Hating What You Do Doesn’t Have to Destroy Your Soul
Some tasks in life can eat away at your motivation, but they don’t have to.
Posted May 26, 2026 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma
It would be great if everyone could love their work all the time. How fantastic it would be if all tasks energized you and fulfilled your sense of purpose in life. Of course, we all know this is impossible. But in the grand scheme of things, ideally, people feel some sense of connection to their work, whether it’s assembling parts in a factory or taking care of kids at home.
In motivational theory, the approach known as self-determination theory (SDT) predicts precisely when and how your work will fire you up and help you feel fulfilled. Proposed by the late Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, the theory lays out three basic needs that, when met, allow an individual to experience maximum psychological health. In the best of circumstances, your work is self-determined—all three needs are met—but in the worst, you feel externally regulated. Thus, SDT provides a perfect framework for understanding why you would either love or hate your work.
Self-Determination Theory and Illegitimate Tasks
A new study by the University of Eastern Finland’s Petri Karkkola (2026) uses SDT to help understand why some people find their work to be not just demotivating, but awful. Sylvia holds a managerial position in a large retail corporation, a role she sought because she agreed with the company's values. Over the past few years, though, she’s felt increasingly uncomfortable with the job tasks she’s been handed by her supervisors. Not only is there a lot of excess paperwork, but she often feels unprepared to handle the new demands they keep adding. But the pay is good, and the location is convenient, so she is sticking it out.
Sylvia’s predicament would fit, Karkkola proposes, a “stress as offense to self” problem. The tasks she’s being given are “illegitimate,” because they “violate expectations about what can be reasonably expected” from her (p. 214). If you’ve ever been in this situation, you probably didn’t have a name for the feelings of discomfort you felt, but you can undoubtedly relate to the fact that these situations are stressful .
Although there is considerable research on illegitimate tasks in occupational psychology, Karkkola believes that SDT can provide a unique perspective. Illegitimate tasks fail to meet the need for competence (because you feel stretched beyond your ability), autonomy (someone is making you do them), and relatedness (your bosses will judge you harshly if you fail). People stuck in these situations feel not just stress but also a lack of motivation due to a disconnect between what they find most rewarding and what they’re being forced to do.
Testing the Theory’s Explanation of Illegitimate Work
Some 411 employees completed three online assessments over a year, allowing Karkkola to track, in real time, how assignment to illegitimate tasks affected motivation as measured from an SDT perspective.
The illegitimate tasks questionnaire included self-ratings: Do you have work tasks to take care of that keep you wondering if they have to be done at all (unnecessary). They are unfair that you have to deal with them (unreasonable).
The work motivation scale assessed SDT-type approaches with items tapping intrinsic reasons (the job aligns with personal values; the work is interesting) and extrinsic or externally controlled reasons (such as for money and to get approval from others). Another option, what’s called “introjected regulation” in SDT, included items such as: “Because otherwise I would feel bad about myself.”
Because the study took place over several tests, the University of Eastern Finland researcher could trace the timeframe of illegitimate tasks and the effect on work motivation. In line with the stress-as-offense-to-self model, people who scored high on the illegitimate task scale were most likely to score high on the amotivation measure. In the words of the author, not only do these tasks make life miserable by virtue of what they require, but also because they signal disrespect.
The second set of findings relating SDT to illegitimate tasks also supported Karkkola’s overall predictions. Over time, people with high illegitimate task scores showed decreasing autonomous or intrinsic regulation. But at the same time, there was a tendency for scores on intrinsic motivation to predict tackling fewer illegitimate tasks. As the author concluded, “maintaining autonomous motivation may be one way to avoid the accumulation of illegitimate tasks” (p. 227).
Turning from Illegitimate to Legitimate
Although conducted in the workplace, where pay and job stability obviously play a large role, this study seems to have larger implications. People have to engage in activities they don’t like for any number of reasons. From Karkkola's study, you can see that anything you perceive as irrelevant or beyond your responsibilities can erode your sense of self, even as it digs holes into your ability to feel motivated.
But there is another object lesson in this research. If, over time, people with high internal motivation managed to reduce the frequency of illegitimate tasks, this suggests there can be hope. Maybe, in part, this finding emerged because people learned to say “no.” They did so without losing their jobs. Here's a strategy that Sylvia could try herself, and the results could surprise her.
It appears, then, that you can find ways to derive some sense of reward and fewer insults to your sense of self if you redefine the illegitimate to legitimate. Perhaps you think a task is beyond your capability, only to find that you gain the skill set with practice. You might also begin to understand that what seems like a meaningless task is actually important. No one likes excessive busywork, but might there be times when a lot of double-checking makes you better at your job?
To sum up , the activities you need to keep going may not always fulfill your every motivational need. You can still hold onto your sense of self while also adapting to the demands of daily life.
Karkkola, P. (2026). Illegitimate tasks and work motivation: Examining the full continuum of self‐determination. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology , 67 (1), 214–229. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.70025
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Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D. , is a Professor Emerita of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her latest book is The Search for Fulfillment.
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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.