Stalking the Wild Motivation
“Desire is the key to motivation, but it’s determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal—a commitment to excellence —that will enable you to attain the success you seek.”
Motivation is a tricky animal. Just the concept of it tends to conjure up feelings of overwhelm, fatigue, and sometimes even shame as we remember the times we've tried to whip ourselves into shape in the name of it; many of us have been taught that motivation means harshness, activating our inner drill sergeant to yell repeatedly at us that life is not yet the way we want it, and we don't measure up, so we better get up and march. We think we need to hold on tight to disappointment, self-recrimination, and the knowledge of just how far we are from our goals—otherwise, we'll be lazy, useless people. Right?
Wrong. This is the best wisdom we've come up with over the course of thousands of years of hierarchical thinking and a habitual, homicidal imbalance between masculine- and feminine-energy processing. While this is not the worst effect of this long-term imbalance (not by a long shot), it is definitely counterproductive. It's not that there's no place for the inner drill sergeant, but over-reliance on it to the exclusion of other approaches to motivation will leave you exhausted and dispirited. It will also feed a vicious cycle in which you think the problem is hopelessly you: You're not good enough, you're not capable, you're just lazy, and on and on.
Most people are actually far more motivated by positive feedback than by blame and negativity. Think about it—during the times in your life when you felt most fired up, energized, and active in the pursuit of a goal, was it because others were constantly berating and insulting you, or was it because things were going pretty well already and you felt a charge of optimism and excitement about a positive vision? If you're like most people, the answer is option two.
Natural motivation bubbles up from a wellspring of creativity and optimistic desire within. If you want to nurture it and foster its long-term health, look to divert anything that will disrupt its otherwise perpetual motion: Memories of past difficulties and the negative beliefs about yourself you've formed as a result; others' careless comments or active sniping at your goals that tempt you into destructive cynicism; bad habits that steal your physical vitality; the overwhelming noise and distraction of a busy world. We've examined all of these in previous blogs, so you can look for clues there as to how to minimize these distractions. Staying motivated is mostly about removing inappropriate influences and feeding your creative energy. This is your new job. Learn to love it and become expert at it.
If you find yourself trying to grit and muscle yourself to greater productivity, take a time-out and ask yourself why you don't want to take on your tasks right now. If you can acknowledge the reasons, you can do something about them. Are you grumpy because you skipped a meal and you need to eat something? Is it because you aren't getting any time to work on the things that actually excite you? Are you low on energy because you're sleep deprived? Are you resenting an interaction with someone that keeps playing in your head and distracting you? Are you afraid of failing? Whatever it is, maybe you can take action on it before you proceed. If not, you can at least start thinking about what changes you can make to help yourself out going forward.
The more you clear away what's in the way of your natural enthusiasm, the more you automatically wake up with a pleasant desire for putting in some work toward what you want to create. Sometimes, you'll need to work on reprioritizing and giving your schedule something of a makeover. Sometimes, all you need is a few minutes of daily Tapping to express built-up emotion and relax your body (or meditation, or journaling, or painting, or prayer, or something else expressive and/or relaxing). We sometimes need to do things we don't enjoy in order to live and keep the lights on, but we always have power over how we're thinking and approaching our tasks. As we make more supportive choices, creativity and motivation can thrive.