The past few months I have been constantly confronted with motivation - and not in a positive way. It seems that most people I talk to are struggling with it. Either they have never had motivation in a particular area and are struggling with it, they have had motivation and now have lost it and are struggling, or the motivation they have has changed and they are wondering whether to stick with the original or go with the now... Motivation seems to have a lot to answer for!
So what is
it?
Motivation (the word) is a
noun referring to:
| 1. | the act or an instance of motivating. |
| 2. | the state or condition of being motivated. |
| 3. | something that motivates; inducement; incentive. |
Motive (the word) can be used as a
–noun | 1. | something that causes a person to act in a certain way, do a certain thing, etc.; incentive. |
| 2. | the goal or object of a person's actions: Her motive was revenge. |
| 3. | (in art, literature, and music) a motif. |
–adjective | 4. | causing, or tending to cause, motion. |
| 7. | constituting a motive or motives. |
–or verb (used with object) To me this indicates that motivation comes back to the cause / value / reason behaind we are doing something. If we have no motivation for a particular area is it because our reasons for doing what we are doing are no longer valuable or important to us?
An example of this would be the student who started out her degree with such high hopes and expectations. She was motivated by attaining a credential, by gaining skills to help her get a good job, by wanting to make a difference in the world, by the sheer joy of learning and growing. Two or three years in the necessity of a degree and the usefulness of a degree is not so important to her - it seems that practical experience is what is valued most. Her belief that what she is doing will make a difference is gone, eroded away by cynicism and an awareness that learning alone is never enough. The daily slog of little money, hard work and late nights struggling to understand meaningless information have destroyed her enjoyment of what shes doing. She's left wondering where did my motivation go? Why am I bothering to study? Why not quit and start working?
This is just one example - it happens to those with specifically 'Christian' aspirations too - but the questions are always the same. Why bother? What purpose is this serving? Should I change direction because the passion is gone? Is God telling me something by 'removing' my motivations?
I don't really have many helpful answers at this point. I struggle with motivation too. I do know that unless my motivation is of God in the first place or changes in the course of things to be of God then my motivation will naturally leech away till I am left with sand...
3 comments:
Perhaps motivation is achieved in 2 ways:
1) Where I must stoke the fire and am responsible to constantly feed the flame.
This is hard work. How long can I keep disciplined doing this?
2) Revelation / conviction drives me. The motivation is self sustaining... I don't necessarily have to feed it... it has a life of its own.
(Is this perhaps unrealistic and theoretical?)
Do I find revelation / conviction... or does it find me?
Stubbornness sometimes serves as motivation for me. I continue simply because I refuse to give up. Of course sooner or later you are going to need to have a better motivation but I suspect there are times in our lives where our motivation seems pretty small and our tasks large yet we press on.
Clive, personally I think #2 is pretty unrealistic but I can see what you are getting at. Is there a number 3 where other people work to feed your motivation, inspire you with what you could be come and help you see that the current obstacles are surmountable?
In this quick discussion I can't help but think of that verse which talks about keeping your eye on the goal. Cat, It sounds to me like that student situation you describe is partially a case of losing site of that goal. It no longer seems that the end result will be what you thought it would be or that it will be achieved when you thought it would.
Keeping our eyes on the goal is so important.
- James
Hmm great food for thought here. What happens when the goals change half way through? As you mentioned James the student no longer values the goal they first had in mind - the reasons for pursuing it are now obsolete due to their changes in experience and their shifting value systems. Do we still attempt to keep stoking the fires and persevere out of stubbornness or do we then change tacks completely?
Take the student again (and it is hypothetical - kinda a merging of several people I know at the mo) who is part way through the degree. Now she's at the point where she can't see any value in her degree and wants to serve God fulltime instead. So does she stay studying even though her goals are now completely different and persevere or should she stop study, get employment that fits in with her chosen area of ministry, and start ministering in the way she feels she is called to do?
On another tangent is it possible to restore motivation and passion when the fire is completly dead, drenched in water, frozen, and covered in a layer of snow? If we have got to the point where the flame is gone will the things that may have restored it (1 2 and 3) still help or are we flogging a dead flame?
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