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I鈥橵E had three weeks to write the words you are about to read, but they were written at the last possible minute. Why? I wasn鈥檛 busy exercising 鈥� I haven鈥檛 done that in months. My time wasn鈥檛 spent at my book club or calligraphy class, because I鈥檓 not involved in anything of the sort. Nor did I procrastinate by mastering the ultimate sourdough loaf 鈥� just the thought of it makes me want to lie down. Quite simply, I waited until the last minute because I couldn鈥檛 be arsed.

My condition is what鈥檚 known colloquially among my generation as 鈥淭he CBAs鈥� 鈥� the 鈥渃an鈥檛 be arseds鈥�. In my case, it is chronic. I can鈥檛 be arsed to go on a run. I can鈥檛 be arsed to cook. I can鈥檛 be arsed to reply to my emails.

I鈥檓 not alone. According to a December 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, . That still leaves half of the population who are fine, who get up and get on. Then there are those people who wake at 6 am and run 10 kilometres before work. People who write their memoirs. People who wash their curtains.

What are their secrets? Why do some people have so much drive and others, like me, so little? And is it possible for me to become a go-getter? To find out, I mustered the motivation to ask a few of the scientists who might know.

Motivation is what drives much of human behaviour. It is what turns goals into actions, whether you are nipping to the fridge, writing an article or setting off up a mountain. It is hardly surprising, then, that the process by which you become motivated involves various biological and psychological components, all in delicate interplay with our external experiences of the world.

In other words, it is complicated 鈥� and what lies behind individual differences is far from straightforward. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the biggest question in the field,鈥� says Kou Murayama, who leads the Motivation Science Lab at the University of T眉bingen in Germany.

鈥淐ould it be that all the chocolatey cereal and crisps are depriving my brain of the ingredients that generate drive?鈥�

Could it be down to DNA? That would save me a lot of effort 鈥� if my laziness is baked into my genome, there is no point trying to change. Alas, Murayama quickly shoots me down. 鈥淚t鈥檚 wrong to think that there is a 鈥榤otivation gene鈥�,鈥� he says. In most cases, traits are determined not by individual genes, but by constellations of genes. And besides, behaviour tends to be shaped by what Murayama calls 鈥渢he long history of the interaction between inherent disposition and external environment鈥�. That鈥檚 nature and nurture to you and me.

The relative impact of each is controversial. Ask most biologists and they will tell you that environment is the most important factor in determining people鈥檚 behaviour. But Robert Plomin, a geneticist at King鈥檚 College London, argues that our genes play a more important role than many like to think, pointing to twin studies as evidence.

That seems to be the case for one sort of motivation. In 2015, a study of 13,000 sets of twins from six countries, all aged between 9 and 16, found that . 鈥淭here are personality differences that people inherit that have a major impact on motivation,鈥� said Stephen Petrill at the Ohio State University, one of the authors of the study, at the time.

That still means that more than half of the differences in the motivation of these children can be attributed to their environment. The problem is that it is impossible to create a checklist of experiences that produce go-getters 鈥� the variables are too vast. Even something seemingly straightforward, like socio-economic status, is more complicated than it seems. You might think people who experience hardship might be more motivated to succeed professionally, for example. But we can鈥檛 say. 鈥淲e know surprisingly little about how differences in opportunities impact human motivation,鈥� says Tali Sharot, a neuroscientist at University College London.

Anticipating rewards

If we are looking for the fundamental differences between shirkers and strivers, we can at least look at how we perceive rewards. Regardless of whether we are talking about motivation being driven by satisfaction within (intrinsic motivation) or by the promise of external rewards (extrinsic motivation), Sharot says that motivated and unmotivated individuals differ in their 鈥渞eward sensitivity鈥�. Some get a greater kick out of rewards, whether it is the internal buzz after exercise or the warmth you get from praise. 鈥淭he same reward, let鈥檚 say 拢100, actually feels like 拢1000 to one person, but only feels like 拢10 to the other,鈥� says Sharot. 鈥淭he person who feels they are working for 拢1000 will be more motivated and work harder.鈥�

We also have different expectations about how rewarding things will be. Two people might have the same reward sensitivity 鈥� both feel amazing when they get praise 鈥� but . 鈥淲hat I expect to happen is hugely important in me deciding what I鈥檓 about to do,鈥� says Sharot.

Using her analogies, it seems that I鈥檓 the type of person who expects 10p rewards and feels them as 5p rewards. Could that have something to do with the way my brain processes rewards?

Neuroscientists have found that when rodents receive a reward, specialised cells in a brain region called the ventral tegmental area fire up, passing the message onto cells in another region, the nucleus accumbens, to release the neurotransmitter dopamine. More recent experiments have demonstrated an intimate connection between dopamine and motivation. When John Salamone at the University of Connecticut reduced dopamine levels in the brains of rats, for example, the animals rather than go for a larger stash placed behind a barrier. The results have been corroborated in humans several times.

Dopamine deficient?

This makes sense when you consider that many people who experience depression report a dearth of motivation. 鈥淭here is some evidence that depressed individuals show a blunted brain activation in the nucleus accumbens to expected reward,鈥� says Trevor Robbins at the University of Cambridge, although he says that depression is much more complicated than that.

