Physical inactivity remains one of the major health challenges of our time. Despite decades of research on motivation and behavior change, many individuals still struggle to engage in regular physical activity. A crucial factor lies in people’s reluctance to invest effort due to its perceived cost and aversiveness. The readiness to accept and sustain effort appears to be a key determinant—if not even the game changer—that distinguishes activity from inactivity and, in performance-oriented sport, often determines whether individuals reach their potential or fall short of it.

In this talk, effort is understood as energy directed toward the attainment of a goal, and thus as a fundamental principle of human action. It lies at the core of motivation and shapes how we act, persist, achieve, and even find meaning in what we do. We may therefore be well advised to make effort feel easier—without reducing the actual effort itself.

Drawing on motivational and volitional approaches, the talk will illustrate that effort can be “eased” through changes in the perceived intensity of effort (e.g., via planning or self-talk), but more importantly, through changes in the valence of effort itself (e.g., through autonomy support or motive–goal alignment).

The positive valence of effort helps explain why effort can, at times, even feel effortless—as in states of flow—and how, when linked to rewards and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, effort may transform from something to be avoided into something inherently valuable, even preferred.

The talk concludes with the assumption that a better understanding of how effort can be experienced more positively may open new pathways for designing environments, interventions, and mindsets that foster physical activity and high performance—by transforming effort from a barrier into a source of energy and meaningful goal pursuit.