how something is the right, rational, desirable thing to do, but we don\u2019t feel<\/em> driven to follow through on it.<\/p>\n

Luckily, you can unleash a torrent of self-motivation by waking the striatum up. What is it that researchers have found does the trick?<\/p>\n

A sense of autonomy.<\/p>\n

In a study<\/a> done at the University of Pittsburgh, individuals were put under an fMRI machine and asked to look at a screen which flashed numbers between one and nine. The research subjects were told to guess if the number was going to be above or below five.<\/p>\n

When the researchers watched the screens where the fMRI results appeared, they noticed that the striatum of the participants would light up while they were guessing. What\u2019s more, many of the participants told the researcher they genuinely enjoyed playing a game that had purposely been designed to be dull.<\/p>\n

Curious as to why many of the test participants enjoyed playing such a boring game, head researcher Mauricio Delgado took the experiment a step further. He used the same game as before, but in this experiment, the test participants only got to choose the number to guess half the time. The other half, a computer guessed for them.<\/p>\n

Just as in the first experiment, when the test participant actively guessed their number, the fMRI showed intense activity in the striatum. But when the computer chose for them? The striatum went completely silent. When Delgado asked participants how they felt about the game afterward, they told him they enjoyed themselves when they were choosing their own numbers, but when the computer picked the numbers, they were bored and wanted to quit the experiment because it felt more like an assignment. They mentally checked out.<\/p>\n

What all this research suggests is that if you want to experience the drive of self-motivation, you need to feel like you have control <\/em>over your actions and surroundings.<\/p>\n

You need to feel autonomous.<\/p>\n

Wither Autonomy? <\/strong><\/h3>\n

If a sense of autonomy is the key to feeling motivated to get going and take action, the next logical question is: why don\u2019t guys today feel autonomous?<\/p>\n

Part of it may be the economy; it\u2019s hard to feel in control of your life when you\u2019re buffeted by financial forces you have no say over.<\/p>\n

Yet uncertain times are certainly nothing new in human history, pointing to the fact that something else must also be going on. In Krulak\u2019s estimation, that something else can be traced to the way most kids are raised in America today. Many Millennials grew up with parents who took care of almost everything for them and tightly scheduled out their day. All they had to do was show up to school and activities, and let the pre-planned experience unfold.<\/p>\n

Instead of roaming neighborhoods playing improvised games, modern kids take part in highly structured organized sports or pre-planned \u201cplay dates.\u201d Instead of being allowed to do a crappy job on a science project all by themselves, parents do it for them so it looks professional. When teens apply for college, mom and dad help fill out the application. In short, many young people haven\u2019t had the chance to make a lot of decisions on their own.<\/p>\n

Childhood through college is thus experienced like a conveyer belt, where you\u2019re just along for the ride.<\/p>\n

But then comes graduation. The belt comes to an abrupt end. There are numerous paths to take (although they aren\u2019t limitless!<\/a>), all stretching in different directions. And to start down any of them takes intentional planning and action — nobody\u2019s guiding or chauffeuring you along.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s at this point that many men run into a wall. They wait around, expecting their ship to come in — for external circumstances to congeal into the good things in life they\u2019ve been dreaming about since boyhood. They don\u2019t know how to take action without guidance. It\u2019s no wonder there\u2019s been a great rise in companies that offer to take you on pre-planned, guide-led \u201cadventures,\u201d service project trips, and gap-year experiences, and plenty of online courses and conventions that claim to teach you how to be an entrepreneur (note: if you need a class to get started in being an entrepreneur, the stuff that\u2019s necessary to be self-employed is likely not in you).<\/p>\n

But these kinds of hand-holding programs and resources don\u2019t exist for every aspect of life, and knowing how to be self-directed and self-motivated remains crucial.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, being an autonomous action-taker is a skill that can be learned and revived.<\/p>\n

Discover Your Autonomy By Making Small Choices & Taking Small Actions<\/h3>\n

So let\u2019s recap: to become a self-starter, activate your striatum, and experience the drive of motivation, you\u2019ve got to feel autonomous — you have to see yourself as an actor, not someone who\u2019s acted upon.<\/p>\n

The last question we need to address then is this: how can you learn to feel more in control of your life?<\/p>\n

The answer is that self-directed motivation is a skill <\/em>— one you gain the same way you do any other: practice.<\/p>\n

As Charles Duhigg says in his book Smarter Faster Better<\/em><\/a>, \u201cmotivation is triggered by making choices that demonstrate that we are in control.\u201d The more autonomous decisions you make, the more autonomous you\u2019ll feel, and the more autonomous you feel, the more motivated you\u2019ll be to work on your goals, and the more motivated you are, the more autonomous actions you\u2019ll take. It becomes a positive cycle that builds on itself.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the thing: the choices that kick off that cycle don\u2019t have to be big. In fact, they can be as small as deciding how you\u2019re going to clean up a mess hall.<\/p>\n

Once Gen. Krulak made the connection between autonomy and personal motivation, he decided it was time to change the way Marines trained new recruits. In addition to the usual push-ups and running, he threw in tasks that involved exercising autonomy and practicing the skill of making self-directed decisions. One task was something as simple as cleaning the mess hall after lunch.<\/p>\n

