2021-01-21 You Don’t Need More Motivation

It’s this never-ending cycle that yanks your emotions up and down. You find yourself feeling motivated and inspired, but it quickly fades and you don’t actually follow through with any of your goals. Instead of translating your positive emotions into action, you get stuck in a loop.

Even reading self-help can be tricky, even dangerous, because you can get hooked to the dopamine rush you get from feeling like you’re on the verge of great success. Like an addict, it takes more and more to get you back to that high level. And the more you consume self-help without doing anything the further away you tend to move from your actual goals.

So, why do I write it? I write it because I’ve personally figured out a way to bridge that gap. I understand that self-help is a double-edged sword so I try to portray it the right way so that you can use it the right way. What then, is the right way?

Well, the right way isn’t “getting more motivated.” Motivation is nothing more than a fuel source. Your goal isn’t to get motivated. It’s to use motivation to pursue meaningful goals. One word in that sentence matters most — meaning. Usually, you’ll experience a change in your life — turning motivation into real effort — when you find some level of meaning in what you want to pursue. Essentially, you’ll have to find a good enough reason to bridge the gap between motivation and action. That’s where the first principle comes in. Then you can use the other two I mention to carry yourself to the finish line.