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- Jun 20, 2016
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I'm a new user and I don't know whether or not I'm allowed to do this (mod please remove link if not) but the below is an excerpt of a post I've made on Medium. I hope at least 1 person finds it useful.
This [HASHTAG]#TuesdayMotivation[/HASHTAG] I’m going to talk about the exact formula of what creates long-term motivation and why most people really aren’t that motivated.
How do I know this? Well for the longest time I’ve had the problem of getting myself motivated to finish things. I’m the type of guy that will get started on about 5–10 new ideas and projects and never get them finished because I always came up with something new to work on. And as a result, I never really finished anything, I pretty much wasted a lot of time and potential and I could see that if I wanted to get anywhere in life I had to start finishing things.
So I pretty much read as many biographies as I could on successful businessmen, sports stars, actors, musicians and then I spent several months educating myself on human behaviour. And what I found was that the people who got to their destination were the people with a desired destination in mind. By now this is common sense, if you want to achieve what you want then you have to really really want it otherwise you just won’t get it. As you probably already know, listening to motivational music can’t get you what you want, desire is the only force that can pull you through.
Why You’re Not Motivated
Yet how come there are still so many people who whine and cry and gripe about not feeling motivated to do anything with their lives? Why do so many people say they want to lose weight, they want to gain muscle, they want to become an entrepreneur, they want to travel the world, they want to just have a happy life. Why do so many people say they want these things and not follow through in pursuing them?
Well the answer is simple and here it is; all of these people value the certainty of where they are now, more than the uncertainty of the journey that will take them to their destination.
You see, according to Freud’s Pleasure Principle, life is a dance between 2 forces: pain and pleasure. We move towards pleasure and avoid pain in life in order to satisfy our biological and psychological needs.
“Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure — they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think”
— Jeremy Bentham
So what does this have to do with motivation? Let me explain, the things you want in life are forms of pleasure; money, relationships, health. The things you don’t want; being broke, lonely and unhealthy, all forms of pain. Naturally as humans, we are driven to achieve these pleasures and at the same time get away from the pains. These 2 forces, pain and pleasure, help us to meet our basic needs of food, water, shelter and safety.
The problem of motivation arises when these needs are met. If you’re fortunate enough to live in a developed country where you don’t have to worry about survival, what’s next for you? What are the next greater pleasures you should be aiming for? According to Maslow, the next step up the ladder includes: mastery, achievement, independence, some way of claiming your self-esteem. Unfortunately this is the step most people cannot take, not because they’re not capable of taking the step but because they’re not motivated.
In order to take that next step up, you’re going to have to do things that will bring short-term pain like; being the only fat person in your gym to master your health, going through many break ups to master your relationships, failing at several businesses before you can master your career, being judged by your friends and family for going after your dreams. You need to go through hell for heaven to be worthwhile.
Hope you got something of value from this. My twitter/instagram handle is @AlfredAwosanya (shameless ik
)
This [HASHTAG]#TuesdayMotivation[/HASHTAG] I’m going to talk about the exact formula of what creates long-term motivation and why most people really aren’t that motivated.
How do I know this? Well for the longest time I’ve had the problem of getting myself motivated to finish things. I’m the type of guy that will get started on about 5–10 new ideas and projects and never get them finished because I always came up with something new to work on. And as a result, I never really finished anything, I pretty much wasted a lot of time and potential and I could see that if I wanted to get anywhere in life I had to start finishing things.
So I pretty much read as many biographies as I could on successful businessmen, sports stars, actors, musicians and then I spent several months educating myself on human behaviour. And what I found was that the people who got to their destination were the people with a desired destination in mind. By now this is common sense, if you want to achieve what you want then you have to really really want it otherwise you just won’t get it. As you probably already know, listening to motivational music can’t get you what you want, desire is the only force that can pull you through.
Why You’re Not Motivated
Yet how come there are still so many people who whine and cry and gripe about not feeling motivated to do anything with their lives? Why do so many people say they want to lose weight, they want to gain muscle, they want to become an entrepreneur, they want to travel the world, they want to just have a happy life. Why do so many people say they want these things and not follow through in pursuing them?
Well the answer is simple and here it is; all of these people value the certainty of where they are now, more than the uncertainty of the journey that will take them to their destination.
You see, according to Freud’s Pleasure Principle, life is a dance between 2 forces: pain and pleasure. We move towards pleasure and avoid pain in life in order to satisfy our biological and psychological needs.
“Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure — they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think”
— Jeremy Bentham
So what does this have to do with motivation? Let me explain, the things you want in life are forms of pleasure; money, relationships, health. The things you don’t want; being broke, lonely and unhealthy, all forms of pain. Naturally as humans, we are driven to achieve these pleasures and at the same time get away from the pains. These 2 forces, pain and pleasure, help us to meet our basic needs of food, water, shelter and safety.
The problem of motivation arises when these needs are met. If you’re fortunate enough to live in a developed country where you don’t have to worry about survival, what’s next for you? What are the next greater pleasures you should be aiming for? According to Maslow, the next step up the ladder includes: mastery, achievement, independence, some way of claiming your self-esteem. Unfortunately this is the step most people cannot take, not because they’re not capable of taking the step but because they’re not motivated.
In order to take that next step up, you’re going to have to do things that will bring short-term pain like; being the only fat person in your gym to master your health, going through many break ups to master your relationships, failing at several businesses before you can master your career, being judged by your friends and family for going after your dreams. You need to go through hell for heaven to be worthwhile.
Hope you got something of value from this. My twitter/instagram handle is @AlfredAwosanya (shameless ik
)
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