#5 ｜The motivation plateau is only a phase
Hello friends and strangers, Welcome.
For a very long time in life I was driven by fear and pain. Escaping from the pain became a reflex - when I felt boredom I sought entertainment, when I felt fear I sought achievement, and when I felt rejection I proactively sought more rejection so that reality was less intense. Viktor E. Frankl wrote, “When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.” Pleasure could also be replaced by fear and pain as they are practically the same thing - they are distractions.
Through observations and other mindfulness practice, I’m happy to reach a place where I’m less and less driven by the avoider inside of me. I could even say that I am now in the light at the end of the tunnel. I am no longer in the tunnel, I’m on a wide grass field.
Nat Eliason shared how he entered and exited the void - although I’m still far from working only 4 hours a week, removing the need to run away from a negative factor did the the same to me.
I hit my motivation plateau.
The first symptom I noticed was the lack of urgency. Nothing seems urgent enough for me to jump up and start working on it right away. When nothing on the urgent-important matrix is urgent, they also seem to move to the left of the two dimensional space for importance.
I also questioned the necessary of all the tasks that I used to think to be important. There is a course I planned to take in the winter semester which requires an application process due to limited space. I was excited and prepared to write the 4-page application essay until I realized the reason I wanted to take this course so bad was because I wanted to run away from my 9-5.
This change was cheerful but also confusing.
I wanted to not be forced into doing anything and have full autonomy. When I am here, the options are too wide open that put me into paralysis.
If the 4-month long lecture on Human Motivation back in university taught me anything, it would be that goals are essential while arbitrary. The secret of reaching goals, is to set reasonable goals that are measurable and achievable.
Maybe it’s not about the goals, or destinations. Maybe the journey itself is home. What is the journey is about identifying and facing the negative drivers, the things I wanted to run away from? What if this “none-motivated” state is also something so uncomfortable that I need to escape from?
I planned a list of things to do to “get out of” this state - maintaining daily practice, reading, picking up a new challenge etc etc. What if I don’t try to re-lit my motivation, and simply just accept it? This already an interesting experience on Earth.
For all I know, this plateau phase, like any other thing, is only temporary.I’m curious about what would come next. I could step into another story driven by avoiders and I might be able to learn more about myself, or I could manage to set up a new game for myself. And there is no rush.
Until next time.