July 5, 2020

Motivation is like sugar high

So, how many times by now in your life have you consumed "motivational content", whether that might be videos, text or live speeches? 10s, 100s, or 1000s of times? Well, the way you're taking motivation is detrimental for you. Read to know more.

Motivation is like sugar high

Motivation is great for motivational speakers because they are making money out of it. They receive your money and do more motivational gigs and this money making spiral goes on for them. But what about you? You're trying to get motivation externally, so you pay for those motivational speakers by paying with money or your data if you're watching them on online for "free" and then you get motivated which feels and acts similar to sugar high i.e., makes you feel amazing but is shortlived. You hardly end up accomplishing anything and in no time you again need more motivation. And that's your miserable spiral also called as motivation trap.

Should I avoid getting motivated?

Simple answer is, NO! But it is a bit more nuanced. Don't expect to get motivation from outside factor instead get motivation from yourself. But how?

should I avoid getting motivated

For that you need to understand how motivation works and it is very simple to understand. You need to start taking actions, no matter how small and in fact it is better to take action smaller than you think you can accomplish. If you want start working out everyday, don't try get motivated by some guy working out for ten years and posting on instagram thinking that you'll achieve that in a year. I know subconsciously those are the expectations that you set. Just go to gym and do benchpress. And when you achieve accomplish it on that day i.e., you've achieved sucess, then you get motivated to take more action and because of the motivation this time you can take bigger action than previous one. Next day you might wnat to go higher weight or more reps or maybe more varience of exercises. And this spiral of action, success and motivation will remove your dependence on motivation from external stimuli which as you already know that is just a trap.

ACTION MOTIVATION CYCLE
The Action Cycle

"But I don't know how to take action." Well, you're covered. Read our blog on this. And soon I'll discuss how to build internal system that you won't be able to not take action and huge part of that system is journaling. You can read more about journaling here.

[Discussion Post] Motivation is like sugar high from r/StoicHuman

That's it for this blog post and if you feel that you've something to add to this or you have a different perspective then share it and discuss it on r/StoicHuman or go to the Reddit discussion post for this blog post linked down below.

Stay healthy, Stay safe!

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