Thought of the Day

August 16th, 2024 - External vs. Internal Motivation

I've been struggling with motivation for the past couple of years and I think recently I've found it again.

There wasn't a big epiphany moment or some drastic change, it just felt like the things I was trying and failing to do were finally important enough to take part in my life.

Here are my quick thoughts on the change: A shift from External to Internal motivation has occured. The goals I have been working towards and the skills I have been trying to learn have suddenly become interesting and important because they are of personal interest to me with little to no external motivation/expectation of result.

The two best examples that come to mind are my weight and this website. I have gained weight consistenty over the past five years topping out at around 330 lbs. and have tried with very little success to keep the weight off and get back down to weight/clothing size I want.

Over the past two months I have lost 15 lbs. and not because I tried a new diet (calorie deficite is the the only way) but because I stopped thinking about what other people would think of skinnier me and focused on "I don't want to be fat anymore."

The other example is this very website. I learned rudemntery HTML and CSS in a vain attempt to leave a boring cubical data entery job and become a web designer. I spent hours days and weeks trying to learn only to get burned out after a month. Fast forward almost three years and I spend alot of my limited free time working on this little personal site and so far I have not gotten bored or burned out form it.

This isn't a self help website so I wont say "This will change your life!", everyone is different so odds are this might not work for you. For me this works, and so far, it is one of the only things that has worked with consistency. I will still continue to have varied hobbies and be interested in anything and everything but in the future there is going to be a more selective process about which goals take priority and I will be taking care to find the true reason behind the motivation.