Why Do You Lose Motivation?
Motivation does not come in amounts. It comes in kinds.
The everyday picture of motivation is a fuel tank: you have a certain amount, it runs down, you top it up. Decades of research describe something different. What matters is not how much motivation you have but where it comes from, because the kinds behave differently - some hold up under difficulty and some collapse the moment the pressure producing them is removed. Losing motivation is usually not running out. It is running on the wrong kind.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Answer about the things you have to keep doing - work, study, training, a project - rather than about hobbies you would do anyway.
What it measures
Three points on the continuum this theory describes, from least to most your own. Pressure is doing it because something outside you requires it. Obligation is doing it because of what not doing it would say about you. Ownership is doing it because it matters to you or because you like it. Everyone runs on a mix; the mix is what predicts whether you keep going.
Based on: Self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000)
Possible results
Pressure
Doing it because something outside you requires it.
Obligation
Doing it because of what not doing it would mean.
Ownership
Doing it because it matters to you, or because you like it.
Common questions
How is this different from the motivation test you already have?
The other one is about direction - whether you move towards gains or away from losses. This one is about source: where the push comes from in the first place. They are separable and the combinations are informative. Someone can be strongly focused on avoiding mistakes and still own the work completely, and someone else can be chasing ambitious goals entirely out of obligation.
Do rewards really make motivation worse?
Only in a narrow case, and the case matters. Paying someone to do a thing they already found interesting can reduce how much they do it once the payment stops - the effect is real and has been replicated - but it does not apply to work nobody enjoys anyway, where a reward adds motivation that was not there. The practical rule that comes out of it is about what the reward says: money or praise that reads as information about doing well tends not to damage anything, while the same reward framed as control over whether you do it at all tends to.
What if I have to do something I do not care about?
Then pressure is the honest tool and there is no shame in using it - deadlines, a visible list, someone expecting it. The thing the theory suggests is not to pretend to enjoy it but to find the connection if one exists: most tasks nobody likes are attached to something the person does care about, one or two steps away. That connection is what turns pressure into ownership, and when there genuinely is no connection, that is worth knowing too.
Sources
- Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist.
- Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The what and why of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry.
- Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2020). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation from a self-determination theory perspective: Definitions, theory, practices, and future directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology.
An honest note This is a short adaptation of a large theory rather than one of its questionnaires, and it compresses a continuum into three bars - the original describes more steps between pure pressure and pure interest than are shown here. The theory is one of the most extensively tested in psychology and its central claim holds up well: motivation that feels like your own predicts persistence and wellbeing better than motivation produced by rewards or guilt. Two honest limits. Most of the evidence is correlational or comes from short laboratory studies, so the direction is not settled - enjoying something makes you better at it, and being better at something makes it more enjoyable. And motivation is not purely a property of you: the same person is full of ownership in one job and running on obligation in another, so a low third bar may be describing your situation rather than your character. If nothing has felt worth doing for weeks, and that is new, it is worth raising with a doctor rather than treating as a motivation problem.
Try one of these next
Do You Prefer to Multitask?
Juggling several things at once, or giving one thing your full attention
Why Are You Committed to Your Job?
Wanting to stay, needing to stay, and feeling you ought to stay are three different things
How Politically Skilled Are You at Work?
Reading the room, winning people over, building a network and being believed