How to Keep Going
What is it that separates those who keep going from those who don’t? In times of hardship, how is it that some people find the motivation to continue on while others fall by the wayside and start on a new path? A common hardship that many people face is a lack of motivation. It’s easy to wish for a rush of motivation to just wash over us and breathe new light into us, but there are just a couple of problems with that.
It takes a lot for us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and keep going — a lot more than the self-help idiots who just yell, “Don’t quit’’ at us allow credit for. While hard work is something that people very much pride themselves on (especially in modern day America), this is more a product of nurture than nature. By nature, our brains aren’t conditioned to seek out challenging ways of doing things. They’re conditioned to restore energy and seek out the easiest way of doing things as possible. Finding the motivation to get through challenging times requires a little extra.
But what is that extra? Well let’s lighten things up and talk about my very favorite subject for a second: the puppies. How is it that we’re able to train puppies, who barely have any means of understanding us, to perform certain tasks with as much precision as another human would? There are two elements: reward and repetition. If you reward a puppy (or any animal for that matter) for performing any given task, they’ll be more likely to repeat it because the associate it with a reward. The more times it’s repeated with the reward, the more simple the task becomes for the puppy, eventually becoming like second nature.
The good news is that we have an awful lot in common with those cute little bastards, and one thing is that we speak and rely on this universal language of reward and repetition. Every single thing we do is done because we believe that it’s in our best interest, all things considered. There’s nothing we don’t do because we believe it will bring us some form of happiness, where ever it may stem from. For us to do anything at all, it’s necessary for us to believe in a reward on the other side. The more we’re given or reminded of this reward, the more likely we are to repeat the behavior.
Conversely, the more the expected reward is not given to us, the harder is to have faith in it’s arrival, and the less likely we’ll be to maintain the behavior. This is the point at which many people who have lost their motivation find themselves. They’ve lost in the inspiration to keep on trucking, because the reward they once believed in seems be going further out of sight.
The big question, then, is how to combat this. Well a lot of the reward we seek is something that comes from the outside. It’s important to remember that even when outer rewards are a virtual lock, we only have so much control over them.
Side note: It’s also important to remember that over time, our desired rewards may change. For example. you may become a plastic surgeon because it pays well, and a lot of people tie more money to more happiness. You’ll enjoy work and go to work dutifully as long as you’re getting your expected paycheck, but if the time comes when your happiness requires more than money — say it requires free time and you’re working all hours of the day — you’ll be less motivated by your job because it’s now interfering with your happiness.
So what happens in the event that we’re not receiving the outer rewards we seek, but we still believe in them enough to want to keep going? What do we do when we see the light at the end of the tunnel but it’s getting hard to keep climbing towards it? Make no mistake, this idea is applicable in a myriad of ways. It extends far beyond just jobs, which seems like it might be easiest to associate this with.
The key is to tune into other benefits, a lot of which may be intangible. It can be difficult for many of us to believe in, or even be cognizant of intangible rewards, but it’s essential in maintaining good habits that haven’t yet paid off in the way you envisioned them paying off. What does this look like? Let’s use an example of someone who’s running for political office, which I’ll tread carefully with considering I’m pretty useless when it comes to politics:
Running for office is a huge task. It takes a humongous amount of commitment and the end goal, to be elected, is pretty clear. Certainly at points, the required sacrifice stands a chance of weighing down on the candidate, making it difficult for them to keep pushing and ask themselves if it’s really all worth it. At this point, the candidate has the option of redefining their definition of “winning”. Even if they don’t win the election, is it not a win to have engaged more with the community? Is it not a win to have gained the trust of some potential voters? Is it not a win to pay more attention to and do more for those who are struggling? Is it not a win to have gained more knowledge about politics? Is it not a win to have gained more understanding as to the stress those currently in office are under? The list goes on, and reframing one’s mind to see “winning” from wider lens in this way is very much a difference maker when it comes to retaining motivation.
And don’t think for a second that this mindset isn’t valuable after the election if they’ve lost, or for you if whatever you once set out to accomplish doesn’t come to fruition in the way you thought it would. In this way, we see that redefining a win by seeking out smaller, more unique wins, is also a means of both avoiding regret and gaining gratitude.
So if you’re struggling to keep going or you’re reflecting on that which didn’t go as planned, take this time to ask yourself what the rewards are that exist beyond that one, hearty goal you envisioned.
