Even more problematic is the fact that we’re blind to at least some of our motivation much of the time. We may not fully understand where the desire to eat a certain food is coming from. Do I really love the salty taste of popcorn, or does my daily popcorn habit stem from nostalgia for the days when my family and I used to eat it during movie night? Changing, invisible, competing, and conflicting motivations make this element of behavior hard to pin down and control. This makes us even more frustrated when we fail in our efforts to motivate ourselves or others to make lasting change.

In Behavior Design, we’ve named this temporary surge in motivation the Motivation Wave. I’m sure you’ve experienced this before: Your motivation crested, then came crashing down. And maybe you blamed yourself for not sustaining it. You’re not to blame. This is how motivation works in our lives.

When we match ourselves with behaviors that we already want to do, not what we think we should do, there is no need to fuss with motivational tricks or techniques later. We take the Motivation Monkey out of commission.

On the flip side, if there is no prompt, there is no behavior even if you have high levels of motivation and ability.

There is a direct connection between what you feel when you do a behavior and the likelihood that you will repeat the behavior in the future.