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Mindfulness and Motivation: Why Our Determination to Practice Collapses

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Gaps in Modern Mindfulness


Mindfulness meditation can be a powerful and transformative practice. It was conceptualized as a spiritual path to end human suffering and attain a state of enlightenment — objectives that remain enormously attractive and motivating, inspiring a worldwide population of over 500 million practicing Buddhists.


Yet, by design, modern mindfulness has little to do with these original promises. Most of us aren’t engaged in a spiritual quest to eliminate suffering and so achieve enlightenment. When people enroll in a course like Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), their motivations (and, by extension, expectations) are overwhelmingly secular. In one study, 94% of participants cited reasons related to coping with stress or depression, while only 6% mentioned spiritual or religious reasons as their initial motivation.


The key drivers of modern mindfulness are promises of stress reduction and general well-being—and we have solid scientific evidence (and mountains of anecdotal experience) proving that it works. It's much simpler than attaining bliss. So, why is there a pattern of high initial enthusiasm followed by rapid disengagement? Why is there an almost immediate drop-off in meditation app usage, with up to 92% of subscribers falling away within 30 days?


There’s obviously a disconnect here. To start, there are gaps in objectives (which are broad and imprecise), perceived near-term value (which is murky), and motivation (which is misaligned). Let’s look at each in turn through a scientific lens:


Seeking Certainty


Committing to a spiritual or religious path is very different from subscribing to a stress-reduction or self-improvement program. Traditional mindfulness unfolds across years of devotion and meaning-making. It is an identity-level commitment—less about achieving an immediate outcome than about becoming a particular kind of person.


Modern mindfulness, by contrast, promises specific results—lower stress and greater feelings of well-being. This divide between secular practice and spiritual commitment creates confusion and shrinks the horizon of expected results from decades to days.


A belief system sustains lifelong motivation through deep alignment of purpose and values—but the secular model depends on specified rewards and measurable benefits. The practice itself hasn’t changed—but the expectational architecture has, and that’s where motivation begins to falter.


Most people begin mindfulness practice with broad, hopeful objectives—“feel calmer,” “be more focused,” “handle stress better.” These sound clear, but aren’t operationally defined. The result is a motivational vacuum: the goal is too general to produce feedback or reinforcement. When outcomes are vague, the brain’s reward systems fail to recognize progress, and motivation quickly fades.


Mindfulness apps—and even many courses—reinforce this fuzziness. They promise general outcomes but fail to translate them into progressive systems with measurable results. In the absence of concrete milestones, attention wanders, expectations drift, and motivation weakens.


Targeting the Brain


The brain requires specificity to sustain motivation. Ambiguous goals engage less dopamine signaling in the mesolimbic reward system, reducing drive and persistence. The Expectancy-Value Theory of Motivation (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002) holds that effort rises only when two conditions are met—people believe they can succeed (expectancy) and perceive the goal as meaningful (reward value). Unclear objectives undermine both.


Neuroscience further suggests that vague goals don’t recruit the prefrontal networks that sustain attention and working memory. Functional imaging studies show stronger activation of goal-maintenance regions (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate) when individuals pursue well-defined targets versus open-ended aspirations. In mindfulness, if a target outcome isn’t well-defined, the brain has little to latch onto, and the practice lacks reinforcing feedback.


Shifting Perspective


Reframing mindfulness practice as a series of distinct neural exercises can resolve this ambiguity. Instead of an abstract pursuit of calm or presence, mindfulness becomes a structured process of strengthening identifiable neural skills—attention control, emotional regulation, or meta-awareness.


When learners define their objectives in these terms, they can track progress through specific cues: the duration of sustained focus before mind-wandering, the speed of recovery after distraction, or the felt difference in stress arousal before and after practice. Users can experience concrete feedback signals, which reactivate the brain’s reward circuitry and build expectancy.


Clear objectives—expressed as neural capabilities rather than mental states—convert mindfulness from intangible aspiration into a measurable skill-acquisition process. That shift not only improves motivation but also strengthens adherence, because the brain now perceives each experience as successful work rather than uncertain effort.


Timing Rewards


A perceived-value gap can compound the objectives gap. Through a traditional lens, mindfulness benefits are cumulative and long-term—wisdom develops through observation and inquiry over many years. Yet modern mindfulness, particularly in organizational contexts, is positioned as a wellness intervention with (indeterminate, but expected) near-term benefits.


