The motivation myth

My brief foray back to teaching ends tomorrow. The final A Level English Literature exam is in the morning. From the very first lesson I taught back at Goffs School in 1991 to the last one a couple of weeks ago before the current students went on study leave, the subject of motivation is something we have pondered. There is always a gardening analogy to be found and no better place to illustrate how motivation works than in the garden.

My grief counselling days take me into gardens, onto allotments, and into overgrown plots that clients have been meaning to tackle for months. The conversation that happens most reliably, somewhere between pulling the first weed and filling the first trug, is this: “I don't know why I've been putting this off. I actually feel so much better now I've started.”

They're not imagining it. What they're noticing is a real neurochemical shift, and it happens faster than most people expect.