Detox

Motivation sounds like a made-up word right? A term parents and teachers made-up to make kids feel guilty when they aren’t bothered to complete a task that you’ve given them. Even as an adult I feel the sting of it daily. An infinite resource that one is able to tap into as long as they have “willpower”. If we had the cahones, we’d be able to hustle all day and be super successful. At least that’s what my social media feed keeps telling me. That if I just apply myself, everything is possible. Please subscribe to the channel for more tips on how to supercharge your life today.

I don’t know about you. But on a near daily basis, I feel like a failure because I’m unable to tap into this well of resources that will propel me into a successful business or career. It’s all in your mind, man. It’s all in your mind! Well, my mind doesn't work that way. And that’s ok.

Instead of looking at it from an extrinsic perspective. Meaning that instead of getting “motivation” when people give me validation or reward. I should reframe “motivation” in another way and I got this idea from what should be pretty obvious if you stopped to look at it. A mobile game energy bar.

If you’ve played a mobile game like Candy Crush or any of the hundreds or thousands of gacha games out there. One of the things that you’ll notice is the energy bar or in Candy Crush’s instance, the hearts. This energy bar shows you the amount of energy you have left to spend at that time. You will spend this energy on playing a level, continuing, retrying, etc. and once it’s gone that’s it you’re done. I think it’s apt comparison to how some of us should look at what motivates us. Motivation isn’t an infinite resource that pushes us to do greater and greater things. For some of us, it’s the amount of energy we have to do a certain amount of things before we run out and need to stop.

Every action we take during the day will cost us a certain amount of energy. Even small tasks like scrolling through social media. Every hit of dopamine we get, we trade energy for a sense of satisfaction. Larger tasks will obviously take up more energy. A slow, tedious task like writing, perhaps, will cost a larger amount of energy and so on. And if we have a smaller pool of energy, then the number of tasks we can tackle during the course of the day becomes limited.

Unfortunately, unlike a game where after we’ve gained levels we gain a larger pool of energy permanently. If we start to shirk our responsibilities and coast by doing the bare minimum our energy reserves will shrink to the new norm.

One of the reasons I pointed out social media earlier was because, for me, that has been the source of energy drain. And you might find it hilarious and think that it can’t siphon that much energy out of a person. But again I have to remind you that we’re looking at energy as a finite resource. Here’s an illustration, if one day we had a generous amount of energy… say… 50 points per day. Let’s minus off 10 points for travelling. Another 5 for meals. Another 10 for work. How much is left? 25 points? Ok, let’s minus 5 for entertainment and for each time you open up social media it’s 1 point. How many times do you think you open up per day? For me, it’s at least 20-30 times per day and that’s on the low end. Now I’m left in a deficit.

Ok, you might say, it’s the end of the day and I go to sleep. I’m going to replenish all my points for tomorrow. Oh, sorry. If you were to use social media before going to bed, you get a reduction in the quality of sleep and you recover less energy to use for the next day. The less motivated you are to do work, the more likely you’ll start scrolling through social media and the consequence is that you’re left with less and less energy each time. Resulting in a state of malaise and indifference.

But the good news is that the opposite outcome is just as likely to be possible. If we start to cut down on the amount of social media usage per day and use it doing something productive, we can actually gain a bigger reserve of energy. The same way in a game where you would spend large amounts of energy in the hopes that you’ll level up and have a greater reserve of energy. This positive reinforcement then allows you to do greater and greater tasks and by going to sleep without the disturbance of social media on your mind, you’re more likely to regain most of your energy spent and you can keep going more consistently.

It’s one of the reasons why I’ve been doing this Writober challenge. The more I stick to it, the more I can do. The harder the things that I do, the more likely I’ll gain the fortitude to tackle even harder tasks. And on top of that, I’m trying my best to cut down on my social media use and trying to get better sleep. Completely refilling my energy reserves so that I can achieve more in a way that makes it more consistent than a temporary high given by someone saying “you can do it!”

So if you’re struggling. Maybe it’s time to put down the phone and get to work.