It’s the cool thing to hate on motivation nowadays.
You read Atomic Habit once. Now you’re a thought leader on habit formation and believe that habits are the only thing that matters. You preach that motivation is stupid.
It’s not.
But you’re skeptical of motivation because you’ve felt motivated before and it didn’t lead to real change. You were motivated to lose weight, eat better, to work out but none of them ever come to fruition.
Habits are important, don’t get me wrong (I’ve written about it here, here, here). But I say motivation is more important.
Here’s why your past motivational moments didn’t last.
It’s because your motivation was inward-facing. It was selfish. It was only about you and what you could get out of it.
That’s cheap motivation.
Cheap motivation can only get you to two weeks before burning out.
You want existential motivation. This kind of motivation will burn until your last breath.
Ask any immigrant—who’s sacrificed and risked it all to get to North America—what’s motivating them to push themselves? Their answer will be outward-facing; “because I want to help my parents and my future family”, “because I don’t want my kids to struggle in the same way I did.”
They don’t factor themselves into this equation. They will grind out sleepless nights week after week because they’re focused on helping others. This is existential motivation. Once you transcend the self to help the other, you enter the realm of the eternal.
Why do single parents work three jobs without giving up? Because they want their kids to have better lives in the future.
Motivation changes the games when it is outward-facing and becomes existential. It doesn’t have to be huge and dramatic like seeking to go to Mars and becoming inter-planetary to save future human lives.
Existential motivation is innate in each of us, but our materialism drowns it out.
Find your existential motivation.
Sounds like you're talking about extrinsic motivation...essentially. It makes the world go round, but usually at the sacrifice of something equally important to what you're pursuing. I guess that's what sacrifice is...ultimately. Giving up one important thing for another important thing. Driven by fear. I think there's a better way.
I've found that motivation works well enough to get the ball rolling...but for sustainability we have to be intrinsically motivated...or inspired. We have to get to a point where we live in inspiration. Where it's our home. There's no fear in inspiration. I believe this is the realm of innovation, ingenuity...genius.
As a coach, I've found that the people who have the hardest time achieving and maintaining are the people who are pursuing their goals for someone else...family, significant other, or out of fear of disease or illness...an undesirable outcome. There are others who manage things well enough, but with an iron grip...sacrificing health, relationships, freedom...joy.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. ♥️