Tips from QHA: Good stuff to know about the choices you make

Intrinsic motivations: personal growth, meaningful relationships, community contributions
These goals are regarded as being ends in themselves and they foster the intrinsic motives of competence, autonomy and relatedness.

Extrinsic motivations: pursuit of financial success, fame, and physical attractiveness
These goals are largely instrumental means toward other ends and they embody external controls on one's actions (e.g. needing to do jobs for others to gain money).

The more emphasis people placed on wanting to be rich, famous, and physically attractive, the less well off they were in terms of anxiety, depression, social functioning, vitality, self-actualization, and other measures. In contrast, placing emphasis on the intrinsic aspirations such as growth and meaningful relationships was positively linked to good adjustment and well-being.
- From Kasser and Ryan (1993, 1996) and a big fat Social Psychology book.

Now I know where my anxiety, depression, poor social functioning, low vitality and lack of self-actualization come from. More knowledge, higher anxiety, deeper depression.
- From the Queen of High Anxiety