Anyone who’s struggling to make changes in life, live differently, improve, understands the dance of motivation.
That sometimes you’re just filled with this energy and determination to live your dreams and work hard towards your goals and all the stuff that you know is good, and on other days, it just feels like it’s painful to do anything and there’s just- even though on some abstract mental level you can understand “Well, yes, I should probably be working hard towards a good cause right now”, it just doesn’t really connect.
It just seems like just lounging and lazing and doing low-energy stimulation, just like amusing myself, entertainment, passing the time: this is all that I have the appetite for, even when I know I should be doing things that will lead to future happiness.
Just feels like on some days there’s just a disconnect between the way I see things and my imagined future, so that I just don’t really feel connected to that future, I don’t really feel that motivational drive.
So sometimes it seems like a fuel.
It’s almost like a fuel, that motivation is something that we have to fill up on, and then we spend it.
It spends away as time passes.
So of course, anyone in self-development will tell you that you cannot rely on motivation.
You have to also develop willpower to be able to do things that you don’t actually want to do, that you are not motivated to do, and just grind through it.
To some degree, we all need this, because we all have to get through times of lower motivation.
And yet we cannot live on willpower alone.
We cannot be pure grinders, because then we become disconnected from our own feelings, and we just become these sort of dry machines, and eventually just become brittle and fall apart.
So as much as we need that willpower, we also need to have just a little bit of motivation.
We need that little taste of motivation, just like a reminder.
It’s like a reminder that “Oh, yes, now I remember why I’m doing this.
I remember that this is leading to a better future.” It’s so easy to simply forget about that in the day-to-day grind, or attempted grind, to just feel cut off from it.
So sometimes I like to think of it like a motivational drip.
Now, I don’t know, maybe this is like an IV drip, like we’re hooked up to an IV drip.
Maybe not the greatest metaphor.
I guess you could imagine it like having a sip of coffee or something, but I don’t think anybody really drinks coffee that way, just like taking a sip like every once in a while like an IV drip.
So I haven’t found a better metaphor yet than this IV drip, but please let me know if you have any in mind.
So the idea is like we just need this little drip of motivation, just enough to bring things back into focus, just enough of a reminder that “Oh, yeah, that’s why I’m doing it.” And that even this the tiniest bit can be enough to fortify our will, to strengthen us once again, make us flush with this determination to do things that we know are good.
When that motivation is completely gone, then it’s pure grind, dry, and just trying to force our way through white-knuckling that can only last for a short time.
We need that little drop of motivation, a little bit of inspiration, to get us back on track, to be like “Well, now I remember at the emotional level why I’m doing this.” Not just the thought.
The thought can be there already.
We can understand “Of course I should be working hard.
Of course I should be pursuing good goals.” That logic never goes away.
We still understand that.
But it’s on the emotional level where sometimes we just don’t feel it anymore.
So that’s where we need that little bit of a little hint of reminder.
Now, this could be from any source.
Of course, there’s all kinds of motivation all over the internet that’s trying to provide this service of just giving you a little hint.
Maybe it’s a little meme, the picture and the message, somebody working hard and, you know, a “get after it” message, and that’s like “Oh, yeah”, that’s enough to remember.
And sometimes it could be a song.
I find that listening to a song that has some kind of personal connections for me, maybe brings back old memories or connects to a certain feeling: it’s a very powerful way of bringing out a certain motivated feeling.
Maybe could be talking to somebody.
Having, of course, a conversation with a real person is a very powerful way to bring back that motivation.
Could be going for a little break in nature and just having that that nature time.
And the list goes on.
I would be curious to hear, what do you do? What is your source of this motivational drip? Where do you get that little taste of motivation that you need to keep going? So I find it helpful to identify these sources and have them ready, so that when I feel that motivation getting low, I can just get a little taste to keep me going.
#alittlemotivation #enoughmotivation #dropofmotivation