Follow genuine interest, not strategic interest
Pursue the thing that genuinely excites you — even if you cannot explain why or see how it fits.
Key takeaways
- What it is: Pursue the thing that genuinely excites you — even if you cannot explain why or see how it fits.
- Why it works: Intrinsic interest signals a match between a domain and the person’s cognitive and emotional architecture — which predicts sustained engagement and depth of exploration. Creative work typically requires far more sustained effort than the initial concept warrants; intrinsic motivation is one of the few forces durable enough to power that sustained effort through the long middle of a project.
- Evidence: Backed by observational / correlational evidence.
- Avoid: Pursuing what you think you should be interested in, or what others will find impressive, rather than what actually moves you — producing technically competent but hollow work.
Why it works
Intrinsic interest signals a match between a domain and the person’s cognitive and emotional architecture — which predicts sustained engagement and depth of exploration. Creative work typically requires far more sustained effort than the initial concept warrants; intrinsic motivation is one of the few forces durable enough to power that sustained effort through the long middle of a project.
How to do it
- 1When starting a project, ask "does this genuinely excite me?" before "is this a good idea?"
- 2Notice when excitement is genuine versus performed — intrinsic interest is recognizable by sustained spontaneous engagement, not just initial enthusiasm.
- 3Allow yourself to pursue interests that seem tangential or impractical — Rubin explicitly treats these as the most valuable signal.
- 4Periodically return to something you loved before "what to do with it" became a question.
What the evidence says
ObservationalSelf-determination theory research consistently finds that intrinsic motivation produces better quality creative work and greater persistence than extrinsic motivation, particularly for complex, open-ended tasks.
Honest caveat: Intrinsic motivation supports creative quality in the lab; professional creative work also requires finishing, which often requires external structure — pure interest alone may not carry a project to completion.
- — Amabile (1983), The Social Psychology of Creativity — intrinsic motivation and creative output
Common mistake
Pursuing what you think you should be interested in, or what others will find impressive, rather than what actually moves you — producing technically competent but hollow work.
IX Coach asks about your genuine excitement at the start of creative projects and tracks how that excitement changes over the course of a project — flagging when engagement has drifted from intrinsic to performed.
Practice this with IX Coach →