This timing mismatch alters how practice is evaluated in the non-conscious brain. In a world trained to expect instant results, delayed value registers as failure. Early sessions can feel unproductive—filled with distraction, restlessness, or even discomfort. Without quick confirmation that effort equals progress, the brain quietly deprioritizes the activity.


Valuing Rewards


A sharp fall-off in interest reflects a reward prediction error, a fundamental process in the brain’s dopamine system. When anticipated rewards fail to arrive on schedule, dopamine firing dips—signaling that the behavior isn’t paying off (Schultz & Dickinson, 2000; Lerner, 2021). A result is the devaluation of the behavior itself.


Though most teachers work to set realistic expectations, most novices expect an immediate state change: calm, focus, relief. But neuroplastic adaptation is gradual and predominantly occurs below our conscious awareness.


Functional imaging shows that benefits such as reduced amygdala reactivity and increased prefrontal regulation accumulate well before users can feel them. Because the earliest changes are subtle and internal, the brain interprets them as delayed rewards, and due to temporal discounting, their perceived value collapses (van den Bos et al., 2012).


Humans instinctively devalue outcomes that feel distant in time, and motivation wanes when the return on effort is not immediately apparent. Behaviorally, this explains why many beginners abandon practice. Their neural reward systems aren’t receiving the positive feedback needed to sustain motivation. The practice hasn’t failed—we’re not discerning an ROI soon enough.


When digital meditation platforms consistently show sharp attrition curves, it is very likely to be this neuroeconomic response to a weak reward signal.


Understanding mindfulness as progressive neural training can help the brain close this valuation gap. When practitioners recognize each daily moment of noticing, redirecting attention, or calming the body as a micro-success—rather than counting hours of formal meditation—the reward system re-engages. When the brain perceives moments of captured awareness or a brief shift out of autopilot as a recordable gain, this becomes continuous feedback that reinforces persistence over time.


Aligning Motivations


Even when the brain understands what mindfulness is meant to achieve and believes it has current value, practice can falter because the underlying motives are misaligned. Secular mindfulness is based on reasonable extrinsic motives: the practice is pursued as a means to an end. When the external objective is met—or is not met quickly enough—motivation dissipates.


This dynamic is evident in organizational and digital settings, where mindfulness is often framed as a tool to improve work performance or manage burnout—the language of efficiency and stress-reduction positions mindfulness as a short-term intervention rather than a developmental process. When results are slow or subtle, extrinsically motivated learners experience declining engagement, while intrinsically motivated learners—those driven by curiosity, learning, or self-understanding—tend to persist.


Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory (1985; 2000) provides the most transparent framework for understanding this divide. It distinguishes extrinsic motivation, driven by external rewards or outcomes, from intrinsic motivation, which arises from interest, enjoyment, or personal growth.


Neuroscience supports this distinction: extrinsic goals rely heavily on dopaminergic reward-seeking circuits in the ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens, while intrinsic motivation engages midline cortical networks—particularly the medial prefrontal cortex and anterior insula—that encode curiosity, meaning, and volitional agency.


Research across learning and behavior change shows that intrinsic motivation is more durable because it transforms the behavior itself into a source of reward. In mindfulness, this shift is critical. If practice is valued only for its stress-relieving outcomes, the reward signal fades as soon as stress returns. When practice is valued as a way of learning—strengthening attention, emotional regulation, and awareness—the behavior continually renews its motivational pull.


A Trainable Mental Skill


Motivation strengthens when people understand mindfulness as a trainable skill rather than a means to a future state. The practice itself doesn’t change—but the framing does. When learners recognize that attention, emotion regulation, and cognitive control are skills that can be refined through repetition, their motivation becomes process-based instead of outcome-based.


Brain instructions shift from “try to feel something” to “train specific mental abilities.” This reframing activates motivational systems that are common to all forms of learning. Neuroscience shows that clear goals, immediate feedback, and evidence of improvement drive sustained engagement by reinforcing dopaminergic reward pathways. When practitioners notice subtle signs of progress—such as recovering focus more quickly after distraction or recognizing emotion before reacting—the experience produces an intrinsic sense of competence. That recognition itself becomes the reward.


