Motivations
The following is not an all-inclusive list of motivations but these four are present in my life and I suspect in yours.
1. Fear
2. Necessity
3. Curiosity
4. Love
1. FEAR doesn’t need much explanation. We all have it and respond to it as a motivator quite often. For me, it’s usually in the form of “If I don’t do this, something dreadful will happen.”
2. We do many things out of NECESSITY. This often includes the duties of our jobs. Everyone answers to someone, even Bill Gates and the President of the United States, and that someone’s requests are necessary to fulfill to keep our jobs or to remain in good stead.
3. CURIOSITY is more fun than fear or necessity. Something has caught our attention and we want to explore a little bit more. There is a bit of anticipatory excitement with curiosity because we really don’t know what we’re going to find. Curiosity adds to our aliveness.
4. LOVE is the most selfless motivator. In part, it falls into the category of what you would do for another no matter what the consequences are for you. A subset of love is passion – a motivator that causes you to do things for yourself and others – things that make you feel alive.
I don’t know if there is a proper mix of all the above; I only know that I more prefer the feelings that go along with curiosity, passion and love.
I suspect that setting an intention and following a plan of action to be more curious and passionate will change our current percentages. It seems that it’s a matter of focus. If we remain too focused on our fears and necessities, our lives will be less filled with passion and love. That observation should get you curious enough to find a way to shift the percentages towards your preferences.
Fear and necessity aren’t going away, and thank God for that. They play an important motivational role in our lives. We just have to remind ourselves that we have other playmates that motivate us in different ways, and invite them over more often for play dates.
All the best,
John
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