I remember I once heard Sadghuru, a spiritual master from India, say that “to motivate yourself” is nonsense
from the west.
And at first, it triggered me for some reason. At the same time, it invited me to look further and motivated me indeed to think about it and feel into it what it means. And for myself I concluded it has a valuable teaching and understanding and maybe it can help you too. Firstly, it depends on the situation or how you define it. Words can lead to misunderstandings easily.
I am not criticising others but rather looking deeply where we can improve including myself. Where we can enhance our understanding and perspectives. Here was what I was going through in my mind. If I constantly have to motivate myself it means I’m doing something I’m not passionate about. Our essence is joy, happiness, freedom, ease and flow.
What we are passionate and good at comes naturally. Imagine I love to paint, then I will always be passionate about painting. When there is a time when I do not feel passionate about painting, I do not do it. What’s the point of motivating myself into doing it? Who I do that for? Who do I prove myself?
It sparked a curiosity within me to look deeper in my life: Where do I need to push myself? And if I push or motivate myself, is it really what I want to do right now?
Because to be honest. There are two main reasons if I am not motivated to do something.
1) It’s not my highest passion and excitement what I do
2) There might be blocks or fears that prevent me from doing it right now
Instead of motivating and pushing myself I need to look into and heal or let that go what’s blocking me. We create a lot of push energy. Where we push ourselves and this may happen at the beginning when starting out with a new habit to a certain degree but when we push and push, it’s so exhausting, it causes stress and even burnout.
We might say we have bills to pay, children to feed and that is a fair point. But then we rather got to heal and look within what are my beliefs about money? My beliefs about a life mission? Why do I give my power away to an institution or company I do not like to work for? We think we do not have any power. We often feel like we are victims. But ironically, it’s the victim consciousness that keeps us stuck there. So many people as soon as they do the inner work and claim their power and do what they love, eventually they can even sort their finances out. Life sorts itself out eventually when you do the inner work.
And for myself for example I found that one of my talents for example is about about creative stuff. If I push myself to become an astronaut right now, and I motivate myself to study maths and physics because I might to do because it might bring me money and fame eventually, is it not a constant struggle leaving to unfulfillment? Because it’s not who I am and what comes naturally to me as my talents and interests.
So, if you struggle with motivation right now, maybe the questions I
asked myself can help you look deeper what is behind that the same way I did.
Two journal impulses for you about self-motivation
1) Does it really excite you from the heart what you do?
2) Is there just any blocks e.g. fear, resistance.
Then instead of motivating and pushing ourselves, it can be more serving to sit with it and look within.
I noticed it’s all about the intention behind it. Do we motivate ourselves because we hate what we do? Or motivate to become the best version and get up 15 min earlier. In the first case, the motivation is not really serving. It’s rather pushing against our own desires. It is our desires that lead us to our dreams and goals. If we do not do what we love, how shall we even come closer to our dreams and goals?
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