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Warning: If you are prude, under the age of 18, don’t want to read about sex and relationships or easily offended, don’t read on any further. You’ve been warned.
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I’ve decided that motivation, and needing motivation to do anything… is all a load of bullocks.
To understand why I’ve come to this conclusion, you need to know how it came about.
A little while back, I heard on a marketing interview somewhere (can’t remember if it was Eben Pagan, John Reese or Frank Kern… maybe it was all three of them) about the three BIGGEST markets in existence. Which are:
- Sex and relationships.
- Making money.
- Health and beauty.
So far so good. Fast forward about 2 weeks and I’m on my weekly marketing mastermind call. We are discussing the big three (markets). Something very interesting was said: that there is really only one “big market” out there, and that is sex and relationships. And that number two and number three are really only means of getting more of number one.
This hit me like the metaphorical ton of bricks. My head was buzzing from the realisation for a good hour.
The realisation was this: for the majority of people in the world today, that statement holds true.
Namely, that men and women all over the world, earn money, and maintain their health and beauty in order to gain sex or a relationship (or two 
).
My life experience has taught me otherwise: sex and relationships have nothing to do with money, looks, health (beyond a basic level necessary for survival) and beauty.
If your head is spinning at the moment, or you are fuming up inside… it’s because your construct of reality has just been messed with. I suggest you stop reading now and spare yourself the mental bedazzlement that is to come.
If we extend this idea FURTHER, we reach the title of this post: which is that motivation is BUNK. It does not exist. Everything that you THOUGHT motivated you to do all the things in your life… is really just all in your head, and founded on a set of false assumptions.
Why? Think about it. Let’s start with men. Men work. They work HARD. They try to earn lots of money. They try to achieve positions of status and power. They work out for hours at the gym. They learn nifty skills like breakdancing and motorbike riding. Or maybe French cooking and oenology if they live in San Francisco. But no-one ever really stops to ask them WHY. Why, why, why!?!
Even though 99.99% of them will never admit it, it is for one thing and one thing only: women. AKA big market number one – sex and relationships. It is not because they “want to” do all those things, but it is because they feel that it will increase their chances of landing that one special girl (or girls).
Women have a slightly different set of drives. They spend hours at the dressing table getting ready to go out – why? To dazzle 1) the guys, 2) the other girls. It’s all about social standing and status. And where does social status or standing land you? In the relationship that you want. Think about the story of Cinderella: she has to undergo a metamorphosis from the poor and humdrum peasant girl into the fairytale “princess to be” in order to win the heart of the prince.
So most people’s entire set of motivations is founded on a false belief, which is that you need either #2) money, or #3) looks (health and beauty) to get #1) sex and relationships. This is why all the motivations that you thought you had… are not really motivations at all. Not in the true sense of doing things for yourself and your own life.
I’ve written in the past about using a massive list of motivational reasons to propel you to get things done. I no longer agree with this. I went through my own list, and crossed out all the motivational reasons where I was doing anything in order to get something from the world around me. Or where I was doing something to live up to some standard that society had dictated. Or where I was doing anything that simply wasn’t *just*for*me*.
At the end, I was left with a page of crossed out lines and no motivational reasons. This is why motivation does not exist.
Anything that you do, be it making money, travelling, working out or even just having fun… is for you and for you only. You should never do it for anyone else. Because if you do… your motivations are externally driven and enforced, and you are left in that precarious position that most of the world’s population is in – performing a highwire act in front of a temperamental crowd armed with sticks and stones… and with no safety net below you.
So the next logical question is: what replaces motivation then? If I have no motivations in life, what now? How am I ever going to get things done now?
(Don’t even bother asking “So exactly what have I been doing for the last 20-30-40-50 years of my life?” – it’s just going to make your head hurt.)
The answer is actually buried in the above paragraphs: do things because YOU want to do them. That’s all the “motivation” you need.
I want to build a multi-million dollar business. Cool, I’ll just go ahead and do it.
I want to get into peak physical shape so I can travel the world. Cool, I’ll just go ahead and do it.
Taking action becomes a matter of just DOING without needing a reason for doing so.
A wonderful side-effect of this is that you also become immune to that modern-day office epidemic: procrastination. Because after all… procrastination is simply our minds saying “I don’t feel like doing this right now. I don’t feel motivated.”
Well, if you have NO motivations, then you can never “feel” like doing anything at anytime. You are simply left with one choice: I’m either going to do it, or not.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Great thought provoking post. What if you already HAVE the sex and the relationship and it’s good? Is the motivation then to keep that alive?
~Lisa
Had this discussion with some friends on facebook.
There will always be the base motivations to survive and to reproduce (source: evolutionary biology texts).
However, motivation in the sense that most web and office workers think about it just plain doesn’t make sense. You never need a reason to do anything, if you want to do it, you can just do it.
Having both the sex and the relationships already and being happy with that… is a great thing. I personally think that getting your sense of self and identity entangled into one relationship and dedicating everything towards that is unhealthy (at least for men). It is interesting to see a woman’s perspective given the importance of bonding and relationships in women’s lives – I suppose that to a woman the most important and motivating factor in her life would be her primary relationship and sustaining it?
My personal “motivation” (as a guy) for doing things is just because I want to do them.
- Aaron