How to stay constantly motivated (2), By Sunday Adelaja

One of the lost important needs of our modern life is how to keep people inspired. If we could tech people not just to be insured but to be self-inspired and motivated, we would have gone a long way in improving people’s life in our age. It seems as if with every passing day, more people simply lose the motivation to live. People don’t just have the motivation to live anymore. People are losing passion for life by the hour. As we have stated above. This loss of interest in life leads to depression, mental sickness, anger, frustration, hatred, jealousy, the list goes on and on.

“Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.” – W. Clement Stone

Drug abuse and drug addiction has become a major menace in our world today. A careful study of addiction, will almost definitely lead us to the issue of hopelessness and lack of motivation. When we see people using drugs, drinking, smoking and addicted to pornography, it is simply because they are bored, they have little interest in life. They are not motivated. Drugs, alcohol, pornography therefore becomes a means by which people try to get themselves motivated. People try to get some form of excitement out of drugs, alcohol and pornography.

Everyone wants to be excited. Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants to be inspired and motivated. The tricky aspect of motivation though is that you need energy to be motivated and excited. You need some form of energy to keep yourself happy. When that energy is lacking, that is where the crisis comes in. when we lack the energy for life, depression steps in, frustration steps in, anger and mood swings step in. In an attempt to overcome these negative tendencies, men do desperate things.

Apart from the extreme things like drugs and alcohol, there are other subtle ways that our generation try to find energy for living. Some over eat leading to gluttony.  Others rather refrain from eating leading to anorexia. Some eat and try to get rid of it leading to bulimia. Yet others find solace in sex, leading to sex addiction.

The quest for energy, leads to all forms of sins and malpractices. All these on the other hand, take us into the dungeon of darkness, more darkness leading into even more depression. Losing even more energy in the process. So how do we get ourselves motivated all the time? I would like to start this my article by first giving a list of the popular and more contemporary methods of motivation that we all are familiar with.

The Fear Factor 

Fear is one of the most common and probably the greatest motivating factor in the world. It is fear that makes people to wake up in the morning to go to work is not because they love their jobs so much, but because they are afraid of getting fired or being jobless. On the other hand, most people especially in the developed countries, are motivated to work and go to jobs because they have to pay their bills. Many people in the western nations would be homeless if they try to stay out of work for a year. That fear of being a social outcast gets people motivated to go to work to do the things they would not normally do.

In most cultures, the fear of public opinion keeps people straight. Many people don’t want to be social outcasts or ostracized from the society. Most of us want to be accepted by our peers and countrymen. We want to fit into society. That fear of falling out of societal expectation, motivates us to keep on largely doing the things expected of us.

So fear is a powerful factor of motivation. This is probably the most wide spread factor of motivation for people. In most countries of the world, children in their millions wake up the morning to go to school. We all know it is not because they want to. Most of them probably don’t want to go, but the fear and the perception of the society keeps them coming back to those classes. The parents make sure their kids go to school because they are driven by societal expectations, while the kids oblige to the requirements of the parents and go to school because of fear of punishment. So fear is a factor everywhere.

“Fear sells. Fear makes money. The countless companies and consultants in the business of protecting the fearful from whatever they may fear know it only too well. The more fear, the better the sales.” – Daniel Gardner

When kids refuse to do their assignments and home works, the teachers use the fear factor to keep them straight. The students are told they will not get money, they would not get promoted and all kinds of things. Unfortunately, with the modern world of social media, and information age, people are getting themselves breaking free off the fear factor. So we need to look for other ways of keeping people motivated apart from the more traditional reason like fear.

“Fear begins and ends with the desire to be secure; inward and outward security, with the desire to be certain, to have permanency. The continuity of permanence is sought in every direction, in virtue, in relationship, in action, in experience, in knowledge, in outward and inward things. To find security and be secure is the everlasting cry. It is this insistent demand that breeds fear.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti. TO BE CONTINUED.

Sunday Adelaja is a Nigerian born leader, transformation strategist, pastor and innovator. He was based in Ukraine.