Motivation

I can tell you what the secret of motivation is, if you can hear it, if you want to hear it. Because the truth is that the thing I've found that gives me the most motivation, drive, motion, impetus, momentum - the thing that actually gives direction and motion to my life - isn't anything I've heard anyone else talk about. A lot of people seem to think that motivation's this substance you want to get as much as possible of. But that's not how you get things done, that's not how you really achieve mastery at something, or really make an impact. There's something else, something smaller and subtler, but that has a much greater power, because it's power over time. Anyone can get themselves pumped up about something in the short term, but a life isn't a short term thing. If you want to live a life that you truly live, that is abundant and filled with living - then you need consistent motivation, not a massive blast of short-term stuff. And besides - you don't need massive, massive levels of motivation,- that's just weird. You don't need this huge burning reason to do something. And please just pay attention, right here, right what I'm about to say next, because it's so huge if you can just see this tiny little shift.

You just need more of a reason to do it than not.

The bar is pretty low and as long as there's more of a reason to do it than not, and that state of affairs continues, you'll continue to be motivated to do it, indefinitely. And as you continue to get involved and do what you can, what you can do gets bigger, because you get better at it, and then maybe one day, it gets done. And that's it's really. No great conflict, no massive fight. No burning need, no heroic identity, nothing like that. Just 1% more reason to do it than there is not to do it. And so really, when you really break it all down, it just comes down to sitting down and just starting - really, just beginning - to see if there is something real that actually does need doing. And it has to be real.