The Motivation Belief Equation

Hello and welcome to The Healthy Coconut Blog. This blog is dedicated to bringing you information on trauma and trauma healing from a holistic perspective. I’m Gabbie Bodkin, a licensed mental health counselor, and the author of this blog. Today I’ll be sharing my equation for understanding motivation— an idea that has evolved over the years through working with clients and witnessing the universal struggle to stay motivated across different seasons of life.

In this post, I'll cover:

1. What is motivation and why do we need it?

2. What's happening neurologically?

3. The Motivation Belief Equation

Motivation is defined as “the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.” It's an essential part of being human. Without motivation, we wouldn’t complete the most basic functions needed for survival—like eating, drinking water, maintaining hygiene, or connecting with others.

While these needs may seem universal, the baseline for motivation looks different for each person, depending on their environment, upbringing, and psychological health.

In mental health assessments, motivation often plays a key role in determining where a client is at as well as treatment outcomes. A major factor in diagnosing mental illness is the degree to which symptoms impair a person’s daily functioning. If someone is struggling to complete basic tasks—like getting out of bed, showering, or eating—it often indicates a neurobiological issue worth exploring further.

We are all biologically wired with an innate drive to survive, which shows up in automatic behaviors like breathing, crying to communicate a need, seeking human connection, and avoiding danger. These actions are instinctual and governed by deeper brain structures, including the brainstem and the limbic system.

Anything beyond basic survival involves two types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic.

Intrinsic motivation comes from within. It's the natural desire to do things that bring satisfaction, pleasure, curiosity, or purpose. It includes seeking safety, attachment, and also encompasses experiences that engage the five senses in meaningful or pleasurable ways.

Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, comes from outside of us—such as praise, money, good grades, recognition, or status. These can be powerful reinforcers, especially in structured environments like school or the workplace.

These two types of motivation are used to instill habit formation for basic life skills. As children, we were often rewarded for brushing our teeth, making our bed, or eating all of our food. Once something is repeated often enough with a desired reward, it can shift from a reward-seeking response to an automatic habitual behavior.

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Let’s dive deeper and understand what is happening neurologically-

Motivation centers of the brain include:

• Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA): This part of the midbrain contains dopamine-producing neurons. It essentially "flips the switch," sending dopamine signals to other parts of the brain involved in reward and motivation. This switch activates even in anticipation of a reward.

• Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc): Located in the basal forebrain, this area receives dopamine from the VTA and helps interpret its significance. It evaluates how pleasurable or rewarding something is, and whether it’s worth repeating. The more pleasurable the behavior experience, the higher the rating it receives and the likelihood of repeating that behavior or experience is high.

• Prefrontal cortex: our brain’s GPS- responsible for higher-level thinking, planning, and memory systems. This is how repeated behaviors can become habits.

  
  

Habit centers of the brain:

• Dorsal Striatum: part of the basal ganglia that regulates motor control, routine and learned behaviors. It is involved in habit formation when a behavior becomes repetative and automatic.

To put it simply: when you first start a goal or learn a new skill, the VTA is the ignition sending out dopamine signals and anticipates intrinsic or extrinsic rewards. The NAcc acts as the gas pedal driving the behavior and reinforcing its necessity. Once the behavior is repeated enough times where less motivation is needed to complete the task, the dorsal striatum takes over and allows the behavior to become automatic such as when you're driving the same route and you don't have to think hard about what street you turn on next, you're just coasting through getting from point a to b.

One more thing about habits is they are often paired with a cue that precedes the behavior and signals to the brain that there will be a reward. For example, If as a child your nightime routine started with bathtime, followed by brushing your teeth, then receiving praise for getting ready for bed and snuggling up for storytime. The cue could be taking a bath, the routine is the act of brushing your teeth, and the reward is feeling acomplished and proud. Eventually, even though you’re not thinking "i'm going to receive praise if I brush my teeth,” your brain remembers the association between the cue, the action and the outcome. Overtime, that reward is internalized and rated as valuable and shifts into an automatic behavior. This is why habits can carry you through days of low energy or motivation. This is also why consistency is the key to any goal because it allows the behavior that is dependent on motivation to move into a behavior that is habitual.

When comparing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, the brain often evaluates extrinsic rewards as less personally meaningful. While external rewards do activate the VTA and nucleus accumbens, the dopamine response tends to be less intense or short-lived, especially if the behavior isn’t aligned with something internally rewarding. This is why motivation based purely on extrinsic rewards is often less sustainable over time.

You may have heard the phrase, “find your why.” This reflects the psychological truth that lasting change is more likely when the motivation is intrinsic—when it’s connected to personal values, purpose, or a sense of meaning.

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The Motivation Belief Equation

Now that we have covered what motivation is and what's happening in the brain, I want to introduce “The Motivation Belief Equation,” a simple tool I developed to help clients reflect on and measure their own motivation.

Motivation is directly related to two key beliefs:

1. How much you believe in your ability to overcome challenges

2. How much you believe that your circumstances can change

   
   

Take a moment and rate yourself on each of these beliefs from 0 to 10:

• 0 = not at all

• 10 = fully confident

Add your two scores together, then divide by 20 to get your motivation percentage.

Example: If you rate yourself a 6 for self-belief and a 7 for belief in change, 6 + 7 = 13 → 13 ÷ 20 = 0.65 or 65% motivated

You can use this equation in two ways:

• To evaluate your motivation around a specific life goal (e.g., starting a new career, improving your health)

• Or to reflect on your overall mindset and motivation in your current season of life

Now that you understand the need for motivation, what is happening in the brain, and how to calculate your level of motivation, you’re probably wondering what to do now? Stay tuned for the next blog post where I share what to do once you've identified your percentage and want to improve your motivation.

Thank you all for reading this post. I hope you found this information useful. This information is purely intended to inform, not to treat. If you are struggling with brain health issues or childhood trauma, speaking to a healthcare professional is recommended to receive a specific plan for treatment and healing based on your individual needs. You can follow along for more posts and psychoeducational tools on trauma and trauma healing from a holistic perspective. You can also check out my website, thehealthycoconut.com or Instagram the_healthycoconut for more resources or to book a free consult with me. If you found this blog helpful, please like and subscribe to support these resources.

Did you find this information helpful?

• Yes, definitely learned a lot
• No, not really

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Safety Disclaimer:

If you find any of this information triggering or do not feel safe being alone with your thoughts, call a support person or 911 if you feel you are at risk of hurting yourself or others. I’m a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, and I help adults heal from childhood trauma. Follow along for more self-help tools and psychoeducation on trauma and trauma healing.