Can I blame a lack of dopamine for my unwritten memoirs and unwashed curtains? Robbins says there are individual differences in dopamine function, but insists it isn鈥檛 as simple as more dopamine equalling greater drive. For one thing, the effects of dopamine seem to depend on where in the brain spikes occur. Brain imaging studies in humans have found that while people who are willing to work harder for rewards have higher release of dopamine in areas of the brain known to play a role in motivation, .

The neuroscience of motivation still contains many mysteries. Last year, Carmen Sandi at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and her colleagues found that the ratio of two compounds, glutamine and glutamate, in the nucleus accumbens . Glutamate is the major excitatory neurotransmitter, and glutamine is its precursor. So the ratio between the two can indicate the capacity a person has to produce glutamate on demand and thus get engaged during motivated behaviour. What Sandi found is that participants with a particular balance of these compounds were more motivated to keep going than others.

Sandi says that 鈥渨e know very little鈥� about why the ratio might differ between individuals. She is planning to investigate the connection between levels of certain compounds and changes in motivated behaviours. But she isn鈥檛 expecting results any time soon. 鈥淭hese are not high-throughput experiments,鈥� says Sandi.

In the meantime, maybe there are other interventions that motivationally challenged people like me might consider. If the neurobiology of motivation boils down to chemical signals, to what extent can we hijack them to boost drive?

Rachel Alison Adcock at Duke University in North Carolina studies how non-invasive neurostimulation can target the brain circuits involved in motivation. She has demonstrated that people can self-activate their ventral tegmental area, triggering dopamine spikes elsewhere, without the offer of external rewards. The trick was to give participants neurofeedback training, in which they look at real-time displays of their brain activity to see if they could affect its function. The results were impressive: .

That seems like good news. It at least demonstrates that it is possible to hack your brain鈥檚 reward systems. And there is no need to worry if you, like me, don鈥檛 have anyone to hand that can give you neurofeedback training because there are various solo techniques that could help, from visualising your future self to avoiding positive thinking (see 鈥淢ind hacks to maximise motivation鈥�).

Diet of champions

What you eat might also be a factor. Could it be that my diet of chocolatey cereal, cheese sandwiches and crisps is depriving my brain of the ingredients required to generate drive?

鈥淚f I鈥檓 in a clinical setting, and someone hasn鈥檛 got any motivation, I would start to look at what their protein intake looked like,鈥� says nutritional therapist Jackie Lynch. Complete proteins like meat, fish, eggs and soya contain all the essential amino acids that work together to create core neurotransmitters such as noradrenaline, which can help keep us motivated. She adds that unmotivated people may also be deficient in B vitamins 鈥� also found in protein-rich foods and others like bananas, oats and milk 鈥� which convert what we eat into glucose to give us energy. 鈥淲hen I鈥檓 dealing with someone in your situation,鈥� says Lynch, 鈥渢he only thing I鈥檒l ask them to do after that first consultation is add protein in.鈥� Add hummus to toast, for instance, or pumpkin seeds to cereal.

鈥淓ach of us has different expectations about how rewarding things will be鈥�

All of which seems reasonable. Then she says the dreaded word: exercise. Many studies have demonstrated that exercise can and . The problem is that, like diet and motivation, exercise and motivation can have a cyclical relationship: you have to be motivated to get moving in the first place.

In 2018, Matthieu Boisgontier, a neuroscientist at the University of Ottawa in Canada, looked into a paradox involving exercise 鈥� even though the vast majority of us intend to be physically active, many don鈥檛 do any exercise at all. Boisgontier and his colleagues found that . This led him to conclude that humans have an 鈥渁utomatic attraction to effort minimization鈥�.

I鈥檓 thrilled. Boisgontier argues that our brains evolved this way because the energy savings gave us a survival advantage. But by organising our time in a way that forces us to be active, he says, by planning your journey to work so it involves a walk, for example, we can overcome our automatic attraction to physical laziness. Once we exercise consistently and develop a habit, we enter a 鈥渧irtuous cycle鈥� in which it takes fewer cognitive resources to motivate ourselves to work out.

After my call with Boisgontier, I don鈥檛 go for a run. I am, after all, automatically attracted to minimising effort. Instead, I call Greg Gostin膷ar, a self-described biohacker and founder of Your Inception, a company that researches and tests nootropics, supplements claimed to help improve brainpower, including motivation. His team ranks nootropics based on their ingredients and quality before testing them in people and measuring the effects with a brain-training game.

Gostin膷ar has personally tested more than 50 of them. One left him 鈥渧omiting for quite some time鈥�. Another made him feel high. But he credits nootropics with helping to turn his life around. 鈥淚鈥檓 able to get in this flow state,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檓 able to focus and stay focused for much longer than ever before.鈥�

Gostin膷ar is realistic: 鈥淏ased on my experience, I鈥檇 say 90 per cent or even more of supplements either don鈥檛 work, are underdosed or contain at least one risky compound.鈥� Although some studies have shown that a few nootropics 鈥� or at least certain ingredients within them 鈥� can boost cognitive performance, many on the market have never been studied in a clinical setting.

Clearly, there are no quick fixes. The reasons I can鈥檛 be arsed are many and complicated, and some may be set in stone. And although I have the power to boost my own motivation, I鈥檓 left with a cruel, universal truth: diet and exercise matter. I sprinkle some sunflower seeds on my cereal, boil an egg and go for a long walk. Or at least I think about it.

Whether I can become a go-getter in the long-term remains to be seen. But hey, for now, just look at all these words.