the next mountain
the unknown and unknowable is the prerequisite to adventure.
what keeps someone driving forward?
to the next challenge?
next mountain?
next problem set?
what fuels the fire of intrinsic motivation?
what ingredients make that perfect spark, or long-term low-level burn, to keep the fire lit?
we can acknowledge some level of personal aspect to this flame - passions and pursuits are as unique as each human personality, leading some to the endless drive towards one goal that seems abhorrable to another. as a thought exercise, imagine your desire to complete an ultra trail marathon….i’d predict we all fall on different aspects of the spectrum from, “sign me up” to “over my dead body” and every maybe in between.
but to each individual’s next mountain they’re climbing - what are the prerequisites that create the one-step-at-a-time pull onwards and upwards?
in his book Drive, Daniel Pink would argue that this motivation comes from the happy space intersection of mastery, autonomy, and purpose. the job, opportunity, task, or goal in front of us should have elements that create opportunity to learn something new or refine a skill (mastery), that we have choice and self-direction to pursue (autonomy), and invite us into something bigger than ourselves (purpose) for the internal drive to keep burning.
another framing around this that i recently stumbled upon in the book The Organized Mind, Daniel Levitin describes a brain area labeled area 47 which he has been exploring in relation to job engagement and satisfaction. this area incorporates circuits involved in memory, prediction, and forecasting, noting:
“if we can predict some (but not all) aspects of how a job will go, we find it rewarding. if we can predict all aspects of the job, down to the tiniest minutiae, it tends to be boring because there is nothing new and no opportunity to apply the discretion and judgement that…have been identified as components to finding one’s work meaningful and satisfying. if some but not too many aspects of the job are surprising in interesting ways, this can lead to a sense of discovery and self-growth.”
so the happy balance for area 47 is a margin of unknown to spark curiosity and forward lean, not too much that invokes fear or a high initiation threshold, and not too little that the activity could be executed mindlessly without engagement. the activity has to in fact be possible, yet a stretch, so that upon completion or engagement growth occurs. after all, for learning to occur, something originally was not yet known.
this tracks. i know i have plenty of screws loose in the cranial realm, so maybe i have an overactive area 47, but my most engaged, purposeful seasons of life have incorporated these elements - requiring autonomy, inviting mastery, invoking purpose, and leaving some mystery to keep me guessing.
to avoid jumping on a soapbox of how the mountain ultra trail world has ticked all these boxes for me, i will employ another sports tribe for this - crossfit. in the crossfit space, the highest level of this sport self-proclaims to be attempting to find the “fittest on earth.” their aim is to test multi-modal fitness to find the widest range of “athletic” a human can embody at once. one element that is always tested outside of individual skill execution is the ability to navigate the “unknown and unknowable”. it is one thing to execute a skill or physical strength that has been practiced for 10,000 hours in the garage, it is a whole different skillset to keep your cool with a new challenge, never attempted before, and employ the agility and adaptability required to execute on the fly.
the adventure is in the unknown and unknowable.
creativity truly flexes its muscles when exploring the new, yet within some constraints.
Levitin would argue that the balance of the predictable and the unknown is key to the reward and satisfaction of job or activity. someone's happy margin is likely correlated with individual's risk tolerance and degree of vigilance - so yes, each individual’s chosen “mountain” is different. yet each person’s unknown and unknowable margin requires attention, focus, creativity, problem solving - conscious engagement. and the diminishing returns start when the margin is so great the uncontrollables far exceed the controllables, the locus of control moves far externally - then adventure gives way to chaos and helplessness. so in work/business there is a baseline of competency but also a potential for growth or expansion that breeds motivation, satisfaction, and engagement.
these lines are up to me to identify. it requires an inventory and exploration of where the invite to the next carrot or cairn or curiosity lies. maybe in one pillar of life, or one role i play, the cards on the table are very known and knowable - but might there be another space or arena with the “just right” element of curiosity that can be chased?
i'd say there is an invite to learning and growth somewhere.
there is unknown and unknowable somewhere.
and that’s where the adventure lies.
references:
Pink, D. H. (2011). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Canongate Press.
https://www.danpink.com/books/drive/
Levitin, D. J. (2014). The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.
https://www.amazon.com/Organized-Mind-Thinking-Straight-Information/dp/0147516315