Motivation for Motivation

So, it's been a hot minute. This will be the most, ironically, titled article that I might write in recent times or memory. I haven't posted in a few weeks, just calling myself out, putting it out there, and being upfront. It doesn't feel great, but I'm okay with that. I wrote this article while trying to finish up my first keynote presentation on, ironically, motivation. I've been blessed that other people have seen that I'm passionate about my work and trying to make sure that I take care of other people, motivate others, and really make a significant impact outside of myself talking about motivation.

I feel like it's a very complicated subject in my own past and in recent times. It feels that we treat motivation as an item on the floor that we're looking to just pick up. "Oh, that's where I set my motivation; there it is." Then you can just get back to it, starting whenever.

I feel it's much more nuanced and complicated than that. I think figuring out your vision of where you want to go, segmenting it so that way you can actually obtain it and move forward with avoiding any "black holes," for motivation or other aspects are abundant and everywhere you like. I feel that some of the old tropes are "do the first thing that you hate or dislike" or "doing the most important thing first" are both valuable in their own points or when you are jammed up.

"Oh thats where I set my motivation; there it is."

Recognizing my own journey with motivation is something I do not think I have shared publicly before. "Professional me" cannot wrap my head around if I were to go back; you're the middle school, high school, and undergraduate Dustin. "Hey, you're gonna have this website you're gonna be writing these things. People will look to you for how to do motivation and be asking you. You will be held up as an example of how to do stuff administratively and executive function type calendar stuff very, very well." Younger Dustin would probably laugh and say to current me, "That's not me. I kind of just do things at the last minute and don't acknowledge that I have a problem with motivation, organization, and all of those items like that." A lot of it came down to my path of not knowing what I wanted, some health problems like sleep disorders, and things that I didn't know that I had. Along with the messages I was receiving from those around me, whether it be family, teachers, professors, other things like that. This is not a sob story, so you can put the tissue box away.

Motivation is not to be found, and some think it can be. It is not a destination on a mental map you will find. We will tell ourselves if I find it, or if I just got in the right frame of mind or just this one last thing, that like if I had the right song and the motivation would just be there. It would initiate some chemical reaction. I would go through these cycles and be really hard on myself. When the motivation chemical reaction didn't happen. Or I'd keep pushing it off procrastinating, procrastinating, procrastinating. (It doesn't sound like you reading this at all, right?) Many of those nights where I panicked and was writing a paper, super late at night, was because I just kept saying, "well, I'll probably feel "right" soon, I'll probably be able to do it this quick. I'll do it in an hour. I'll do it in an hour." Personally, I have a pretty big issue with watching how quickly time can pass. I know that kind of sounds silly, but how long time it takes for an hour to happen. I couldn't tell you sometimes. Once I had a clock right in front of me, some moments feel like an eternity, and when. How long has it been? It's only been three minutes, oh geez, and then other times I can look down be doing something and look back up, and 15 minutes have passed. Anytime I would write a paper in undergrad or do these items I would feel stress, really beat myself up. "I just didn't try enough. I just didn't try hard enough, because I'd set myself up for failure waiting till the last minute to do it, and stay up all night cramming it really hard." At a certain point in the night, four or five in the morning I would just submit whatever hot garbage I had complied together. That's as good as I'm going to do I guess I would try to tap my willpower as hard as I could. Until I completely exhausted it. I was both exhausted mentally and physically. Just staying up that long. On more than one occasion, I was directly told I was being lazy and haven't actually tried. But I just knew that the focus didn't really feel like it was there. All my report cards would reflect that "Dustin knows the materials. He just can't seem to focus on what's occurring and either lack motivation and would rather talk to people." I guess that worked out for me on the side now and because it's my job to talk to people.

Motivation is not to be found, and some think it can be. It is not a destination on a mental map you will find.

All that time while I was stressing, I had this feeling like I am waiting to be discovered, not unlike I imagine how people that are in a singing contest probably feel when they get picked. But I was waiting for people to pretty much say "Wow, you really can do this stuff, or to surprise them to show them that I'm not just some person dragging my feet and being a loser.

I am removing guilt from others and keeping this article from being a sob story. It took me until I was about my mid-20s to figure out what my actual vision was. Vision is the important part here, vision is not a checklist. It helps remove you from the "go, go, go someday you will find what you are looking for and be happy" I had the next checkpoint or the next career move or the next item knowing that I was getting my masters. I was moving on and doing the next item and other things but I didn't have a long scale of time of what I wanted to do, or what motivation meant and other things. Vision starts by asking these questions: Where am I now? Who am I now? Where do I want to be? What do I want out of life? How are you going to get there? No one asked me those questions. When I ask people those questions now they look at me like I'm crazy. "What do you mean what do I want? No one's ever asked me that? Shit...., I also don't know."

I didn't start to grasp vision building until my 20s. It felt like a lot all at once, once I had that my compass was aligned. I could see the pattern in the road and things that I wanted and how to get there and how to obtain it. I felt calm. I didn't have the day by day and hour by hour planned out. These are habits that we could talk about in another article that would really help. I knew that it was gonna be okay because I was going to be happy with what I did in my life because I knew what I wanted. I knew what I would accept. I knew what I wouldn't settle for. Motivation overall is a collection of different puzzle pieces. It's a collection of your vision of where you want to go. Oftentimes it's easy for us to figure out what we don't want, which is totally a fair starting point. I don't want to be stuck in a cubicle. I don't want to be worried about money from paycheck to paycheck. But what does that means for you? The importance is not to make a judgment. People around you will tell you what they think, but you don't have to listen. The next segment is figuring out the actual action steps of those items, and you start working back okay, so you want this. What does that mean, and how long do you want to get it? Is that a year-long goal? Okay, then we look at eight months, six months, four months, etc etc. You're talking to a 10-year goal. Great. 10-year vision perfect, we often don't recognize the depth and the value of that long time.

What do you mean what do you want?

I turned 32 recently. (Insert Happy birthday to me.) In 10 years, I'll be 42. I can't wrap my mind around it still; I'm laughing while writing this. But all the things that I want in that timeframe, I think I can totally accomplish in 10 years. 2020 to this point has been such a whirlwind from my life, both personally and professionally. It has been both the highest mountain top highs for me and some of the most soul-crushing lows I have experienced in my life.

Motivation can be there when you want it, but it takes practice if you're not engaging with your vision every single day of what you want. How can you expect to get there? Will you just stumble across it one day? You'll stumble across the family that you want to raise, create the business, the significant other you want to be with, the amount that you want to give back to your community, cherishing time with loved ones? How often do you think about your vision that you want, of what I want in 10 years?

Please send this to anyone that would benefit from this article, and please give me feedback. Your article's payment is to give me your insight, takeaways, disagrees. Did I get it right? What did I miss? Ultimately you can reset the scale in your favor towards success.

Thanks so much.