In this light, motivation doesn’t rely on achieving a particular result. It grows from the perception of progress in real time. Framing mindfulness as skills development makes the work tangible, gives the brain clearer feedback signals, and replaces reliance on discipline or belief with the natural reinforcement that comes from seeing improvement.


Our Takeaway


Each of these three gaps—unclear objectives, murky value, and misaligned motivation—can derail the brain’s management of effort and reward. Together, they help explain why mindfulness, despite its documented benefits, often fails to become a lasting habit.


When goals are vague, the brain’s executive systems lack a defined target for attention or feedback. When the value of practice feels delayed or intangible, the reward system reduces effort allocation. And when motivation depends on external outcomes rather than intrinsic interest or curiosity, engagement fades once those outcomes are achieved or fail to materialize. These are not failures of mindfulness; they are predictable outcomes that point to gaps in the process.


Viewing mindfulness through a neural training lens can bridge these gaps. Defining clear, skills-based objectives gives the brain something specific to measure. Identifying subtle but immediate signs of progress—quicker recovery from distraction, more deliberate emotional responses—keeps the reward system engaged. And recognizing mindfulness as a process of ongoing skill development makes practice intrinsically meaningful rather than externally driven.


In the end, sustaining mindfulness shouldn't require stronger willpower or deeper belief—it is a matter of the evolved brain, and a function of neural design. When practice is interpreted as skills acquisition, the brain’s learning and motivation systems align more naturally. The result is steadier progress and a more reliable path to establishing and sustaining practice.



References


Motivation & Goal Specificity


Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 109–132.


Miller, E. K., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 167–202.


Botvinick, M. M., Braver, T. S., Barch, D. M., Carter, C. S., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). Conflict monitoring and cognitive control. Psychological Review, 108(3), 624–652.


Reward Prediction Error & Dopamine


Schultz, W., Dayan, P., & Montague, P. R. (1997). A neural substrate of prediction and reward. Science, 275(5306), 1593–1599.


Lerner, T. N., & McCoy, B. (2021). Dopamine, updated. Neuron, 109(19), 3040–3056.


Schultz, W. (2016). Dopamine reward prediction error coding. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 18(1), 23–32.


Temporal Discounting & Valuation


Peters, J., & Büchel, C. (2011). The neural mechanisms of inter-temporal decision-making. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 12(12), 723–733.


Van den Bos, W., & McClure, S. M. (2013). Towards a general model of temporal discounting. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 99(1), 58–73.


Kable, J. W., & Glimcher, P. W. (2007). The neural correlates of subjective value during intertemporal choice. Nature Neuroscience, 10(12), 1625–1633.


Mindfulness Mechanisms & Neural Change


Hölzel, B. K., et al. (2011). Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 191(1), 36–43.


Tang, Y.-Y., Hölzel, B. K., & Posner, M. I. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(4), 213–225.


Fox, K. C. R., et al. (2014). Is meditation associated with altered brain structure? A meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 43, 48–73.


Motivation Type (SDT)


Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.


Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness. Guilford Press.


Adherence / App Attrition & Early Drop-Off


Baumel, A., Muench, F., Edan, S., & Kane, J. M. (2019). Objective user engagement with mental health apps: Systematic search and panel-based usage analysis. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 7(7), e14567.


Fleming, T., et al. (2018). Serious games and gamification for mental health: Current status and promising directions. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 7, 215. (for engagement dynamics)


Motivations to Practice Mindfulness


Jiwani, Z., et al. (2022). Motivation for meditation and its association with ongoing meditation practice. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 28(12), 1189–1197.


Brami, C., et al. (2023). Understanding students’ motivations for participating in a mindfulness-based intervention. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 23, 158.


Yavuz Serçekman, M., et al. (2024). Facilitators and barriers to sustaining mindfulness practice: A qualitative study. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1347336.



Organization: Institute for Organizational Science and Mindfulness (IOSM)






About IOSM


The Institute for Organizational Science and Mindfulness (IOSM) is a global association of human capital and operating leaders, educators, and coaches. We share a common mission to apply neuroscience and neural training to develop more effective leaders, a happier, healthier, and higher-performing workforce, and a safer, more inclusive, and more productive workplace.

 
 
 

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