Insight #1. Your Biggest Motivation

Insights about Life

There are many books, quotes and videos on how to find motivation. I think the most important motivator in life is fear. Fear of not having time for something, fear of not being fulfilled, of not fulfilling your potential, fear of going to a job you don’t like all your life, fear of living with a partner you don’t love anymore. And you just tolerate each other, you’re just used to each other. Fear of forgetting about all your dreams or stop dreaming altogether. Do you even remember what you dreamed about as a child? Fear of losing the taste of life when you don’t want anything. When there are no desires. When you just go with the flow and the main thing is to somehow live this life. The fear is that periodically there is tiredness from life, even though there is still so much you haven’t tried, so much you haven’t experienced, but you are already tired. Fear of never travelling, sitting in one city all your life. Living from home to work and again to home. Fear that while you were spinning your wheels 24 hours 7 days a week, you didn’t spend enough time with your loved ones, with your family. Fear of never knowing what true love is. The kind they say is the love between two soul mates. Twin flames. The fear of realising how much time of your life you wasted on hilarious Tic Toc videos while nothing in your life changed for the better. The fear that the opportunities you’ve waited so long for will come too late, when your body isn’t as healthy and flexible anymore. The fear of waking up in old age and realising that that’s it, it’s over but you never lived. You were just spinning in a wheel of problems, responsibilities, deadlines, wanting to achieve something to be better than others. Or to be praised. And inside you feel empty and sad. Or dissatisfaction. I think you have felt this dissatisfaction at least once in your life, even though outwardly everything seems to be fine.

I think that nothing motivates you to develop, to change your life, to change your thinking, to make something as much as all these fears...and the desire to live differently. Not the way you’re used to living. A desire to feel this life, not just survive.

However, here I want to make an important clarification… Motivation through fear is needed only so that you sit down, think, and write down what you truly want from life. It is also needed so that you realize that our time is not unlimited and that from time to time a “cold shower” is necessary in the form of reviewing your past and understanding your fears about the future. But this should not become your driving force! When we do something out of fear—especially out of false, imposed fear (fear of not making it in time, fear of being worse than others, fear of not meeting someone’s expectations, fear of being rejected, fear of embarrassing ourselves)—such motivation can be effective in the short term. It helps to pull yourself together, mobilize your inner and outer resources, and make a leap toward a goal. But if you move through most of your life toward goals based only on fears, if you are too strict with yourself, criticize or even hate yourself for goals not achieved, unfinished tasks, unsatisfactory results, if you drive yourself toward a goal the way a rider drives a horse, then this is a one-hundred-percent path to anxiety-depressive disorder, emotional burnout, low self-esteem, an endless habit of comparing yourself with other people, and insecurity.

Therefore, use fear as a “road map,” but nothing more. “What am I dissatisfied with in my life, and what results do I want to come to?” And then try to move forward from a feeling of love for yourself and your future. It is good if you have at least one person who says that they believe in you and that you will succeed. It is good if you are in love, and this gives you strength to move forward. But even if none of this is present in your life, try to lower the level of criticism and demands toward yourself, treat yourself with love and tenderness. Do not wait for someone to believe in you—believe in yourself. Do not wait for someone to come and save you—save yourself. Do not wait for someone to give you attention and indulge you—give yourself attention. Do not wait for someone to compliment and praise you—praise yourself. Praise yourself for what you managed to do, even if it seems to you that it is not enough, instead of criticizing yourself for the tenth time because your New Year’s plans once again did not come true. Do something so that your value in your own eyes gradually, even very slowly, grows. Find something to say “thank you” to yourself for, instead of saying “I failed again.” Be kinder to yourself. And if along this path you find the strength to support someone else and say to them, “don’t be afraid, you’ll manage”—do it. It can change someone’s life forever.