Motivation doesn't drive achievement

Note to the reader: This is a repost from LinkedIn

Self-motivation and coming to work wanting to do more, even in the face of adversity, is a skill I bring to work quite often. Recently, I’ve been reflecting on where I learned to do this, and I believe it was during my PhD years.

Like many PhD students, I spent years with seemingly little to show for it. Few publications. No real breakthroughs. Just endless experiments, failed attempts, and the occasional glimmer of progress. It wasn’t until my fourth year that I finally published the core idea for my PhD thesis.

Looking back, I realize something profound about motivation: We often think we need to feel motivated to make progress, but the reality is exactly opposite. As it turns out, motivation isn’t what drives achievement – achievement, even tiny wins, drives motivation.

During those challenging early years of my PhD, I learned that waiting for motivation was a trap. The key was creating small, achievable goals each day: running one more experiment, debugging one more idea, writing one more section. Each small completion created a tiny spark of accomplishment that fueled the next step.

Here’s what I wish I’d known from the start: Don’t wait for motivation to strike. Start with small, concrete actions. Celebrate the minor wins. Let each step forward, no matter how tiny, fuel your momentum.

This same principle now drives my approach to building new ideas for users. I don’t look for big ideas (those are way harder to find!). Instead, I look for small ideas, find ways to validate and prove they have merit, then push for more validation, more results, and eventually, perhaps breakthrough. Achievements breed motivation.

Success in long-term endeavors – whether a PhD, building a new product, or mastering a new skill – isn’t about maintaining constant motivation. It’s about building a cycle of small achievements that gradually compound into significant progress! Think about how you can take the small steps to compound into material changes.

For more on this philosophy of incremental progress and how it’s really an effective way to execute and have significant impact, check out the roofshot manifesto by Luiz André Barroso (RIP): https://web.archive.org/web/20230922060904/https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/the-roofshot-manifesto/

What small wins are you celebrating today?