Is Motivation a Myth?
Being unproductive and wasting time means that motivation is missing in one’s life. In order to complete a task for example to complete a project, we need to garner up the energy, to motivate us to get started and complete the task at hand. But what if all this while you have misunderstood the idea of motivation? What if you could reframe this idea and structure your life in a way where you would never need to worry about motivation ever again.
So how do achievers set themselves up to win ? How can you restructure your life to be happier, healthier, and more productive? Motivation is something you can create yourself.
“For most of us, motivation is a sugar rush that never lasts”
There is only one recipe for gaining motivation and that is success. This is specifically the high that we get when we observe ourselves making progress. The main idea is that motivation does not lead to action. Instead, action leads to success, which leads to motivation and this cycle keeps repeating itself. In a way, this continuous loop of action → success → motivation is what gives you the motivation to continue and go the extra mile. This is not based on hope, but in fact based on the small things that we do, gaining experiences and small victory is what keeps you motivated
Motivation is not a spark, it is the fire that starts burning after you manually, painfully, coax it into existence. It feeds on the satisfaction of seeing yourself make progress. So how do you start making that progress in the first place? Success generally depends on the process you approach and your line of thought. It's often said that to have the motivation to do something you need to set yourself a goal. That being true, having an end goal shouldn't always be the only thing driving you. Instead, success depends on the process. This builds the foundations of your success and therefore builds the positive momentum to stay focused and motivated.
“If you dedicate yourself to working on your process, you will make progress and therefore success will be inevitable. ”
How can we then enhance our process-driven mindset to become serial achievers? There are so many different skills that you can learn that can combine with each other to make you a jack of all trades. It is better to be a generalist than a specialist, where instead of being tunnel-visioned you could gather all these ideas from different places and fields and implement them on something that could be big. An important thing here is that this does not need to be done all at once, instead take short sprints. Complete a task and move on to the next.
So set the goal and forget about it, focus on the process. Performing an action, making progress, and letting that talk. Think about what you want to become.
“Your dreams are important, but your plans are what will allow you to achieve your goals.”
Reference :
I got my references from a book I read "The Motivation Myth" By Jeff Haden and I cannot agree more with it.
