I had read a book called 'The Monk who sold his Ferrari' by Robin S Sharma in January 2006. It had a deep impact on me. I am really inspired by that book. It tells u how to live a fulfilling life. Let me share with u what I learnt from it. The first step is introspection. U need to really know urself well, so that u know what u really want in life. I directly quote from the book 'The purpose of life is a life of purpose'. We need to realize what we really want to do in life. We need to identify our priorities and aspirations and then go all out to achieve them. We need to do everything with passion and enthusiasm. This is not really a short term strategy but a habit that we must inculcate. I know that we need to do a lot of things in life that we do not enjoy. So the question is how to keep oneself constantly motivated?
I have not pondered over this question so intently for the past 2.5 years. There was always something more important or interesting going on in life. But for the past month my life has been very dull. I really need a way to better spend my free time. Today I suddenly remembered that I used to have a blog and have been on it for the past 100 minutes. Its great to feel excited about something again.
There are 2 kinds of things that we do in life, first the things that we love to do like listening to our favorite music and second the things that we consider important like studying for exams. Another word we use for the latter activities is 'responsibilities'. Even though it might appear so, these 2 categories are by no means mutually exclusive. You can probably think of a few things that would be the intersection of fun and important. One such example is playing your favorite sport or exercising. This is important as it is good for your body and health is one of the most important things in life. And of course it is also fun since you enjoy it. There are some of us who hate to exercise. It is probably because of a human tendency to classify everything that is beneficial as something that feels bad. The truth is that exercising releases chemicals in your body that make you feel good/happy. Just exercise for half an hour every day and you will start feeling happier I can guarantee. It is just a question of getting rid of your preconceived notions. Coming back to the main point, at first glance it does seem that fun stuff and important stuff are 2 diametrically opposite categories since there are only a handful of things that we consider both fun and important. The key to happiness is to unify the 2 categories so that you feel deeply motivated towards everything you do.
There are 2 main forces behind any kind of motivation. Love, the positive motivation and fear, the negative motivation. I must say both of these are extremely effective. Love is the motivation when you want to make something happen and fear is the motivation when you want to prevent something from happening. Now love is your motivation for the things that you enjoy doing like your love for nature,music,entertainment etc. Fear is the motivation behind most of the things that we consider important like fear of failing an exam, fear of losing your job. Fear is an extremely potent motivator, people driven by it can achieve a lot in life in terms of money and fame. But happiness cannot be linked with fear, it can only be linked with love. It is important to have a positive attitude in life. You need to play to win and not play to 'not fail'. When you are motivated by love and play to win you tend to give it all you have. That is an excellent thing. When you play to prevent a defeat you tend to put only as much effort that you estimate is enough to prevent a failure. This is the reason that positive attitude is more successful. You may say that sometimes fear can elicit a mammoth effort too. This is true, but only in the case when you think you have a very small chance of winning. That means your confidence is really low, and if it goes any lower then you will abandon all hope and not even try to win. In that case you will not put in sufficient effort and have an even higher chance of losing. Therefore it is a really bad idea to rely on fear as a motivator.
The good news is that every negative motivation can be transformed into a positive motivation. Love can replace fear from all your motivations. All you need to do is ask why. Let's go through this with an example. Imagine it is a Monday morning and you reach your office. Your motivation is not the highest at this point. Your boss comes to you and tells you to make a report for him/her by the end of the day. You look at the papers and you know that this will be a lot of writing,thinking,calculating and researching. Your lunch break just got shorter by 50%. You curse your boss and think why the hell do I need to do this???? And the answer you tell yourself is 'because this is important. If I don't do this I will get fired'. That is a very powerful motivator. So with a heavy heart you work really hard and get the report ready. You think 'my job sucks', there is too much work to do and what not. You might have done a great job on that report and your boss might have complimented you but that makes no difference to the fact that you feel you spent all your time at work in misery. Now let us backtrack a little to illustrate the power of positive thinking. To answer why this task is important you had told yourself that your job depends on this task and doing it well will prevent you from getting fired. Instead of all this you could have asked yourself 'Why do I need this job?', 'Because it pays well','If I save enough money I can go on a vacation to California or buy a better car or move to a better house'. So then the motivation for doing the task would be your love for these things and not a fear of losing your job. It is important to think of something that you really want to motivate you effectively. So this way your love for a better life motivates you rather than your fear of poverty. So you successfully transformed your negative attitude into a positive attitude. Similarly the better way to motivate yourself to exercise is not telling yourself that you will get fat and and ugly if you don't exercise but that you will become thin and attractive if you do.
I guess I have made my point clear about transforming -ve to +ve. Please dont change your attitude the other way from +ve to -ve because that is also as easy.
Positive attitude will make you achieve more and keeps you happier so make a conscious effort to maintain it.
One more thing to remember is that if you find yourself doing something that is neither fun nor important then please don't waste your time doing it because time is your most precious resource. We sometimes think something is fun or important because we see somebody else do it. You have just one life and that too is short, so live it your own way and not the way someone else would want to live it.
Now do this little activity
1. Make a list of all the major activities that you do on a daily basis.
2. Classify these activities into Fun and Important categories.
3. If an activity is not sufficiently fun or important to YOU then do yourself a favor and stop doing it. Devote that time to something more fun or important.
4. Now look at the activities you consider important. Think why they are important. Are they important for the well being of your loved ones? If so then the motivation behind such activities is your love for those people. If an activity is important for money then think of what you can do with that money and make that your motivation. Is the activity important for your health? If so then imagine all the things you will be able to do when you are healthier. Your love for those fun activities is your motivation behind this important activity.
