A theory describing the relationship among motivation, difficulty, and performance. Understanding this law to some extent can help us perform better. In our general understanding, it seems that the stronger our motivation and the greater our enthusiasm, the better we perform, with our work efficiency increasing linearly as motivation rises. However, psychologists Yerkes and Dodson discovered and confirmed through their research that the relationship between motivation intensity and work efficiency is not linear, but instead follows an inverted U-shaped curve. Work efficiency is highest when motivation is moderate. When motivation is too low, there is a lack of enthusiasm, resulting in low work efficiency. Once motivation exceeds its peak, efficiency continually declines because excessive motivation puts people in a state of heightened anxiety and tension, interfering with the normal functioning of psychological processes such as memory and thinking.
When you really want something, but do not want it excessively, your behavior tends to be better—in other words, your efficiency is higher. If you do not particularly want to do something, you will have little efficiency; if you want to do it too badly or are afraid of doing it poorly, you are more likely to perform abnormally.
When the difficulty of the tasks we face varies, so does the point at which performance peaks. The more difficult and complex a task is, the more likely it is that we reach our best performance with only a little motivation, whereas easier tasks are often done more efficiently when we really want to do them or have no choice but to do them. So if you want to be efficient, you can put off simple tasks you do not feel like doing; do not force yourself to rush into them. For tasks that are harder to deal with, it may be better to set them aside for a while rather than forcing yourself to fret anxiously. When you give yourself a break, these worries and difficulties will finally leave you alone. The greatest lesson this model offers is that when pursuing a goal or trying to achieve an objective, you should pay closer attention to your own state and feelings. It is not true that the more proactive, ambitious, desirous, eager to obtain something and afraid of losing it, or willing to push your limits you are, the better you will perform, the more efficient you will be, or the faster you will grow. Sometimes, wanting something less actually makes it easier to obtain.