Burn My Time
~Josh Houghtelin
Motivation. Or maybe the lack of.
I know they sell those big cans of whoop-ass so shouldn’t the industrial sized box of motivation (with 30% more FREE!) be in the same isle?
I’ve never been a fan of the American regime of Work-TV-Sleep but I seem to be coming around to it now. Although motivation still exists to initiate change it seems like things have turned into a waiting game more then anything. Excite a change and wait for it to follow through. What provides your motivation for change? The unknown? Faith? Desire? Motivation keeps us from going nuts and ending up in a rut. I know we all think something a little different when we say we are in a ‘rut’. For some people it has financial implications or physical & mental wellness, for others it’s a lack excitement or too much repetition. It may even be how some of us describe our lives in general. No matter how it’s interpreted I think it’s definitely heavily based on lack of motivation. What do you do to get or stay motivated? Throw me some tips. To me it almost seems like it is based on sheer desire. If that’s so, has the general population in America lost all desire to progress beyond their 9 to 5 lives?
note: I’m just throwing this out there because I have noticed my motivation is lacking a little bit of it’s punctuality lately. I would say that my average level of motivation is usually far above any norm or standard that might exist.
3 comments
If I knew the secret to motivation and more-so sustained motivation and persistence, determination and self belief then I’d be one heck of a successful individual. If you discover the secret be sure to drop me a line.
I’m on the hunt!
Posted by Josh Houghtelin, on November 29th, 2006, às 5:06 pm. #.
I agree as far as the “Although motivation still exists to initiate change it seems like things have turned into a waiting game more then anything. Excite a change and wait for it to follow through.” part. It also seems to me too that there is often an “idea” for motivation, for example a thought and even talk and planning of some sort of change requiring effort to accomplish, but no execution.
“What provides your motivation for change? The unknown? Faith? Desire?”
First I’m gonna try to break that up into what is motivation and what are the factors it involves.
I’d say its a mix of the three. I’m gonna sum them all up into hope. Unknown, I’d like to think most people project their hopes for the future , hoping for the past is going to be ill rewarding. Point being, the future is unknown. Faith, I’m comparing this the amount of stimulus of motivation a person has. If u don’t have faith that what you are trying to do will work then ur not going to want to do it. Desire, this being the whole reason for faith. The goal you are trying to accomplish. Getting to a place you would want to be. Getting a phat freakin t.v. Whatever it is if you don’t want/desire something then motivation is an impossibility. Theres got to be a reason(desire) to accomplish change. And there has also got to be faith that your efforts will end in success. I see it like math or an equasion. You’ve got a balance scale with one side weighted down. On one end you have the requirements for accomplishing anything holding that end down. And on the other side you have the counterforce / faith or the amount of effort you apply. The vertical stand on which the scales balance on is the unknown. All motivation is for the future. If you knew the future that would just be less reason to try and make it. Its a balance of maybe/maybe not because its unknown. Coming to a close, you have to apply force down on one end to accomplish the requirements of your goal.
Now if anyone is still with me or even trying to be…
That was just the elements of the equasion. Who knows how many different things affect those elements. Countless. An endless amount of factors affect EACH element. So all this means is that motivation is different for everyone. So lets save that for a long rainy day.
All that and I havent even tried to answer you’re question yet. Yea I know, what the hell man. Well motivation is a complex issue and for me to accurately describe what I think then you gotta know how I’m looking at it.
So why do people have desire for change but not enough motivation to make it happen? And even why don’t some people have motivation at all?
The thing that I personally see as one of the most common reason for failure due to lack of effort is a distraction or deturrent or some sort. Something that makes failure a little better or a cheap substitute that is easier to achieve than the real goal. And too often an excuse to yourself justifying why you can’t accomplish your goals is a destroyer of motivation. Even if they are little teeny tiny little excuses like for someone trying to stop smoking saying ” Well I’ll just smoke ultra lights for now then quit”. Thats not how you quit thats how you think about maybe quitting in the future. Which wasn’t the goal the goal was quitting, and every little rule you bend and Icorner you cut puts you farther off the path to success. Anyway all of this is just concerning willpower or the level of desire to accomplish a goal.
I’m just going to stop there before I fall into my head and get lost for a week. Haven’t even started about faith and what effects it. Don’t even want to right now. I know theres a lot of words but this is just a start to the answer of the main question you asked, how do you motivate yourself? And heres my disclaimer, all this is just my thoughts and conclusions. None of the points I claim to be true are proven they are just what I believe to be true. This being the reason I explained how I was looking at this whole issue. Anyways I’m out. Catch ya a couple days after the day before yesterday.
