Motivation is derived from the word “motive” meaning “a reason for doing something” which came in use since the late 19th century. As google describes, motivation means “a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way”. I think it has its pro’s and con’s. The way I see the word motivation, it is different than how it is defined. For me, it is more of a drive or a force that gives me the energy to do something. In recent days, my motivation is lost like my guitar picks; plenty there in the past but none with me now.
Let me figure out the things I needed to do growing up. As a kid at school, my parents wanted me to study and get good grades. For some reason, I never got the motivation to excel with education. I didn’t think it was important. I have my reasons. Unconsciously to me, knowledge was enough. I didn’t need to remember the definition of “health” just to know what it takes to be healthy. If it was important to me, I would remember it anyway. I remember this one time when my friend Abheeshu was taking around parents of my friends and he began telling the scientific names of trees and where they originated from. That was passion, not education. Nobody asked him to remember them, but his interests drove him. That was his motivation. What I was doing when I was the same time? I probably strum my guitar trying to act cool, wondering which hair gel and perfume should I get. In my teens, I lacked the motivation to do anything and it hasn’t still been found. For many reasons, motivation is a bad thing. I need to work on my project which I know is important, but I still won’t do it cause I lack motivation. When does this motivation kick in? A day before deadline only inducing panic. Even now I have a list of things to do, but I do not do it. Laziness kicks in. I’d rather prefer scrolling my Twitter feeds 10 times rather than start working on my project which requires as little as 10 hours to complete. An hour every day would have made it easier to complete the work rather than finishing it all in 10 hours before the deadline. Remind me of that MOTIVATION.
What do I do to do the things I need to do? Isn’t motivation such a bad thing. When you have to submit your work in just hours and you know your boss is going to kill you, you still don’t work on it cause you are bored. What the fuck? Boredom is my main motivator to not proceed with anything. Motivation itself lets me down. Many times at home, instead of working on something useful I pick up my guitar and start whining even in the middle of the night. I only do things that are joyful. I’d be thinking about watching a match between Tottenham and some Manchester or London club while I have my finals the very next day. How do I set my priorities? I’ll never know.
Motivation kicks in the most unusual of times. Mostly in the middle of the night, I remember how ignorant I have been to my family and friends and I start messaging them on IM’s. At times, I check my Pocket app on the phone and start reading the important things I saved to read when I was lazy to read them right away. Same story with my YouTube playlist which are mostly tutorials and stuff like that. I think morning is the time when I usually get these unusual motivations. In my sleep, somebody probably slaps me and tells me what I should be doing. There was this time when I wet my phone in the rain and I was without a phone for a week. After I got it back I did not use social media apps because I knew I was productive without them but slowly the social web drew me into the internet drama. An air of melancholy surrounds me knowing how the need of motivation to perform has let me down.
Perhaps some day I will start working without any motivation. Perhaps some day I’ll be a robot and a workaholic and finish all the works I was assigned for just days after it gets published. I’m not here to motivate you really. I’m just here to tell you to think about it. To be honest, I wouldn’t have posted this article if my coworker wasn’t bugging me to write one (I’m glad she did). Why? Cause I wasn’t motivated to write at the moment. All I can tell you is that all these “10 things to get you motivated” blogs or books or crap will not help you until you realize it yourself. If procrastination is your best friend, make him understand why something else is important to you. You don’t need good shoes to take you to good places, you need a drive and will to do so. Build it up and someday you never know, how high you’ll reach when you don’t need motivation to get everything done.