The Only Word You Need to Find Motivation
/When you're trying to get yourself to do something, creating a logical argument as to why you should do the thing often falls short. That's because it can often lack the feeling needed to motivate you.
We are all motivated by feelings. That why they say the greatest gift of something like anger (an emotion that can be unpleasant and therefore one many of us try to avoid) is that it can motivate you to change. It's not the only one.
How many times have you decided you're going to do something like exercise more, eat better, be more punctual or tidy because you feel like you "should" or that it "makes sense" to, but then when it comes time to act on the behaviors that will get you there it doesn't happen?
I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and they mentioned the desire to get more organized in their home.
Something in me said, "Ask why this is important," so I did.
And then I did again, and again, and again.
I felt like the annoying little kid that just can't stop asking why.
We went down the rabbit hole of reasons. But I knew what we were looking for ... the emotion.
Sure it's great to have an organized home and for many of us it feels good. But I wanted to know why, underneath it all, it was important to this person.
After about five “Why”s in, I could see the emotion in their face. Tears formed in the corners of their eyes. They wanted to have an organized home to free up the mental bandwidth and distractions to be able to read the books they bought to help them be a better person in the world and be able to advocate for underprivileged populations.
It turns out that have a cluttered home was in the way of them doing the inner work to be a positive force in the lives of other people.
It all came down to wanting to help other people stop hurting.
Having a tidy home on its own isn't a compelling reason to motivate oneself to clean up.
Getting organized in one's personal space to allow for an inner evolution that could possibly help better the lives of other people in this world -- when that's something that when you talk about it makes you want to cry -- that will get anyone to dump out the junk drawer and get to work now.
We all have our own reasons why certain things are important to us, but we often don't let ourselves investigate WHY enough to get to the emotion.
But if you're one to judge yourself for making promises to do better and never keeping them, you owe it to yourself (and all of us) to ask yourself, "Why?" enough times until you cry.
That will give you all the motivation you need to get started. Remaining focused on that big why will help you stay motivated to do what needs to be done, even when you don't feel like it. Not "feeling" like it, when you've found your big why, is just a symptom of not "feeling" the right thing.
To Recap:
Ask yourself why over and over.
Remember the BIG WHY.
Feel it when you go to do the thing.
You'll be so surprised on what you can do once you drop the "supposed to" or "just because" and start being more honest.
If it makes you cry, you've found your "why."
Your turn:
What is something that you do want to do but find yourself avoiding?
When you ask yourself why over and over again, what do you find?
