A now voluminous line of inquiry, initiated in a series of pioneering papers also written by Roy Baumeister, has established the following important … - Cal Newport

Self-Determination Theory (SDT), which is arguably the best understanding science currently has for why some pursuits get our engines running while others leave us cold.8 SDT tells us that motivation, in the workplace or elsewhere, requires that you fulfill three basic psychological needs — factors described as the “nutriments” required to feel intrinsically motivated for your work: Autonomy: the feeling that you have control over your day, and that your actions are important Competence: the feeling that you are good at what you do Relatedness: the feeling of connection to other people

Working right trumps finding the right work. He didn’t need to have a perfect job to find occupational happiness — he needed instead a better approach to the work already available to him. I

Scientific breakthroughs, as we just learned, require that you first get to the cutting edge of your field. Only then can you see the adjacent possible beyond, the space where innovative ideas are almost always discovered. Here’s the leap I made as I pondered Pardis Sabeti around the same time I was pondering Johnson’s theory of innovation: A good career mission is similar to a scientific breakthrough — it’s an innovation waiting to be discovered in the adjacent possible of your field. If you want to identify a mission for your working life, therefore, you must first get to the cutting edge — the only place where these missions become visible.