How to Stay Motivated at all times? Wake up!!!
Last week, a friend of mine asked me, “ How can I constantly stay motivated at all times? Is it possible to perform consistently throughout the lifetime in order to live blissfully?”. I remarked, “ Yes. Definitely. That’s possible. But for that, you have to die. Then only your life can be represented by a constant smooth curve”.
In engineering, we often refer to conditions as ‘ideal’ or ‘real’. Ideal conditions are those set of standard points which the real ones try to achieve but only end up getting near to those, even when everything is just perfect.
Staying motivated all times is that ideal condition which all real men crave to achieve in the illusion of being perfect every time. Can it really happen?
If you are a logical person, you’ll probably know the answer.
Motivation simply means ‘energy’; energy to perform a particular task or something which you desire to do, and continuously do it to achieve your goals. Goal setting is important. Working for these goals consistently and backing them with persistence is important too in order to produce the required outcomes.
But, does achieving those goals call for an incessant work routine? Does it demands to take more from your body than you can ever recoup? Or does it simply requires you to do the donkey’s work?
Remember the story of “The two woodcutters” —
“ Once there were two woodcutters named Peter and John. They were often at loggerheads over who chopped more wood. So one day they decided to hold a competition. The rules were simple — whoever produce the most wood at the end of the day wins.
The next day, both the men took their positions and started chopping the wood as fast as possible. After an hour of cutting, Peter suddenly stopped. The chopping sound ceased. Thinking that his opponent is already exhausted, John continued to cut the trees with double the pace.
Tirelessly cutting trees for over an hour, John heard the chopping sound of his opponent again. This continued whole the day.
Every hour Peter stopped cutting for fifteen minutes while John was endlessly cutting trees.
At the end of the day, John was confident enough to taste the victory. To his amazement, Peter had cut far more trees than him.
“How’s this even possible? I heard you stop working every hour for fifteen minutes”, exclaimed John. Peter replied, “Well, it’s really simple. Every time I stopped work, while you were still chopping down trees, I was SHARPENING MY AXE.” SEE?”
Most people aspire to become successful and that, according to them, demands a lot of vigorous efforts, sleepless nights and a constant everlasting motivation. They believe “ Hard work is the key to success” and hence keep working interminably.
If only hard work was the key to success, ragpickers, taxi drivers and sewer cleaners would be the wealthiest individuals living on this planet.
Being motivated all time, or rather being energetic every time implies twenty-four hours of continuous hard work without any rest. After a couple of days of this schedule, you yourself will not know which way your life is going. Forget about productivity and efficiency, you’ll be in a certain state of ‘dis-ease’.
You want to take work from your body but how often do you work on the mind and body?
The mind needs rest to think. Rest doesn’t necessarily has to be in the form of sleep. Rest means you’re changing the energy equation — where consumption is lower, production is at the same pace. This not only makes you more stable and efficient but helps you to sharpen the axe too.
Abraham Lincoln once said, “If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.”
Peruse the story of woodcutters once more if you haven’t come out of the threatening illusion of staying motivated at all times.
How to sharpen the axe?
So, now you know that any person, if alive, will not have a monotonically-increasing performance curve and an enduring motivation. One is bound to face impediments in order to achieve their dreams. Life without problems( if you see them as problems :D ) is analogous to a child who never annoys or a river which doesn’t flow.
“Remember that life is full of ups and downs. Without the downs, the ups would mean nothing”
So, if we can’t stay motivated at all times, the next question arises, can we stay motivated at most of the times.
Yes. Definitely, a big Yes!!!
This is ‘the most important’ difference between those who achieve their vision and those who don’t- looking towards the positive side of reality and being solution oriented.
Most people are too busy doing and trying to achieve, that they never take time to learn and grow. Most of us don’t have the time or patience to update skills, knowledge, and beliefs about an industry, or to take time to think and reflect. We believe learning ends at school and hence, sharpening the axe doesn’t remain the priority anymore.
What exactly is sharpening the axe?
If you are occupied with a myriad of tasks and your productivity declines, take a break. Taking a break helps you to rest and think properly. It gives you more clarity about the present situation, thereby alleviating stress and worry.
