Micromotives: A Secret Weapon for Teens (and the Rest of Us)

Remember that famous book from the early 2000s on “How to Talk So Your Teens Will Listen …”? It had great tips for tackling messy rooms and curfews.

But when it comes to how to listen to our teens – and most important, to help them learn to really listen to themselves – about what motivates and deeply engages them, good advice has been harder to come by.

Well, I came across some advice that is so good - and surprisingly so little talked-about – I’m going to call it my “secret weapon.” I’ve used it with high schoolers struggling to write their college essays and college kids trying to pick classes. (True story: when I mentioned it in passing to my own 19 year-old a few weeks ago, she came back to me twice in two days - completely unsolicited - to tell me about how it had helped her.)

What is it? It’s called “micromotives,” and it’s not just for teens. It can be magic for adults too. Because we too can find it hard to find our “true north.” Maybe you’re a chronic overthinker or a self-doubter, or perhaps you get dizzied by your omnivorous interests. Or maybe you’re just unmoored as you face a life transition, like retirement or the empty nest. For all of us, “micromotives” can be an incredible guide.

Why “Follow Your Passion” Falls Short

To understand why micromotives are so powerful, let’s first look at the most common - and least effective - piece of advice given in this realm: the ubiquitous “follow your passion.” This approach has a host of problems, starting with the most basic: how do you follow something that you don’t know how to find to begin with? And what if that thing doesn’t actually exist? What if we’re just not wired to have something as static, identifiable, and singular as a “passion”?

What if instead of that big, abstract, and elusive concept of “passion,” people are wired instead with the opposite: something small, highly specific, very individual, and that comes in multiples? A fascinating project at the Harvard School of Education found exactly that. The Dark Horse Project (and the book Dark Horse) by Todd Rose and Ogi Ogas found that the path to fulfillment was instead grounded in these strangely named and innocuous sounding things called “micromotives.”

What Are Micromotives?

Micromotives are specific, individualized motivators that can be best identified through context or situation. They cannot be ascertained through those generic questions we so often default to, especially with young people (“What do you like?” “What’s your favorite class?”). And they are not revealed in the generic answers we elicit (“I like sports.” “Math”).

Micromotives take more effort – and more words – to describe. In Rose and Ogas’ research, they looked like this:

• “I like to organize physical spaces to create harmony out of discord”

• “I am motivated by recognizing and classifying living things that I can pick up, handle, and share with others.”

These micromotives and others became the basis of successful and fulfilling careers – even career changes.

The “motive” in micromotive is key. These are not mere likes or inclinations. They are the specific elements of an activity or pursuit that provoke an emotional reaction in a person – that drive them to work on it, perhaps become consumed by it, and to feel a strong sense of connection and contentment in it. As the Dark Horse authors put it, these motives “comprise the emotional core of your individuality.”

The Judgment Game

So how do you discover micromotives? Rose and Ogas recommend starting with what they call the Game of Judgment. That’s right: you have permission - in fact you’re urged - to “get a little judgy” here.

In this game, you zero in on your most instinctive and strong reactions to other people and situations. (Interestingly, the authors recommend starting with people because they provide such a distinct and automatic emotional trigger. After that, you would advance to judging situations, activities, environments and all the considerations that arise when choosing among life’s opportunities.)

Here’s how it works:

1. Notice judgment. Awareness is the first step. In your everyday life, when you find yourself judging someone or something, stop and notice it. (If the term “judging” puts you off, substitute “having an emotional reaction to”).

2. Identify your feelings. Is the judgment positive or negative? Both are highly useful. What triggered it? Drill down and get specific: did it relate to the person, the task, the timing or duration, the pace, the environment . . . you get the idea.

3. Ask why. Be brutally honest with yourself about what your reaction reveals. Don’t focus on what you “should” think or value, focus on what the reaction actually tells you about yourself and your deepest motives.

As Rose and Ogas say, “The goal is to use your intense emotional response to ferret out the hidden contours of your own desires.” In case you missed this, the game is not about judging others. And if it becomes that, you’re doing it wrong. It’s about using your own emotional, non-objective reactions to people and situations to understand your own motivations better.

The Game of Judgment is not one-and-done. It is an ongoing conversation with yourself - and your guides - to get to the finest details of what attracts your attention, what draws or repels you, and ultimately what provokes you to stick with something and build on it. It is, importantly, a progressively building game. And the details matter.

So, once you’ve completed the three steps and hit on an “emotional live wire,” you’ll follow it from there. If you’ve identified a deep motivation in art and museums, you’ll dig in and ask: are you more drawn to 3-D artifacts or 2-D works on paper? Are you more curious about the items themselves or what they say about the people who made them? These can take you from someone who “likes art and museums” to someone who wants specifically to handle and examine 3-D artifacts in order to understand the processes involved in making them.

Using Micromotives With Teens

So, how might a parent or educator use micromotives with a high school or college student? The goal is both practice and outcomes:

• The practice is building habits of deeper self-reflection—learning how to train your awareness to spot and name micromotives, and then to drill down situationally to finer details or more pointed emotional reactions.

• The outcomes are the decisions these insights allow and inform: What electives to take, how to spend the summer, which opportunities are worth pursuing, and when to pivot.

Micromotives can also be an excellent starting point for brainstorming a college essay. The best narrative writing has two qualities — it is specific and connects a writer’s emotions with that of a reader. Most high school seniors have not had much experience writing about themselves or their emotions (and, forgive the gender stereotype, but I’ve seen it be harder for boys). Students also tend to hide in generalities rather than aggressively mine the juicer specifics of their experiences. I have seen generic college essays transformed into highly compelling narratives by zeroing in on micromotives.

Why It Matters

Dark Horse (especially Chapter 2, Know Your Micromotives) offers more nuance and detail than I can cover here, and I highly recommend it, including the authors’ sharp critique of how schools and institutions push standardization and actually program against authentic discovery. But the bottom line is simple: Micromotives are useful for anyone who wants to get to know themselves better and feel more secure in their decisions, whether confronting a transition, examining personal patterns, or trying to chart a fulfilling life course. They are especially useful in the critical “eight great years” of teen development.

So if you are a parent, educator, or mentor who wants to help a teen navigate an authentic developmental path or decide what to write their college essays about (which if this is all done right, will be one in the same), don’t ask “what do you like” or “what do you want to do this summer?” Instead, use your secret weapon. Teach them the “judgment game.”

Then keep the conversation going. Help them discover the situations and activities that bring joy and meaning—and help move them closer to who they are and who they might become.