.rock’n’roll (on motivation)
It’s surprising how many people go through their life with undefined goals. It’s even more surprising, how they keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and fail to learn from them. And just like Sisyphus, trying to cheat and looking for the shortcut, they fail and roll back to the start. They constantly push with brute force until exhaustion, instead of stopping, reflecting on motivation, strategy and only then resuming the conquest.
Another great Greek figure, Heraclitus, once said that in reality we don’t make the same mistakes, as we can’t step in the same river twice, because the second time, the river itself has changed. But change changes us only if we are conscious about it.
Often we stop on bare cravings for big words; freedom, independence, happiness, health, love, but we don’t get specific.
Get dirty.
Any grand vision once started with a small, actionable step. In any goals setting, we should think big, but then work them backwards into smaller puzzles; what are the 3–5 things that I need to do in a day, week, month etc. to get me closer to accomplishing this thing. Instead of saying “I want to get fit”, you need to be specific (yet flexible to certain extend not to get discouraged), define minimum desired and focus on the smaller subgoals e.g. going to the gym 3x for at least 1h active sessions (alas — scrolling your phone while waiting for the equipment to be available will not count). You’ll notice that at some point you will want to compete against yourself, push your internal limits little by little. And when compound results start showing up, that thing will become your habit, filling you in with dopamine and serotonin for a further push.
Fear is your ally.
There is a common belief that we should always visualise success — like the people who benefit from selling coaching courses about law of attraction want us to believe — and do not think about failure.
Yet, this according to Andrew Huberman and the likes who specialise in neuroscience, is an ineffective approach.
As animals, we’re wired to fear which makes us attuned to responding faster. Fear from change, fear from unknown (like fast moving objects towards us).
Thinking about the big goal gets you started, but excitement quickly fails. Instead, to keep going, especially in the muddy journey, you should imagine failure; how it feels like, how it tastes like and how much you fear it.
This will keep you going to overcome obstacles in tasks that are ahead of you better than any positive visualisation ever could.
Psychologist Julie Norem talks about similar concepts for handling challenges and pursuing our goals: she calls them; strategic optimism and defensive pessimism. Strategic optimists anticipate the best and set high expectations. Defensive pessimists expect the worst, feeling anxious and imagining all the things that can go wrong.
Defensive pessimism is a valuable resource when commitment to the task is steadfast. But when commitment flutters, anxiety and doubt can backfire. When we’re not yet committed to a particular action, thinking like a defensive pessimist can be hazardous. Since we don’t have our hearts set on charging ahead, envisioning a dismal failure will only activate anxiety, triggering the stop system and slamming our brakes. By looking on the bright side, we’ll activate enthusiasm and turn on the go system. […]
But once we’ve settled on a course of action, when anxieties creep in, it’s better to think like a defensive pessimist and confront them directly. In this case, instead of attempting to turn worries and doubts into positive emotions, we can shift the go system into higher gear by embracing our fear. Since we’ve set our minds to press forward, envisioning the worst-case scenario enables us to harness anxiety as a source of motivation.Originals by A. Grant
Why some people refuse to stand up after falling
Many people stand in the way of their success because of not taking ownership and responsibility for their actions; a.ka. they have the victim mentality. Such people believe that the culprits must be found everywhere, to the exclusion of oneself. They will blame external, esoteric factors such as fate, for every single thing that comes their way for their failures, but will not bother to reflect that maybe there is something wrong with themselves.
And that’s why their life is a neverending torment — from one crisis they quickly fall into another, because all they can afford is to cry over their plight, repeating in an agonised voice: it’s not my fault, I’m just unlucky. Until the victim herself understands that he alone is responsible for his own fate, nothing will change.
When you’re misaligned with yourself.
Often the extensive failing occurs because deep down we’re misaligned with what we’re doing vs. what we feel we ought to be doing. The purpose of your actions needs to speak to you. As long as we’re on the wrong trajectory, we’ll be failing.
And yes, it’s tricky to know if yet another backlash is due to that thing not being meant for you or the thing itself just being hard to accomplish / complexity being its nature. Should I kill that project that still doesn’t work or should I keep going and investing my precious resources? Should I end that marriage or give it yet another chance, despite having done so multiple times? How to know when to change life’s course?
Motivation is fleeting. The external push, the positive vision… these can only help you getting started, but it’s up to you to learn what is it exactly what you want and need, remembering that often things we want are not the same as the things we need and vice versa.
Most importantly, we need to find out what we don’t want — and use that as our superpower to accomplish our self-fulfilment.
The Quitter
When you’re lost in the Wild, and you’re scared as a child,
And Death looks you bang in the eye,
And you’re sore as a boil, it’s according to Hoyle
To cock your revolver and . . . die.
But the Code of a Man says: “Fight all you can,”
And self-dissolution is barred.
In hunger and woe, oh, it’s easy to blow . . .
It’s the hell-served-for-breakfast that’s hard.
“You’re sick of the game!” Well, now, that’s a shame.
You’re young and you’re brave and you’re bright.
“You’ve had a raw deal!” I know — but don’t squeal,
Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight.
It’s the plugging away that will win you the day,
So don’t be a piker, old pard!
Just draw on your grit; it’s so easy to quit:
It’s the keeping-your-chin-up that’s hard.
It’s easy to cry that you’re beaten — and die;
It’s easy to crawfish and crawl;
But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of sight —
Why, that’s the best game of them all!
And though you come out of each gruelling bout,
All broken and beaten and scarred,
Just have one more try — it’s dead easy to die,
It’s the keeping-on-living that’s hard.”Robert W. Service, Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
Keep going.
