Everyone Lies About How to Achieve Motivation
I’ve grown increasingly pissed off with what people out in the world are saying about getting yourself motivated, so much so that my first blog post on Southpaw is dedicated to something completely removed from growth hacking or marketing. There’s (a) a reason that everyone else is wrong, and (b) only one method that you can use to achieve true lasting motivation by using the unorthodox approach of a Southpaw.
…But first, the elephant in the room…
The Lie of Motivation
YEAH. I said it.
Everyone that claims to be able to ‘cure’ your lack of motivation, lack of drive, or lack of commitment to a task is simply lying. Infact, I would go as far to say that tradition motivation in a sense is broken. Big claim? Hell yeah. But I can back it up…
Who hasn’t heard the saying in startup circles “ideas are cheap” or “it’s 1% ideas 99% execution”. The way entrepreneurs are taught to look at this is that someone somewhere has probably had the same idea as you multiple times, hence your idea isn’t worth shit. But dig further. “It’s 99% execution”? The truth behind these sayings is that simply half the world cannot be fucked to follow through with the execution, leading to the first major road block of any prospective entrepreneur. The other half of the world will follow through with execution that is WRONG, leading to the second major road block of entrepreneurs.
Motivation is much the same. 50% of people wont realise they need re-motivating, will enjoy droll procrastination and ‘in the moment’ time wastes, and simply arent looking for solutions. (Let’s be honest, we’ll save these guys for another day). The other 50% that try tradition motivation are going about it in unproductive ways that will have little effect of their true success.
What Doesn’t Work
The most common ways I see for people to get motivated is to write lists of to-do’s, create future goals, or watch motivational speakers/talks/youtube videos. Problem? Planning out lists of to-dos or creating goals is a TIME WASTING activity, that may focus your mind onto all the work that still needs to be done, and in what order, but does little to motivate. In fact the sheer enormity of the task at hand can at times demotivate you. It allows you to further push back action, and it shies away from decision making bias. Watching speakers or listening to music to motivate on the other hand is ineffective because there is zero ‘personal ownership’ of the motivation process. You are not linked to the sudden change of behaviour, but simply a passenger on the sideline. This is an important psychological fault in traditional motivation courses and seminars that people pay tens of thousands for every year around the world.
The Success Recipe
BUT! There is a recipe for the most successful, most unorthodox way that an entrepreneur, YOU, or anyone can find motivation and fight your way to success. True moments of motivation require the following three things.
- An emotional assault of tension or fear
- Decision bias in the moment
- Patterns that set behaviours over time
The Mirror/Mirror Method
There are two types of mirrors in the world: regular mirrors (99.9% of all mirrors) that reflect your image back at you, and two way mirrors that allow you to look privately at what happens through the mirror.
If you are so focused on the success, the actions, the goals of everyone else in the world, looking at others Instagram/Facebook/Youtube accounts you’re looking through the two way mirror. It doesn’t provide real tangible benefit to yourself, but add up the time taken to do these things over days, months, years and see how you in the end end up living life through others, chasing others success and goals and aspirations and dreams.
Why does the majority of the world spent everyday looking through two way mirrors and then cry about lack of motivation, about procrastination, about not reaching their goals or having a path of success they want to follow. The world gave us 99.9% of mirrors to shine back at us to remind you to focus on your OWN growth, success, and actions.
The Mirror/Mirror Method works as follows:
Whenever you’re doing something whether that be scrolling through social media, watching tv, reading online article after article, think to yourself:
“Am I currently looking through a two way mirror? supporting the goals and dreams of others? living life through them? Or am I actively working towards MY goals and the impact i’ll leave on the earth”.
This powerful thought-exercise helps you minimise the things that dont contribute to helping you grow. But why is it effective?
- It brings tension to motivation and procrastination. It’s fucking scary to think that you would be spending days on end living through someone else’s life, and it becomes extremely effective to bring fear that you’re not going to achieve your goals
- It creates moments of immediate decision that forces you to evaluate your current actions straight away. No long process of listening to others motivate you, or writing lists that delay your decision making process. You straight away must determine if you’re looking into a two way mirror, or using the reflective mirror to chase your dreams. If its the former, you change to a better activity straight away.
- It sets positive patterns over time. As you more regularly ask yourself “which mirror am I looking at?” you develop a pattern of introspection, and become more away of your behaviours and procrastinations. It becomes exponentially easier to motivate yourself towards self fulfilling success driving activities the longer you use it.
Stop Being Average
Now when anyone says they know the secret to motivation, you know that they’re lying. The world is build on motivational methods that simply fuel the problem rather than alleviating them.
If you’re serious about chasing your goals and sucess rather than living through the success of others: add the Mirror/Mirror Method to your daily habits. You wont regret it!
Let me know below what you’ve done to fix your motivation and procrastination, and why you think it hasn’t worked.
