MOTIVATION

The past

The fear of suffering is a constant. It’s an ordinary part of the daily life of everything on the planet that has breath. Due to detailed memories of past events, physical and mental pain can linger in our heads for years and come back to haunt us, provoked sometimes by only the slightest trigger. We also have incredible imaginations that we use to predict the future. Add in the default mindset that’s always expecting the worse-case scenario, and you have the perfect recipe for crippling fear.

Pride v Ego

Motivation is a driving factor for actions, willingness and goals. It is derived from the word motive, or a need that requires satisfaction. Some people are motivated by pride while others are motivated by their ego.

• Pride is about testing yourself and pushing yourself. People who are motivated by pride do things for reasons that are internal not external - they want to impress themselves, not other people.

• Ego is about getting excessive admiration or praise from others.

A healthy balance is 85% Pride/15% Ego.

The simple fact is, no matter who you are, every human life is full of failure. For the egotist, this means life is full of pain. But for the healthily prideful person, there’s not really any such thing as failure. Instead there are only learning experiences.

Being a failure is allowing your mistake to win. Approach mistakes with a positive mindset to take a huge leap forward.

Not letting anyone else define who you are is about being unafraid of what other people think of you. Fear of failure, when it comes from a place of ego, is a fear of other people’s thoughts - and why would you be scared of thoughts?

As long as you try

You don’t know if you are good enough until you try. And even then, maybe things won’t be as you’d hoped. However, at the very least, you’ll have learned something new and be better prepared for your next attempt. Your failure, in that moment, does not determine who you are.

The critical thing to remember is that you might think that you are defined by your tally of successes and failures, however, you are not. What actually defines you is your capacity for opening doors. If you are stuck in the same corridor, listening to the negative chatter that’s telling you that you are not good enough, then you’re shrinking. But if you smash through the door, you’re nobody’s loser. You’re living. Keep on at it. Keep learning those lessons. You’ll grow. You’ll succeed. It’s inevitable.