DO YOU EVER FEEL UNMOTIVATED? YOU MIGHT know that you should be getting more exercise—running, lifting weights, riding a bike—yet you struggle to get yourself off the couch. Some little excuse always gets in the way: It’s raining; I’m tired; the second-to-last episode of my third-favorite TV show is on.

If this describes you, you’re not alone. Many people have trouble motivating themselves. But not everybody. One day in 2002, a 24-year-old man in Ghana, Emmanuel Ofusu Yeboah, got off his couch, climbed on a bicycle, and motivated himself to bike across his country. “I am giving all my effort to this,” Mr. Yeboah said. “I don’t want to give up. I don’t want to give up” (Associated Press, 2005).

His trip took months, but he finished it—and then made another trip, flying more than 7500 miles to San Diego, California, to compete in the biking portion of a triathlon.

Mr. Yeboah motivated himself into action despite obstacles that, to others, might have been excuses for inaction:

But these obstacles were the small ones. The big one? Mr. Yeboah could only pedal his bike with one leg! His right leg had been deformed from birth—so severely, in fact, that, in childhood, his mother had to carry him back and forth to school every day.

Mr. Yeboah’s motivation was deeply rooted. He knew that, in Ghana, physically challenged people like himself were treated poorly; they were seen as incapable of contributing positively to society. “I want,” he explained, “to show everyone that physically challenged people can do something” (Coffey, 2005).

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This he did. Mr. Yeboah’s ability to overcome challenges made him a hero in his nation. Rather than basking in personal glory, though, he next directed his efforts to helping others. In Ghana, he established athletic training facilities that are open to all people, and he worked with government officials to improve the civil rights and personal opportunities of physically challenged individuals.

What were the sources of Mr. Yeboah’s motivation? A deeply felt need to improve the welfare of others. Concrete goals and a determination to reach them. And this belief: “There’s something always I believe myself,” Yeboah said, “that I can do it, I can do it” (ABC News, 2005).

We explore these sources of motivation in the chapter ahead.

LET’S BEGIN THIS chapter by assessing the field of psychology. From what you’ve learned so far, do you think psychology is succeeding? Providing scientific explanations of what you would want a science of psychology to explain? Or is it falling short?

One well-known criticism of the field is that psychologists often leave their subject “lost in thought.” They devote so much time to inner mental life—memory, thinking, feeling, problem solving—that, if you didn’t know better, you would think their subject matter, people, spent most of their time sitting around in quiet contemplation.

But you do know better. When you observe people, they usually are not just thinking and feeling, but doing. They are at work or play, studying, exercising, talking, driving, reading, or updating their Facebook pages. People are in action. They are motivated. Motivation refers to the psychological and biological processes that impel people, and other organisms, into action and sustain their efforts over time. This chapter introduces you to the psychology of motivation.