But wait. Is that it? Do we simply take a break, rest and relax? Will it, in any way, bring us near to what we intend to accomplish?
Taking a break means keeping the axe down. It doesn’t means sharpening it. The axe will remain dull even after it is kept down.
Yes, the woodcutter needs to rest but it is only by the virtue of sharpening the blade, learning new skills and persistent training, does the woodcutter increases his productivity and achieves his aim.
Dr Stephen Covey, who popularised the term( sharpening the axe ), believes that it means “increasing your personal production capacity by daily self-care and self-maintenance”.
The internet is filled with a million resources to teach you ‘ how to be more productive and sharpen the axe’. Some of the best suggestions include — Exercise, meditation, reading books( a lot!!! ), learning new skills and so on.
I completely agree with most of these suggestions. If practised earnestly, these skills can aid you to become the best version of yourself. You will improve every day, becoming better than yesterday.
My aim is not the repetition of all these ‘productivity hacks’. You can read these online. There are tons of resources on them.
I want to present something really new and fresh in front of you. This trick, if practised fervently on a daily basis, can produce some tremendous outcomes.
All those who have used this trick in the past, or still practice it, are some of the world’s most sought-after individuals. The world views them as leaders. Some of those who mastered the trick produced overwhelming results and astonishing revelations and discoveries.
“ Every day, just for a few minutes, stay completely calm and quiescent. Don’t think anything. Don’t do anything. Just sit in a comfortable posture and be completely aware about your surroundings. Hear different sounds. Notice your breath. Notice your heartbeat . Concentrate on the nerve movements in different parts of the body. Do it for 5 minutes initially. Gradually increase the time, and within few days you’ll recognize someone whom you have never met before — ‘the better you’ ”.
Once someone asked Andrew Carnegie, “ You didn’t know much about steel. You didn’t have a strong background either. How did you then built a company worth three hundred dollars in a short period of time, with a limited number of resources and an initial dwindling economy”. “ I can focus on a particular task for five minutes which most people can’t”, replied Carnegie.
How simple it seems, right? Just five minutes of focus on a particular job. Well, if you find it so simple, try it once. You’ll probably know why did Carnegie mention it.
When you become completely aware of what’s happening around you, and reach a state of quiescence, you are actually strengthening the chunks of information in your brain.
Every day your mind accepts infinite chunks of information and only a handful of those are important for you. If these chunks, scientifically known as neural connections, are not strengthened, you might not remember most of what you study or read.
That’s why more emphasis is paid on revision. Revision helps in strengthening those meaningful neural connections to retain information for a longer period.
This “true rest” is a condition where you aren’t sleeping but trying to be just more aware. It will not take many days to increase your attention span and concentrating power considerably by practising this one simple approach sincerely.
History has witnessed great scientists who used to contemplate for hours, in some cases even days, without doing anything. That was not the state of staying ‘idol’ but a state of thorough awareness.
On the other hand, history is also filled with tons of examples of scientists who worked relentlessly day and night, without actually knowing what their final aim was, and failed miserably.
Well, I am not against working hard towards your goal but being engaged in a work which is supposed to yield some rewarding outcome at the end without analysing the present situation is utter stupidity.
Conclusion:
Feeling good doesn’t just happen. You need to take the necessary time to create growth and change in your life.
Warren Buffet, one of the richest man on this planet, credits his great money decisions to his voracious reading habit (80% of his time is spent on reading).
Toyota invests time and money into their employees, developing a continuous improvement culture — a true model for a learning organization.
Most people are born, grow in size, do the donkey’s work and die. History cites innumerable examples of these busy people who are ought to perish. I can’t lay more stress on the importance of introspection and resting( the “true rest”) in order to have a clear, coherent vision.
Aristotle once said, “ Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” And it’s with the continuous act of introspection every day that you know yourself better, and act in a smarter way.
At the end of the day, if you don’t spend time sharpening the axe… it will just get blunt and ineffective. The greatest asset we have, the human mind, then will be no better than an animal’s mind.
Make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
Do comment, clap and share if you found something new and worth reading. Hope it had a positive impact on your life :D
