How to achieve self-motivation? Is it truly possible to become self-motivated or is it just a myth? Do we all have the ability to self-motivate ourselves without any kind of external stimulus?
One giant portion of the entire internet is occupied with the self-development related subjects.
Among many different topics, self-motivation is the term that’s been frequently researched.
People across the globe are seeking for some kind of guidance to finally learn how to jump-start their lives. They are all eager to learn how to become self-motivated.
Of course, it didn’t take long before supply over exceeded the demand. The “Coaches” from all around the world rushed to “teach” the average man how to enforce self-motivation.
Needless to say that almost 99% of the materials discussing this topic are useless because they are ignoring the basic human biology.
Willpower can be trained, that’s a fact, but the real question is:
Can everyone achieve superior or at least adequate results?
Unfortunately, due to one specific biological factor, this is mission impossible for the major part of the human population!
Jim Rohn once said: “The best motivation is self-motivation. The guy says, ‘I wish someone would come by and turn me on.’ What if they don’t show up? You’ve got to have a better plan for your life.”
And while we cannot disagree with the man, the fact is that self-motivation, as the personal ability, exists only in a handful of cases. The majority, or some 80% of the entire population, is simply unable to enforce self-motivation out of nowhere or just because they WANT something.
In other words, without the MUST, there’s no motivation to change anything.
The reason lies in our evolution
First people were ultimate hedonists and selfish beings. They were loners, who were wandering around, searching for food and water and an occasional chance for propagation.
Nobody can say when or why exactly, but our neuronal network changed.
With the increasing development of the frontal lobe and additional layers of neocortex, one of the first things we lost, as a species, was hedonism.
A new chemical formed in our brain that forced us into the tighter groups.
‘The Stone Age’ (1882-1885), detail of a painting by Viktor M. Vasnetsov., courtesy of Ancient Origins
It’s oxytocin, or the bonding chemical, responsible for establishing emotional connections with other members of our species and beyond.
As we were grouping and forming small communities, we began to collaborate more closely. The last traces of those selfish and hedonistic creatures who were concerned only with their own well-being and survival were gone. Humans became givers and sharers rather than self-absorbed individuals.
Yet, the hedonism, as the part of our DNA, has never vanished.
Reduced to a bare minimum, this gene managed to replicate itself through generations. It still resides in each and every one of us.
For the reason unknown, in each generation, this gene gets activated in a small percentage of the population.
These people do not require external stimuli. They are self-driven by birth. And while few even manage to impose themselves as the leaders, most are perceived as selfish and therefore avoided by the general population.
However, the innate hedonism, this ancient trait of the first people, keeps them highly motivated even though they are obviously excommunicated.
Self-motivation comes naturally for greedy, selfish and self-absorbed people
In other words, they are less prone to experience serotonin deprivation, which means that they are unlikely to fall into a state of depression. The entire situation only adds to their determination.
We know them as arrogant, self-absorbed, self-centered, over-assertive, egocentric, ultimately selfish, self-adequate, and not caring.
These attributes are largely wrong and caused by envy and resentment.
In reality, the vast majority of hedonists are also true philanthropists, responsible for helping thousands and even millions in need. Their hedonistic nature enabled them to remove all limits and reach the very top of the social class ladder.
Where this leaves the rest of population?
Are you an emphatic person? Do you put other people’s interest first? Do you care? Are you concerned about the general well-being? If you build a doomsday shelter, will you allow/invite strangers?
If you’ve answered ‘Yes’ to any or all of these question, self-motivation is not an easy option in your case.
You need external stimuli such as:
- Over-controlling and hard to satisfy father or mother figure
- Demanding wife
- Hunger or some other extreme type of trigger of survival mode.
- GREED!
Everything else is most likely pointless.
For example, to become self-motivated in, let’s say, an attempt to start a private business, you will first have to quit your current job and lead yourself to uncertainty. Anxiety and stress must rise. You have to feel endangered.
Only then, you will gain enough self-motivation to do what has to be done.
The moment of realization that no paycheck is coming your way anytime soon or ever again is what majority of people needs to switch from the employee (prey) mentality to the employer (predator) one.
However, self-motivation without the brain is useless.
Therefore, if you are about to adopt our suggestion, you are advised to make the precise game plan beforehand. In other words, don’t rush. Be smart. Develop and test everything prior to resigning from your duties.
Radical as it may seem, this is the only viable and effective option to become self-driven, for people who are not hedonists. And that’s the large majority of the human population.
But, as you remember correctly, we did mention that the willpower can be trained in the same fashion as a bodybuilder is training his muscles. Only, in case of the willpower, training is simple: you only need one weight and one exercise.
How to train your will to become self-motivated?
The training itself is connected with the mechanism responsible for creating habits. The point is to remove the bad habit and introduce the good one.
RECOMMENDED:
How to Change a Habit, step-by-step guide
For instance, let’s say that you are vigorous eater. Perhaps even borderline obese, to use as an analogy.
How do you stop eating? How do you impose much-needed discipline to prevent yourself from opening the fridge every two hours?
Simple. You just have to change one focus of your interest while everything else stays exactly the same.
