What's In this for Me (WIFM)

Goals

  1. Describe WIFM.
  2. Skillfully apply WIFM to
    1. Understand human behavior
    2. Ethically motivate others
    3. Motivate yourself

What?

WIFM stands for What’s in it for me? This question is used to understand motivation as in self-motivation and motivation of others.

The brain automatically and continually looks for WIFM
because it has evolved to scan the environment for
rewards and threats.

Examples of WIFM

Why do some people buy a bannana? Buying a banana delivers a lot of value—taste, nutrition, convenience, and low cost—with minimal drawbacks. It’s a classic high-payoff, low-risk choice.

Some people learn calculus because they expect meaningful rewards: they think they’ll enjoy the subject, do well in the class, and earn a high grade. They may also see its future utility—for careers, problem-solving, or intellectual growth. As they progress, they often start finding the material genuinely interesting and useful. These rewards—enjoyment, success, usefulness, and long-term payoff—together outweigh the drawbacks like time, effort, struggle, and confusion. In WIFM terms, the net payoff is positive, so they stay engaged and keep learning.

In WIFM terms, people look at porn because the perceived or actual rewards—such as pleasure, relief, curiosity, and fantasy—outweigh the perceived or actual drawbacks, like social stigma, risk of being caught, or the time and effort involved.

If you want someone to adopt a political position, speak in terms of the rewards they will gain and how the drawbacks will be minimal. In other words, use WIFM logic, because the brain is wired to evaluate choices based on “What’s in it for me?”

If you’re procrastinating on a task, apply WIFM logic to yourself: identify clear, meaningful rewards in both the process (e.g., progress, learning, momentum) and the outcome (e.g., relief, achievement, payoff). At the same time, reframe or downplay the perceived drawbacks. If done skillfully, this skill can help you beat procrastination again and again.

If you need to do a task and are procrastinating doing it, apply WIFM logic to yourself. That is, find many perceived rewards from both the journey (doing the task) and the destination (completing the task). Meanwhile, downplay the drawbacks. If you do this skillfully, you can beat procrastination over and over.

Rationale

Grokking WIFM is useful for several reasons:

  1. Ethically influence others to believe things and take actions that are in their own best interests (this is called ethical persuasion).

  2. WIFM is a classical concept in multiple roles: marketing, teaching, parenting, motivational speaking, persuasion, design, and so on. If you ever play any of these roles, WIFM is useful to you.

  3. WIFM is super simple to use. Thus, you can get a high benefit with very low cost.

  4. Helps you understand why people believe things and do things—in other words, to understand human actions.

Skilled Use of WIFM

Others

(Explain how to frame messages for others in terms of WIFM)

Self

(Explain how to motivate yourself by identifying your own WIFM)