Our own relation with ourselves
The motivation in not trying to achieve
You’ve probably seen a couple of motivational texts and videos before in the lines of:
- not giving up and each day becoming better than the day before
- pushing your mind and body near the breaking point trying to reach your goals
- how successful people usually start their typical day.
Carpe diem… well no, not today.
Motivation doesn’t have to have an end result
There’s success in every corner of our little world. In our social media accounts, on the news and in the far distance of our own expectations and imaginations. When we set goals it’s more often than not secretly implied everything less than the success we set out for is instead automatically considered a failure.
We need to do well in school, at work, with our personal relations and at last when we might have achieved all of that, our relation to ourselves, though, we never really get the to spend time on that last one.
Who’s to say that success is achieving high grades in school? Or as measured in the stories of the fortune and fame from the ones who didn’t do well at the bench?
Don’t get me wrong, all of that is inspiring and we should have things to aspire in life, and try to bettering ourselves. What I’m about to describe might seem contradictory.
Motivation lies in not trying to constantly achieve everything that someone else is expecting of you, even though that someone is the fiction of your own imagination, cultural beliefs or actual persons in your surroundings.
- Motivation is in itself being comfortable with your own qualities and limitations.
- A goal is in itself defining for yourself what you want to become better at because of an underlying passion of wanting it and not being obliged to do it.
I’ve had good grades. I’ve had lesser. I’ve pushed my body not near but past the breaking point and in a way I did succeed what I set my mind to but at the price of my health. If the wind blows in my direction, I might enroll in engineering studies in the near future and I’m more than happy have found out that: I want it, I crave it and I desire it because of my curiosity and willingness to learn and evolve, to learn something technical and to unlock the creative side of me at the same time.
It is admirable and inspirational to hear the stories from people who have pursued their dreams, who took a detour instead of the highroad and eventually came out at the top. Success! Right?
But what about all those others who had the same dreams and the same visions that didn’t end up on the news or had the breakthrough it’s seems that all of us are trying to reclaim as our own. I think that they are as much winners as the ones who have found their way into the spotlight. (Is the spotlight something we must aspire?) These people had the motivation of doing what they had the desire to, there’s a large achievement in being able coming as far as that. They succeeded for the benefit of themselves and not for others.
Not living up to your own expectations is not failure. Having the will and the motive in the first place, that’s the success!