You take notes, precise notes, about everything you bought and everything you ate, and you read those notes – frequently.
How does it work?
The problem with the obese people is that they live in a constant duality between what they want and what they need. They want to eat. But they need health.
Instead of being “greedy” for well-being and health, they are “greedy” for food. A full belly is more important than heart disease prevention.
The term “greedy” is deliberately used here to emphasize the NEED for something. Because, biologically speaking, obese people do, in fact, have an increased need for food because their large bodies demand additional nutrients and water for blood production, for example. Simply put, they are GREEDY. And they can’t stop being greedy.
It’s now only the matter of changing the focus of their GREED.
What’s the second-to-none interest of practically every human being on this planet?
Do you think money wages at least similar importance to overweighed person as food? Most likely, it does. Therefore, we can utilize money to change the focus of greed.
This is how you do it:
- You give the obese person a notebook and a pen and ask that he or she writes down the purchased food, time of every particular purchase and finally, the amount of money spent – every time, without exceptions.
- Then, you ask that every single piece of food taken through a meal be noted and timestamped.
- Finally, you request the obese person to read the notes at least 3 times a day.
It takes a tremendous level of discipline to manage something like this when you are driven by that powerful urge for food.
However, after just 30 days of meticulous noting and reading, EVERY OBESE PERSON WHO DID THIS EXERCISE MANAGED TO DROP SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF WEIGHT![1]
In addition, they became better at managing their money.
Thus, two new good habits instead of one bad in 30 days.
All it took was a simple change of focus, non-physical activity and visualization of real expenses. Awareness about serious financial losses was enough to create a series of positive habits and put the life of the former obese person on a certain growth trajectory path.
This serves as a proof that we can train our will and change our habits if we change our greed focus. Same can be done with virtually any bad habit.
The conclusion is obvious
Self-motivation is conditioned with the level of greed.
It’s not enough to simply want something. One has to become needy for it. Same as the obese person is in real physical need for food, so must be the one who is trying to impose discipline in own life.
That’s easier said than done, right?
Not necessarily.
First, you need to find your predominant interest – your need.
For instance, you want to spend the rest of your life doing nothing but watching TV shows and sports.
It can be done, no question about it. Only, it must become your obsession. Your need. You have to be GREEDY about it.
Your brain knows that you can’t just ditch everything and devote time to your couch. Sooner than later you’ll run out of food and die. That’s why you get that sense of anxiety when you are procrastinating in front of your TV while there’s a need to do some work or run some errands. The brain is fucking with you, trying to get you moving.
You can utilize this same mechanism to your best advantage.
As the first step, you need to make a basic calculation.
How much money do you need for the next 70 years to be able to watch TV professionally?
To make that calculation, estimate your daily needs, multiply everything by 30 to get the monthly break-even point (NEED). Multiply the sum by 12 to get the annual result and finally multiply that annual result with 70.
Now you have a simple and rather specific financial goal.
$3,360,000.00
That’s how much you need to be able to live for the rest of your days in a sofa, watching TV for the next 70 years, if $4K a month is enough to satisfy your needs.
That’s $337 daily.
All you have to do now is spend time figuring out the system that will bring you $337 + taxes each day for the next 70 years.
Still feels like mission impossible?
It shouldn’t because our connected world is providing us with the neat ability to make money round the clock without our direct influence.
The world never sleeps. For every second of every minute, there’s someone paying for something. Millions of trades are being executed each second all around the world.
337/24=14.04 or to make a nice round number, let’s say that we need to make $15 per hour.
It’s just a matter of making 24 individual sales during a single 24-hour day.
To show you how simple it is to achieve this goal, we ask that you imagine your favorite barber.
How many clients does he serve during a single 8-hour shift? Far more than 24, that’s for sure. And he’s got far more than $15 per capita, right?
Hence, it’s fairly easy to make 24 sales in 8 hours. Only, you have 24 hours at your disposal which makes everything even simpler.
You see, one additional trend is helping us to reach our ultimate goal of becoming professional TV watchers.
In the last couple of years, communication technologies have been significantly improved and spread over the much larger area.
Today, close to 4 billion people connect to the internet each day.
That’s 4,000,000,000 to bring that number closer to you.
From that 4,000,000,000, you need only 732 or less than 0.00002% of the market share.
Does that seem like something achievable?
If you have any doubts, please estimate the number of different purchases you did online last month. If it’s at least 1, there you have it. It’s only reasonable to believe that you’re not the only one willing to spend money online.
What you need to do know is to spend some time learning how money is made online and that’s it. If you are truly determined to succeed as a professional TV watcher, it shouldn’t take more than 6 months (1 year maximum) to set up the environment that will start bringing $337 daily on your bank account.
It won’t happen only in one instance – if you are not NEEDY for that lifestyle.
Without GREED, there can be no success. MUST HAVE is simply a necessary approach to the entire deal because wanting alone is not enough for people without activated hedonism gene. In other words, everything you want simple must become your NEED!
[1] J. F. Hollis at al, “Weight Loss During the Intensive Intervention Phase of the Weight-Loss Maintenance Trial”, American Journal of Preventative Medicine 35 (2008):118-26
