Why do we avoid simple tasks?

The Motivational Triad

In life, we look to avoid pain, minimise effort and seek pleasure. This is called the ‘motivational triad’.??

Used strategically, we can trick our brains into doing pretty much anything we want.

Not only is the triad a master tool when looking to influence your own behaviour, it’s extremely powerful when communicating with others.

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Years ago, I got an email from the finance department of a business. They wanted a small detail so they could pay me.

To get $50,000, all I’d need to do was call the ATO.

I put it off.

When I finally got paid 8 months later, I realised my reluctance to do a very simple thing had stopped myself from getting what I wanted: getting paid.

Why do we avoid simple tasks?

We are motivated by 3 things:

1. Instant gratification
2. Avoiding pain
3. Exerting the least effort

We take action when we know we’ll experience instant gratification, avoid some form of pain and we won’t have to exert too much effort.

This is the ‘motivational triad’. And it’s the #1 reason we?don’t do things.

In the case of the finance email, I did want to get paid. But, the motivational triad was already in full effect.

• I didn’t want to call the ATO, so …I got instant gratification by doing something else.
• I didn’t want to call my accountant, and by not doing it, avoided a ‘painful’ conversation.
• I didn’t want to do a hard thing,?so I did as little as possible by marking the email as ‘unread’ for the 50th time.

As you can see, someone who teaches this for a living is not exempt to the pull of the motivational triad.

Training our brain to think, ‘How can I win, in some small way today’?

We can get anything we want in life, with a quick edit of how we think about what motivates us.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll be familiar with the term ‘loss aversion’: that many of us are motivated to act based on what we can lose, not what we can gain.

By using the motivational triad as a testing ground, we can give loss aversion (decisions based on what we could lose) a workout and reframe it to this:?how could I win in some small way, today? How could this benefit me?

This sounds simple, but we often find in?our workplace training, that in the ‘busy-ness’ of work, we often forget to actively be strategic with our thinking.

The trick is to reframe exerting effort into doing a small thing to get a larger reward.

You’re tricking your brain into experiencing the same thing for a better deal.

For example, instead of thinking,?‘Not another meeting’,?we can choose to ask ourselves:

• [Pleasure] What will this meeting teach me that I didn't know before?
• [Pain] What is the greater impact if this meeting doesn’t go ahead?
• [More pain] Who loses and what is the flow-on effect of them losing out (if not me?)?
• [Effort] What is the quickest and easiest way I can do this?

It’s a bit like having a chat with our adult-selves by outlining the biggest pain, and then asking:?knowing that, how can I choose to make this a win for me?

We get into trouble when we tell ourselves that things are easy, or there is no pain or risk. By being upfront with the benefit, how we could hurt or fall, and the cost, we’re actually in a far better position to make a decision that is right for us.

What’s the benefit to me, personally?

In the Emmy Award winning drama,?Succession, the CEO is asked by a colleague to do something. The CEO says to her colleague, perplexed: "But how does this serve my interests?"

When you don’t want to do something, these are the types of questions you can start asking yourself.

• How could this serve my interests?
• What could be in it for me?
• How could this benefit me?

The question that underlies all of this is asking ourselves:?how could this be good for me?

Not every opportunity will be good, or remotely pleasurable.

But, it is within your control to think better of the opportunities afforded to you by removing attachment to them arriving in a perfect ‘form’. Instead, you can ask yourself this:

• What would it take for this to be a yes?
• What would it take for this to be bearable?
• If ‘bearable’ is my going in position, how could I upgrade to ‘doable’?
• If doable is a stretch, how could I contribute to this being over as soon as possible?

It’s about thinking about how to extract the gold from every single opportunity.

There are many dull things in life. Why not gleam something, even if only for a funny story later?

The motivational triad is extremely useful for communicating hard choices.

Using the motivational triad to think about ‘which will be less painful’ is a powerful way to convince ourselves to have hard conversations and make meaningful decisions.

For example, we might use the ‘lesser pain’ as a framing for these hard decisions:

• Is the bigger pain finding a new job, or finding a way to work with someone I don’t like? What would take less effort, for more reward and less risk?
• Is the pain of an awkward conversation bigger or smaller than the pain of the feedback not being actioned?
• Does the pain of giving feedback outweigh my want to prove to myself I can stand up for myself?
• Is the pain of leaving my job bigger or smaller than figuring out how to work with this tricky stakeholder?
• Does the pain of getting ready for my meeting on time really outweigh the perception my client might have if I turn up flustered?
• How could I experience a bit of short term pain with this project so I can make sure I learn these lessons on a small project before I put my hand up for a larger one?
• Is the bigger play proving to myself that I am ‘more competent’ than my colleague, or is it more useful for them to feel competent without me, so they can take the lead on work I’ve outgrown?

The more you want in life, the more choices like this you’ll be asked to consider.

The more you make moves that suit you, the more you’ll be referring to the triad to do things that you don’t intrinsically enjoy but benefit you.

You can use the motivational triad in 4 ways at work:

1. To give yourself a pep talk to do things you aren’t excited about.
2. To coach someone else to make a decision in?their?best interests.
3. To help someone make a decision in?their and your?interests.
4. To deliver a tricky message and be transparent about why, and what it means.

The key to getting anyone to agree to anything is outlining what they will gain, how they can minimise pain, and how they can do it in as little effort as possible.

The key to doing this ethically, and while contributing to the trust-bank-building process, is to outline the pleasures, the pains and the effort involved, and - here’s the real gem - the benefit to them, or the lesser pain.

Be real about the realities and balance it with what there is to gain and how it will serve their interests. When we go ‘all benefits’, people wonder ‘what’s the pain here?’. When we go ‘all pain’, people don’t see the benefits. We need both.

By using the triad, you’re really practising the art of strategic thinking.

The key that unlocks the habit of strategic thinking is determining at every opportunity what the payoffs are, the risks involved, and how much you’re willing to do, to get a result.

You don’t need a promotion to start thinking strategically. Start with ‘what’s in it for me’ and the larger play to be had. If you want to take it up a level, try asking yourself what your boss / client will gain. And if you are the boss making the hard decisions, try sharing your thought process with your team. They’ll appreciate the transparency and the exposure to long-play thinking.

The gem in your hand is the reframe. Try it on, see what you think.

If you found this personally useful, imagine what life could be like when people ask for what they need, outlining the benefit to you! We teach this in our?stakeholder engagement training ?and we’ve got a few spots free before the end of the year.??

Take care, Arohanui,

Rachel and the team at Happiness Concierge.