“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it” — Gautama Buddha
Motivation, throughout a lot of my life, has been a fleeting force, pulling me toward one venture or another. Unsettled, I would gravitate toward a particular interest for a short period, before losing drive and moving my focus to the next. Often using fictitious excuses to justify my departures from my various endeavours, I had accepted this was a part of me I could not change.
A few years ago, I experienced several dramatic changes in my life that allowed me the relief to reset the expectations I had of myself. This reorientation of my self-esteem put me in the position of losing all motivation to do anything—though not in a dispiriting way. Some reflection on my newfound lack of motivation brought me to the realisation that in the past, I had mostly been motivated by external expectation and validation.
Constant fluctuation between interests definitely took a hit on my self-efficacy, but this total lack of any motivation whatsoever was not something I had experienced before. I was fortunately in a pretty healthy mental state during this time, which allowed me to consider my situation optimistically and undertake an active and wholesome examination of what motivates me.
My mind had become clearer, and I sought to find out one thing: what do I do now?
I spent a lot of time enquiring into other people’s motivations and considering my own past motivations. These sorts of external motivations I held in the past were dependent on a consistent environment and because of this, they weren’t able to hold my attention for long—whether it was a business venture or a university degree, it always became something that I eventually detested.
The question of what motivates me without making me feel anxious stayed with me for some time.
Growing up, I suffered with generalised anxiety, and though I have a much better grasp on it today, it is something that greatly shaped the person I am today. I also realised I had quite the ego; never intent to do something purely on passion, I would set out to prove my worth to others. These introspective considerations prepared me to understand the barriers I had unconsciously internalised. If I were to find healthy motivation, I needed to cut off aspiration for external validation and focus on doing things I enjoyed solely for the sake of enjoyment.
“In our consciousness, there are many negative seeds and also many positive seeds. The practice is to avoid watering the negative seeds, and to identify and water the positive seeds every day.” — Thich Nhat Hanh
I recently came across the term Behavioural Activation—the act of engaging in meaningful activities that a person knows will contribute positively to their mood. It is a therapy commonly implemented to address depression, though, in my own case, I found it useful to practice actively directing my attention toward a project, even without the motivation, with the hope of finding it along the way. With this in mind, I picked up a hobby I had been considering for a while: drumming.
Following months of attending drumming lessons taught by my long-time friend Morgan, I sensed a hint of motivation—in the gradual improvement I found in drumming. It wasn’t instant gratification and it was not in working toward a goal, or in proving myself to others, but in doing something I enjoy and finding purpose in my practice alone. I actively took up what is called a beginner’s mindset. While I often set out to try and prove myself or to be entirely independent of all creative influence, I now set out to learn from others, content in the role of a novice, and intent on learning from those who inspire me.
Up to this day, I haven’t played drums in front of anybody (except for my wife who can’t help hearing it across the house). I resigned myself to a healthy sense of pride and internal validation, and in this way, I’m able to maintain a healthy ego; one that supports my self-esteem and discourages an unhealthy level of external dependency and self-importance. This freedom from external forces inspired me to take up courses in music theory and production, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Though before I was ready to take on my interests with confidence, it became apparent that another considerable barrier obstructing my path was accessibility; many of my interests in the past required an arduous and often time-consuming setup. This became immensely tedious and would undoubtedly contribute to further demotivation. In the practice of excessively researching an interest early on, I would rush into building an extensive and adversely complicated setup. Rather, I needed a pursuit I could pick up and begin doing right away.
Music led me to explore my passions in other art forms, and though I had long had a fascination for cinematography, it was classical film that fueled my admiration for analogue motion picture and still photography. Though I have only ever expressed myself creatively through music before, I believe that there is a general artistic archetype: a type of person who connects closely with the expression of emotion and who too has a desire to express themselves creatively in whatever medium they aspire to exercise. So, inspired by a love for visual artistry, I bought myself an old camera and took up my journey into photography.
As my self-efficacy grew, motivation came much more easily. I’m a lot more confident in pursuing larger projects, and by starting my journey at a steady pace—initially taking my film to be processed at the local lab—I was able to overcome my accessibility barrier, and naturally build the drive to begin processing my own film in my bathroom at home. With time, I came to the conclusion that establishing a healthy basis for motivation was necessary for me to sustain interest in a pursuit, and that genuine consideration needed to be put into what my motivations were. I only needed a starting point to begin a meaningful journey, and it was in this way that I was able to reclaim motivation.
