The Goldilocks Rule: How to Stay Motivated in Life and Business.

The human brain thrives on adversity, but it will only accept it provided it falls within a certain range of manageability. If you are a fan of tennis and you challenge a child of four years old to a serious match, you will very quickly become disinterested in the game. It's far too simple. You will triumph in every single point. On the other hand, if you face a professional tennis player such as Roger Federer or Serena Williams, you would quickly lose motivation due to the difficulty of the match.

Now picture yourself playing tennis against someone who is on the same level as you. As the game goes on, you will either gain or lose a few points depending on how you play. You should give it your all if you want to win, because the odds are in your favour. You are able to narrow your concentration, distractions become less of a problem, and you realise that you are completely immersed in the activity at hand. This is a challenge that is just on the edge of being doable, and it serves as a perfect illustration of the Goldilocks Rule.

According to the Goldilocks Rule, the optimal level of motivation for humans is reached when they are engaged in activities that are just on the cusp of their existing capabilities. Not overly challenging. Not overly simple. The perfect amount.

The comedy career of Martin is a great illustration of how the Goldilocks Rule should be applied in the real world. He improved his stand-up comedy act annually, although it was seldom more than a minute or two longer. He was always adding new material, but he did keep a few gags in his repertoire that were surefire hits with the audience. Just the right amount of successes kept him motivated, and just the right amount of failures had him pushing himself to his limits.

There is a second piece of the motivation puzzle that is very important to understand if you want to learn how to stay motivated so that you may achieve your goals. It has to do with establishing that ideal equilibrium between toil and contentment in one's life.

It has been shown that putting oneself through tasks that are just the right amount of challenging can not only boost one's motivation but also be a significant source of enjoyment. According to the words of the American psychologist Gilbert Brim, "one of the important sources of human happiness is working on tasks at a suitable level of difficulty, neither too hard nor too easy."

When an athlete or performer is "in the zone," they experience a state known as flow, which is a combination of happiness and peak performance. Flow is a term that is sometimes used interchangeably with the phrase "in the zone." The mental state known as "flow" is achieved when an individual is so intent on the activity at hand that they become oblivious to the rest of the world.

However, in order to achieve this level of peak performance, you not only need to practise completing challenges that are of the appropriate level of difficulty, but you also need to monitor your own immediate advancement. Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, notes that one of the elements to reaching a flow state is that "you get immediate feedback about how you are doing at each step." This is one of the factors.

The most effective way to motivate oneself is to watch yourself improve as time goes on. When Steve Martin would deliver a joke, he would instantly know whether or not it was successful based on the laughing of the audience. Think about how addictive it would be to be able to make people howl with laughter. Martin's experience of the flood of positive feedback he received after telling one really funny joke was probably sufficient to help him overcome his worries and encourage him to work diligently for weeks.

In other aspects of life, measuring can take on a variety of forms, but it still plays an essential role in attaining a balance of enjoyment and motivation. You receive quick feedback on your performance in tennis based on whether or not you win the point. If we want to keep ourselves motivated, the human brain needs some kind of visual representation of our progress, regardless of how that success is assessed. We have to be able to recognise our accomplishments.