You Cannot Think Up Motivation
By: Atheno Boldly Fearless
Tags: Productivity, Creativity, Self Improvement, Motivation, Art

I see so many young men struggling to motivate themselves, and it is uniquely painful for me to see because I know their pain so well.

I remember spending nights, locked up in my room, staring at an empty page, desperately trying to write an essay, or finish a school project.

I remember pulling all-nighters in college and have nothing to show for it but self-hatred and doubt about my own value.

I remember being entrusted with important tasks by people I cared for and finding myself mysteriously unable to accomplish them.

I’ve talked a good deal about my struggles with motivation related to my writing.

While I was in this phase of un-motivation (which extended well beyond just writing), a good friend of mine told me to stop thinking so much.

I didn’t understand what he meant by this at the time. Stop thinking? Thinking is all I had! My mind was the only part of myself that felt sacred, and so my rational faculties were what I most protected.

For example, I never engaged in drugs or alcohol, not because I had been well-inculcated with self-preserving values, but because I was terrified of losing perfect control over my mental faculties.

I once got only slightly drunk and was so distraught at the decrease in my ability to communicate that I didn’t touch alcohol again for over a year.

So the idea of not thinking seemed ridiculous, and I said so. I pushed aside his advice and continued to try working out a rational solution to my problem with motivation.

The question foremost in my mind during those years was, “why am I unmotivated?”

Now, as I watch other young men asking themselves this question, I understand why it is entirely the wrong question to be focusing on.

Wondering why you are unmotivated has a natural progression of thoughts that follows.

You might begin by researching the science of motivation and procrastination, which will likely make you feel as though you are more normal. While this might offer a surface-level sensation of relief, it comes with the assumption that lack of motivation is acceptable, and will thus only perpetuate your procrastination and deepen your malaise.

You might come to think that there is something inherently wrong with you — that you are broken and simply incapable of the motivation and focus your peers display. This will be all the more frustrating because you (likely rightly) see yourself as more intelligent than your peers, yet somehow, they are able to accomplish more than you.

Little do you know that it is precisely because they are not as rational as you that they are more motivated — their mind doesn’t get in the way!

Further and further into this pit of conflicting ‘rationality’ you will go, layering tips, strategies, and motivational habits upon each other until you so thoroughly confuse yourself that your mind shuts down, resets, and begins the process again.

What you may notice, though, is that it is during these shutdowns that you are the most motivated.

The reason for this is simple.

Motivation is not a product of the mind.

Motivation is a product of passion — it is an emotional experience. You cannot talk yourself into doing anything that your heart is not committed to, and you certainly cannot talk your heart into committing to anything.

The brain is susceptible to the logic of the heart, but the heart is immune to the logic of the brain.

So what is passion? How can it be achieved?

Ah, such an analytical question. Do you see the irony?

The truth is, you have passions. You have an internal compass that is constantly trying to orient you towards your deepest desires. The only question is, are you listening to it?

The reason for these passions is not consequential, nor is it always discernible. All that matters is that they exist, and they cannot be rationalized away.

Your mind is a tool to be used in the service of your passions. You are unmotivated because you are trying to reverse this relationship. You are trying to use your passion as a tool of your mind.

You are thinking too much.

Your mind is like a GPS app — it is a tool that gets you from point A to point B. It helps you reach your goals. But the GPS app cannot tell you what your destination is. That is for you, your heart, to decide.

When you lead with the heart, you allow it to set your destination. When that happens, the GPS is able to serve you by plotting a route from where you are to where you want to go.

Yet, when you lead with the mind, you are asking the GPS to decide what your destination ought to be. It’s a conundrum that doesn’t even fail because it cannot start. You can ask over and over, with as much intensity as you wish, yet the GPS will never tell you what your destination ought to be, and so you will simply never move.

Your heart is in charge of the gas pedal, and won’t press down and get the wheels spinning until it is pointed towards a destination worth getting to.

When your heart refuses to fuel your pursuits, it is because you have the car pointed at a cliff.

Your mind will tell you, adamantly, that you ought to go in a certain direction, for some highly rational reason. You have to graduate from college to get a job. You have to go to Thanksgiving with the in-laws to maintain family relationships. You have to mow the lawn so it looks nice and impresses the neighbors. Whatever.

But the heart has deeper wisdom. It fuels your motivation not based on rationalizations, but by asking a simple question — will doing this fulfill me? Does this road lead to where I most want to go?

If the answer is no, it will never hit the gas, as much as you rage and pound on the dashboard.

It is only by aligning your mind with your heart’s desires — by punching the right destination into your GPS — that you will ever get anywhere.

Knowing your goals — the parameters within which you live your life — will allow you to bring the mind and the heart into alignment, and the flood of motivation that follows will astonish you.

And when you encounter a task you just cannot get yourself to do, stop and consult not with your mind, but with your heart. Your mind thinks that this task is necessary, but your heart disagrees. So hear your heart’s concerns, its doubts, its alternative suggestions, and heed its wisdom.

When I was in high school and college and couldn’t motivate myself, the answer was simple — my mind thought I needed this to become a writer or a success in life, but my heart knew that was BS.

My heart knew the truth — that every minute I was spending in college, surrounded by brainwashed and directionless peers, being mentored by milquetoast adults, was shearing away my potential bit by bit, and killing my love of life.

My heart knew I didn’t need this. My heart knew I could do it without the approval of professors and nice pieces of paper.

When I was unmotivated at my job, it was because my heart knew that the company was slowly dying, and it was time to get out before I got taken down with it.

When I was unmotivated in a relationship, it was because my heart knew I could never have the family I wanted with that woman.

When I was unmotivated to talk to my parents, it was because their presence was depressing my will to follow through on my dreams.

Every time, my heart has been right. More right than I could have ever known had I only trusted my mind.

The truth is, more often than not, when I am struck with a lack of motivation, I don’t even begin to understand the reason for it until after I turn the wheel and adjust course according to my heart’s commands. But I have learned to always trust the obstinate tendencies of my heart.

It has invariably led me to smoother roads.