Don't let the MONEY motivate you!

If you came here for the money, STOP. You’re doing yourself and your followers a serious disservice. Science proves it. You produce higher quality content, faster, if you forget about any possibility of a monetary reward. Of course, you probably don't believe me. That’s fine, I didn’t either at first, but hear me out.

^{Smoke 'em if you got 'em}

Have you ever lost your keys?

In a hurry, late for work or that important meetup? Missing your keys or your phone or your purse? Did you scour the house with laser focus finding every possible location, flagging it as checked in your brain as you frantically rummage until you get to the most insane conclusions, like checking the fridge, JUST IN CASE, even though you KNOW you didn’t so much as have breakfast and there’s no way it could be there? Only to find out what you were looking for was in a back pocket, or your glasses were on your head, or your phone was IN YOU HAND?!?!

^{I got the wallet chain so I wouldn't lose my wallet. I searched everywhere. I'm such an idiot.}

Did you find everything you WEREN’T looking for?

I call this the “lost lego problem”, where you can only ever find the pieces you don't need any more. Or, after you spent FOREVER searching for the thing you need, once you find it you find a ZILLION more scattered about in plain view, like the universe is taunting you for trying so hard to find it in the first place?

^{Yellow with two dots, yellow with two dots....}

You just DDoS’d your brain

When your brain is hyper-focused, you are sending the same signal on a loop, and checking for a yes or no conclusion. Are my keys here? No. Are my keys there? No. Are my keys ANYWHERE? System error 404, keys not found. And this is because you have the wrong motivator in place. A high stress, high risk, or high reward motivator will have the OPPOSITE effect on solving any creative problem. It causes you to obsess about the reward, and forces your brain into an endless logical loop that will overthrow your brain’s ability to think creatively or see outside of the box.

^{Forget it I'll just use an olive one...oh, there it is...along with thirty more. I just needed one thanks.}

Getting paid on Steemit

Can cause the same reaction. If you focus on the money, you’re setting yourself up for multiple kinds of failure. You’ll end up with writer’s block, write an uncreative article, have no attention to detail, select mismatched images, and fail to catch misspelled words and grammar mistakes. It’s not because you’re in a hurry, you’ve just overruled your brain’s ability to relax and be creative by forcing it to focus on a logic-based problem. To top it all off you’ll ultimately be dissatisfied with the quality of your own work AND be crushed if your post fails to make the kinds of cash you think it deserves. After all, you’ll likely have worked HARDER to make that post happen because you put so much mental energy into getting everything wrong, only to be under-rewarded for your efforts.

Write because you want to

Post pictures because you like them. Comment on blogs because you enjoy them. Ask questions because you want the answers. Intrinsic motivation is the biggest contributor to your success that you have access to. Re-write your brain’s operating system by being self-motivated, and you will allow the creative, right-brained side to be unshackled from the bonds of laser focus, and you’ll find that writer’s block is now no longer an issue, and in fact you have too MANY things to express. You’ll find that you can type faster, with a sense of vigor and purpose, because you are expressing yourself. You’ll find all of the things that you weren’t looking for, like a healthy stream of upvotes, and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find your keys.

There’s so much more to say on this topic, but that will have to wait for another episode. If you still don't believe that there’s scientific evidence, just pull up this TED talk by Dan Pink and give it a watch.

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