When it comes to staying motivated at work, its important that you understand the science of psychology and human behavior. Very often people have a difficult time doing things in life because they are unmotivated. Whether it is procrastination, bad habits, or laziness, people from all cultures and walks of life find it difficult to be productive and get things done.

This is especially true at work. Very often people struggle with their career because they have not approached it with the right mindset. Whether they did poorly in school or did not have good parents, certain sects of our society have developed very poor thinking around becoming successful in life and at work.

I think higher pay might not be meant to motivate but to attract the best candidates, mostly. However, I agree that when companies pay executives bonuses based on performance then it is ridiculously redundant as in the candle experiment. This continuous to happen despite contrary evidence mainly because of greed.

I feel that the concept would apply really well to fitness, another major problem of our time. When you eat well and exercise for an extrinsic reward, losing twenty pounds, getting abs, fitting in a couple sizes smaller, its easy to lose interest, to get discouraged, to stop. When the reward becomes intrinsic, when you enjoy exercise, and when eating well becomes a habit you prefer to eating like crap, then consistency - and results - come a lot easier. A pet theory on my part but it makes sense to me."

He speaks a strong case against money as a motivator of complex problem solving. Money works as a motivator for simple mechanical (non-cognitive) problems. Creative problems that require brain power and doing something that has not been done before demands for commitment. Dan says giving people Autonomy, drive to master the skill, and meaning purpose are superior motivators.

We are taught to think in this rigid, confined manner from the very beginning! Education in the United States is built entirely on a similar premise of reward and punishment that limits creativity not only throughout the academic experience, but during the remainder of our lives. We are suffocating the people of tomorrow with an inexhaustible supply of abstract "knowledge" without giving them the space, time or autonomy to simply think. People don't think anymore, they just function according to whatever predefined principles were explained to them as students. Knowledge is useless if you don't understand it.

These ideas can transcend the business world and be applied to any facet of human life and behavior. The concept of intrinsic motivation works well in the setting of youth sports. Encouraging the child to participate in a sport and get the child to really care about all the details of the sport. To get the child to want to want be better at every facet of the game because the game is fun is the correct approach to youth sports. If this is the reason a child plays and not because they just want to win or worse an adult wants them to win then the child will receive continued joy from the activity and be more inclined to continue it of their own volition in the future. And after all, that is the most important purpose of youth sports, to let the child have fun and improve their skills. In that order. 

So if you want to become successful, then the key is motivation. And the first step in this process is that you must be honest with yourself about why you are lacking such self discipline to get things done on a consistent basis.

Here are some links to websites that can be useful:

usnews.com

motivationping.com

zippia

hbr.org