True Motivation

“Strong lives are moti­vated by dynamic pur­poses.“
– Ken­neth Hildebrand

While sta­tis­tics prove that 90% of heart attacks hap­pen on Mon­day morn­ings, it goes to show that moti­va­tion doesn’t come from work. In real­ity, most peo­ple find them­selves work­ing in jobs they hate.

Some wake up in the morn­ing feel­ing lethar­gic and hit the snooze but­ton one too many times. Some work only “for the week­end” and take more time to pre­pare their vaca­tions than they do their own lives. And some who become “worka­holics” end up work­ing them­selves either out of a job or into a grave. In short, get­ting moti­vated by one’s work is impos­si­ble. In fact, get­ting moti­vated by any­thing out­side of one­self is impossible.

If peo­ple are not first inter­nally dri­ven to reach their goals, then other goals as well as other pri­or­i­ties will go by the way­side. Peo­ple who focus strictly on goals usu­ally com­pro­mise other more impor­tant things, such as health, fam­ily, rela­tion­ships, job secu­rity, and so on. They pro­cras­ti­nate that which is more impor­tant in their lives and place quan­tity of time above qual­ity of life. They gen­er­ally get stressed out, burned out, or left out as a result.

Is this really moti­va­tion? Isn’t moti­va­tion sup­posed to be pos­i­tive, joy­ful, and reward­ing? There­fore, goals are not the moti­va­tors we think they are. For instance, if you think that hav­ing goals will jump-​​start you, you will be very dis­ap­pointed if you haven’t been already.

The key to becom­ing more effi­cient, pro­duc­tive, as well as effec­tive is to have and work on an intensely burn­ing desire. Moti­va­tion comes from within and not from with­out. It comes from a sense of pur­pose. Your val­ues are the real moti­va­tors and not your goals. If you fail to rec­og­nize this sim­ple axiom and focus only on your goals, then rather than moti­vate you your goals will hurt you.

How much more moti­vated will you be if what you do has a mean­ing and a pur­pose? How can you pro­cras­ti­nate when you do what you love or have a clear under­stand­ing of how impor­tant are the things you do?

Con­fu­cius once said, “Do what you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Mar­sha Sine­tar, author of True Wealth, said, “Do what you love and the money will fol­low.” And Peter McWilliams, author of Life 101, said, “Do what you love and the nec­es­sary resources will follow.”

Essen­tially, they are all true since goals do not bring us moti­va­tion; we must bring moti­va­tion to them. We must be self-​​motivated from the beginning.

You see, you may not nec­es­sar­ily love some of the things you do or need to do. But if they are rel­e­vant to your pri­or­i­ties and if you had a clearer under­stand­ing of how truly impor­tant they are, you will begin to look at what you con­sider as per­func­tory or drudgery from a whole new perspective.

In his sem­i­nars, for instance, moti­va­tional speaker Roger Daw­son talks about those famous bumper stick­ers that say “I’d rather be ski­ing” or “I’d rather be fish­ing.” Roger asks, “If they really wanted to ski, fish, or what­ever else they’d rather be doing, why aren’t they doing it at that moment?”

You might say: “Yes, but the con­se­quences are great. That per­son might lose his job, his spouse, his credit, or this, or that.” Of course, you’re absolutely right. But in real­ity, if a per­son really wanted to ski, fish, or what­ever, and if that per­son is not doing it at that moment, then it is because he has made a choice on doing what he is cur­rently doing.

Cir­cum­stances are never the cul­prits. What that per­son has cho­sen to do reflects what he inher­ently val­ues, which is pre­serv­ing his credit, mar­riage, job, and so on (and not ski­ing or fishing).

Some of you might say, “Yeah, but I must go to work every­day and slug it out just to keep up with my bills. Clearly, sur­vival is not a choice.” Not so. If you value your stan­dard of liv­ing, then the choices you are mak­ing reflect that spe­cific value. If you are not doing what you love or if your bills are too high, you are purely liv­ing out the choices you’ve made up to that point.

I agree that some of the alter­na­tives you are left with may not be as appeal­ing. But when you focus on your val­ues, you will be able to look at what you’re doing from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive and under­stand that what­ever you must do is really what you are choos­ing to do.

The fun­da­men­tal, under­ly­ing truth in suc­cess is that you alone are respon­si­ble for the choices you make, and that you always have the abil­ity to either change or accept what you have cho­sen. Invari­ably, your actions and your deci­sions reflect your inner­most val­ues. Often, if you’d rather be doing some­thing else, it is because you are not con­scious. In life, you are always mak­ing choices at every given moment. Even reac­tions are choices, albeit uncon­scious ones.

Don’t blame your cir­cum­stances for where you are. You alone are respon­si­ble for your life and in find­ing this moti­va­tion that so fuels it. If you don’t like what you have to do, then don’t blame “it” because it’s not “its” fault.

John Ran­dolph Price once analo­gized, “If you are drown­ing, don’t blame the water but blame your­self for not hav­ing learned how to swim.” In other words, don’t blame the out­side when the fault comes from ignor­ing the inside. Jim Rohn once said, “If you’re not happy where you are, then change it! You’re not a tree.”

About the Author

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