Complement Personal Motivation With “Empathetic Motivation” to Help Unlock Your Highest Potential
By: Akshad Singi
Tags: Inspiration, Ideas, Life Lessons, Psychology, Advice

Complement Empathetic Motivation With Personal Motivation

Siddhartha Gautama was born into royalty in Nepal. At his birth, it was predicted that he would grow up to be a powerful king or a spiritual leader. Since his parents wanted him to be the former, they did all they could to prevent Siddhartha from seeing the suffering of the world. He was surrounded with all pleasures of life in his luxurious kingdom, which he seldom left.

However, at the age of 29 on a rare outing, Gautama witnessed someone who was desperately sick. The following day, he saw a decrepit old man and finally, a dead man. He was devastated to realize that all of this suffering will befall everyone he loves as well.

The next day, Gautama found himself mesmerized at the sight of a meditator. He suddenly realized that the truth of what he was looking for was inside the mind, not outside. In search of liberation from suffering, Gautama, after rigorous self-experimentation, rediscovered Vipassana — a meditation technique to help liberate people from suffering. He then spent the rest of his life working hard to spread awareness of Vipassana to help people live happier lives. This is perhaps the best example of empathetic motivation I can think of.

We’re used to thinking of motivation coming only from our selfish selves. “Work hard to manifest your own dreams”, they say. And that’s good. However, the way I see it is that if your personal dreams align with the common good of the world, there are two sides to motivation.

Your selfish gains : For instance, I’m a writer. Roughly half (maybe more) of the reason that I write is that I like writing, I get to make money off of doing something I love, I get to be creative, etc. This is the ‘I’ side of motivation.

: For instance, I’m a writer. Roughly half (maybe more) of the reason that I write is that I like writing, I get to make money off of doing something I love, I get to be creative, etc. This is the ‘I’ side of motivation. Your selfless empathy: But at least a part of the reason I write is also to help other people. I feel that I know certain things about life and I feel it’s my responsibility to share the truth to help people be happier. This is the empathetic part of the motivation.

And we all know how to draw from our selfish source of motivation. However, I realized that the empathetic source of motivation is quite powerful as well. The findings of an old study suggested that when subjects were asked to induce high empathy, they were more likely to help others selflessly. Ergo, if your goals serve both yourself and the world, why not use both personal motivation and empathetic motivation to unlock your highest potential?

You’re well aware of how to exploit personal motivation. I won’t go over that. But if you want to exploit more of your potential, try to complement that with empathetic motivation. You can do that by both seizing and scheduling moments to practice empathetic motivation.

Seizing : When someone around you suffers and you feel empathetic for them, try to remind yourself of the grand scheme of suffering in the entire world. Use this to motivate yourself to work harder to make this world a happier place in any way you can.

: When someone around you suffers and you feel empathetic for them, try to remind yourself of the grand scheme of suffering in the entire world. Use this to motivate yourself to work harder to make this world a happier place in any way you can. Scheduling: In my 7-step mindfulness routine, I used to practice compassion every morning. Now, I have upgraded that to empathetic motivation. I try to purposefully remind myself of the suffering in the world to motivate myself to work harder to be a better doctor and a better writer to help reduce people’s suffering.

Don’t worry, I’m not delusional. I know that it’s much easier said than done. Empathy is a powerful emotion and to use it to motivate yourself may not always be possible. But we can try, can’t we? We cannot always help people who are suffering, but the way I see it if I can use empathy to motivate myself to work harder to make this world a better place, why not do it?