I’m sure this is a part of it, but this is also a phenomon that’s been studied in psychology called the “overjustification effect.” Basically, once you introduce external rewards to something that was previously done for internal satisfaction, people become motivated only by the external reward and will lose interest without it. The external motivation can also “crowd out” your internal motivation and diminish it completely.
That doesn’t really apply to me since my internal motivation dies out pretty quickly and if I force myself to keep going I only get worse and worse results and start hating the things I love.
I don’t really get a lot of internal satisfaction or at least not enough that keeps me doing something. If I notice I start losing motivation, it’s better for me to stop and pick it up again when I feel motivated again (which can take months or years).
I enjoy the process of learning something new.
