Why we are not always motivated

I was thinking about why motivation is so hard to find sometimes, even when it would benefit us to just do it (what ever it is) and get it over with. It occurred to me that maybe this is a sign of functional fixedness.

Functional fixedness is a condition in which a person has learned to do something one way, and does not attempt to try something different (usually with a reasoning like “We’ve always done it this way, why would we want to change?”). There’s a great article about it over here: Dar Kush: Functional Fixedness

I can really see why functional fixedness would interfere with the changing of a mindset that motivation requires. For example: I am hungry and I have lots of ingredients in my kitchen to make a great and healthy dinner. But, I remember that almost every time I make dinner it takes a long time to prepare the dinner, and then it takes a long time to clean up. I then think it would be easier just to go get some fast food and be done with it.

The functional fixedness I have about cooking dinner prevented me from thinking about quick and easy to prepare meals (like pasta, etc.). If I could have thought about the simple meals, then I probably would have been motivated to make dinner, knowing that I could quickly have a meal that would be healthy and easy to clean up.

Think about it: When have your perceptions about some task prevented you from doing something? Was there another way of accomplishing the task that you thought of later?