Finding Motivation
Anybody that has spent time in web3 knows it can be hard to keep your motivation up. Not only is there an endless feeling that you might miss out on the next big thing, but most of us are putting in effort creating and being active community members and project ambassadors without payment. The best we can usually hope for is a project that brings a good return on our investment, but these days even that can be hard to come by.
Because of this, it’s easy to burn out and feel unmotivated. To want to give it all up and just go back to other work and interests that aren’t so deeply embedded in the online world of discord servers, twitter spaces and crypto hype cycles. So how can we stay motivated in web3? What kinds of things can keep us passionate and inspired to create and participate?
I’ve picked five different areas (and one bonus tip) that I think can help us adjust perspective and feel more satisfied with our time spent in this digital landscape. Because, in the end, motivation comes when we feel inspired and our efforts are acknowledged… so finding motivation comes down to a few things that keep us in that zone.
- Know Thyself
It’s an ancient aphorism, that runs throughout many of our spiritual and philosophical traditions — but perhaps the most important thing we can pursue in our search for motivation is the understanding of who we are.
This is, of course, much easier to say than do. Indeed, it’s something that can take an entire lifetime and even then there’s no guarantee that we’ll arrive at a true understanding of ourselves. But any progress made will have a positive impact.
By coming to ‘know thyself’ we build confidence that we are working in the right areas and for the right reasons. We are less swayed by the opinions of others, particularly changing trends, because we are able to consider information and see how it applies to our personal goals and abilities. In the context of web3 this becomes even more important, because there’s a ‘new meta’ every week and the psychological push of FOMO can cause us to make poor decisions and fail to work towards a long-term plan.
2. Listen to Intuition
Once we become more in touch with who we are, then we can find more room to listen to our intuition. Intuition is an interesting concept to explore more deeply, because it is a term that speaks to a lot of the subconscious drivers of human activity and motivation.
Intuition is that part of us that has constructed a holistic view of how something is operating, in all its vast complexity, and fits into our own place and role in the world. It can lead us to correct actions that we might be pursuing for the wrong reasons, or push us to put more effort into something that in the near-term might feel ineffective but is working towards greater things in future.
3. Find Your Passion
Through the process of ‘know thyself’ and an ability to listen to our intuition, we are guided to that emotional driver which is passion. Being passionate about something essentially means you find enjoyment and/or fulfilment from pursuing it, which is perhaps the most powerful motivator.
When you are doing the things you are passionate about they don’t feel like work. The effort emerges naturally and you actually receive energy from putting in the time needed to progress. We have all experienced this feeling, which means that we also have a good sense of when you are lacking in passion for something.
A lack of passion in the activity you are doing, particularly when it comes to web3, is almost always a sign that you need to change your approach. You need to find ways to generate new interests and creative inspiration, which comes from broadening your horizons and trying to do things differently then you have been.
This can come from simple changes, but the key thing is to mix up your routine and break out of the habits that are draining you rather than providing you with the energy needed to continue on your journey.
4. Surround Yourself with Positivity
It’s easy to succumb to a negative mindset that always sees the flaws in projects and wants to point them out. But we need to be honest with ourselves that this approach rarely leads to anything productive. Mostly it’s about venting frustration and impatience (usually around financial returns), but it has a knock-on effect that not only demotivates ourselves but also sucks the energy out of a community and pushes away those who might be able to help it succeed.
So it’s important to try to surround yourself with positive people, while being a ‘half glass full’ type person yourself. Not hype-merchants that make hollow promises, but people who are optimistic about what web3 can bring to the world and want to help it get there. Taking a step back from being concerned about floor price and instead considering how we can work together to do things that make a real difference.
Enthusiasm is infectious, so making sure you are surrounded by the right kind of energy is an important part of keeping motivated. Once you surround yourself with positive people (and learn to respond calmly to negativity), then you can start to look at things constructively and purposefully. This is where the real ‘building’ happens, as networks of like-minded people use their talents to achieve a common goal.
5. Small Steps, Big Dreams
Sometimes we lose motivation because what we seek feels unobtainable. If we look at the end point, the amount of effort required to get there (and setbacks along the way) can be disheartening. So it’s important to focus on things that are achievable and can be consistently delivered.
Motivation is in large part habitual. By building routines and putting effort into tasks that can be completed on a regular basis, you create both the habits required to be productive and the reward-mechanisms that give you the energy to do so.
But focusing on small tasks doesn’t mean that we should lose sight of the big picture. When we are motivated by a deep sense of purpose, the work we do each day builds to something more meaningful and fulfilling over the long term. Sometimes you need to just make sure you get the next step done, though, and remind yourself that even the largest projects are made up of small, actionable pieces.
Bonus: Read More
A final action we can take to be more motivated is perhaps the most simple, which is to read more. By reading more (or listening to longer lectures) we can learn from the thoughts and wisdom that others have gained from their own journey.
Everything in web3 is so focused on the short-term attention spans of digital realms that it seems reading has become a lost art. We’re lucky if we can get through a 5min summary post, let alone a whole book based on years of careful thought, research and experience. But it’s important to break through this apathy, because when you read and digest new ideas you are then able to have original thoughts of your own. You grow as a person and consider things from different perspectives, combining what you learn with your own skills and experience.
Reading is one of those things that sounds so simple, because it is. But it allows us to come into contact with the core of the human experience and our ability to share different viewpoints that span across space and time.
Conclusion
In closing, finding motivation in web3 can feel like a challenging task. It’s easy to become burnt out, but we need to be honest with ourselves as to why we are feeling that way. When we begin to examine our reasons for being here and what drives our behaviour it can bring into play issues of addiction, compulsive behaviour and misdirected efforts — often situated on an ever-present profit motive that can have a detrimental effect on both our integrity and wellbeing.
Finding motivation when we find it difficult to continue moving forward means widening our sense of why we are here… which often means finding other reasons to participate in web3 than purely financial gain.
What that means will be different for all of us, but we can be assured that if we are able to do so then we will have a more fulfilling, productive and joyful time in web3. Because motivation is really about what drives us to be the best possible version of ourselves.