New recruits are simply told they have to clean the mess hall. No further instruction is given. Whenever they asked a drill sergeant for advice (typical wet sock move), they just got yelled at and told to get back to work figuring it out themselves. So the recruits are left on their own to decide what leftover food they should keep or chuck, where to put the tables and chairs, and how to best clean the dishes. For some of these young men, it represents the first time they have to exercise this kind of self-direction.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, they mess up. Leftovers that should have been kept get tossed out, and chairs get put away in the wrong place. The process they come up with initially isn\u2019t always effective. But the drill sergeants don\u2019t care. What\u2019s important to them is that the recruits exercise their autonomy. Or as Krulak put it, the Marines are teaching recruits \u201ca bias towards action<\/a>.\u201d He wants them to see that they\u2019re able to take control of a situation and how good it feels when they do. \u201cMost recruits don\u2019t know how to force themselves to start something hard,\u201d Krulak says. \u201cBut if we can train them to take the first step by doing something that makes them feel in charge, it\u2019s easier to keep going.\u201d This growing sense of autonomy that comes from deciding how they\u2019re going to clean a mess hall awakens a sense of motivation that many of these recruits have never felt. And it carries over to other areas.<\/p>\n

By making a bunch of clueless recruits clean a mess hall, Krulak is training the skill of motivation.<\/p>\n

We can train our own skill of motivation in the same way by focusing on taking small, autonomous actions that instill a sense of freedom, independence, and control.<\/p>\n

So what are some practical ways of doing so?<\/p>\n

Duhigg gives a great example in Smarter Faster Better <\/em>in regards to email. For many folks working information jobs, answering email is a chore and something that they\u2019re not very motivated to do. I\u2019m a notorious email put-er off-er myself. The reason we might not be very motivated to answer email is that it often gives us a sense that we have no control over our lives. Most emails are requests from others to do something or provide information. Facing a daily barrage of such solicitations can give a person the sense that they\u2019re besieged by forces outside themselves.<\/p>\n

To counteract the learned helplessness<\/a>-inducing aspect of email, Duhigg suggests skipping the pleasantries you usually start with and beginning instead by writing a single sentence in which you exercise a decision<\/em>. Then go back and fill in the rest of the email.<\/p>\n

So if Jim from PR is asking you to go to a meeting you don\u2019t want to attend, but you\u2019ve been putting off answering because you hate letting people down, start off the email with a single sentence exercising your autonomous choice. It could be something like:<\/p>\n

\u201cI can go, but I\u2019ll have to leave after 20 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

or<\/p>\n

\u201cI unfortunately won\u2019t be able to attend the meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t hit send yet.<\/p>\n

Do that with all those other emails you\u2019ve been putting off. Write a single sentence in which you exercise an autonomous choice and nothing else.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re done with your single sentence replies, go back and fill them in with the usual email pleasantries, and send them off.<\/p>\n

Duhigg noticed two things when he implemented this practice:<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst, it was much easier to reply to an email once I had at least one sentence on the screen. Second, and more important, it was easier to get motivated when that first sentence was something that made me feel in control. When I told Jim that I could only stay for twenty minutes, it reminded me that I didn\u2019t have to commit to his project if I didn\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While this kind of exercise might seem inconsequential at first blush, each time you begin doing the hard part — exercising control — you\u2019re lighting up your striatum and training the skill of motivation. Think of this as \u201cgreasing the groove\u201d<\/a> for your motivation muscles.<\/p>\n

Look for other ways you can exercise your self-direction by making small, autonomous choices throughout your day. And by small, I mean minuscule. Researchers have found that nursing home residents who have the fewest emotional and physical problems are the ones who find ways to exercise control in an environment that doesn\u2019t offer much of it. In nursing homes, schedules and food menus are very rigid. The residents who thrive are the ones who rebel against the strict structure in small ways like trading food at the dinner table so that they design a meal to their choosing instead of just eating what\u2019s put before them. One resident even gives away his cake, despite the fact he likes cake, because he would \u201crather eat a second-class meal that I have chosen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise, if you\u2019re currently at a job that doesn\u2019t offer you a lot of autonomy, you can still find little ways to exercise control — proposing a new project, re-negotiating a deadline, requesting a different desk, asking for a raise, etc. Heck, when someone asks you where you want to eat for lunch, instead of saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know. Whatever you want is fine,\u201d state a preference. Make a choice. After awhile of exercising your autonomy, you may gain the motivation to move into a better job, or moonlight your way to self-employment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kate and I ultimately broke our problem of leisure time inertia by committing to an 8-week \u201cmicroadventure challenge\u201d<\/a> where we did one little adventure each week. Doing something small each and every week broke the dam of our old excuses, and let us see how easy it was to choose activity over passivity. Even after the challenge was over, our newfound sense of autonomy kept us motivated and we continue to do new microadventures (check out our Instagram page to see many of them!<\/a>) nearly every week.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the beauty of this approach to developing personal motivation: as you make more and more autonomous choices, your motivation muscle will be strengthened, and you\u2019ll begin to naturally take action in all kinds of situations without the need for outside prompting and guidance.<\/p>\n

Instead of viewing the world as something you have no control over, you\u2019ll start looking for opportunities where you can exercise your power to take charge of your life and make things happen.<\/p>\n

Oorah!<\/p>\n

_______________________________<\/p>\n

Sources<\/p>\n

Smarter Faster Better<\/em><\/a> by Charles Duhigg<\/p>\n

Drive<\/em><\/a> by Daniel Pink<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After I graduated from law school, Kate and I decided to move to Vermont for an indefinite stretch of time. The trip was spontaneous and done just because — just because we\u2019d always wanted to try living there, were looking to have an adventure, and desired a break from our normal life and routine. Problem was, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,6,42269],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-57887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-featured","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"medium_large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-768x599.jpg","large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-538x280.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-320x250.jpg","reactor-640":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-640x499.jpg","rpwe-thumbnail":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-45x45.jpg","aesop-tiny-cover":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-400x312.jpg","aesop-character":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-200x200.jpg","aesop-collection":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-300x300.jpg","aesop-grid-image":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2016\/07\/marine3-400x312.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57887"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140512,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57887\/revisions\/140512"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57887"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=57887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}