What is motivation? How can you be motivated? Does motivation work on you? Has it worked on you yet?

Motivation is simply a driving force that pushes us to do something. But motivation is not the solution to all problems. People often want to be motivated. They think motivation is the key to success. However, I have encountered many people who have always said that motivation itself does not work on them.

Many people share a kind of experience that when they attend a seminar or any session, they feel motivated, but later on, they forgot everything. It is natural to have such a feeling because they have never set their correct goals and desires in their life.

Motivation only works when we have particular desires and visions. If you don’t love to study math, then you don’t have to, because it is not your desire. If it is not your desire, how can motivation work?

Some people watch motivational videos to get motivation. If watching motivational videos had worked on people, many of them would have been successful people already. Here, the definition of motivation has been wrongly defined.

People always want to be in their “comfort zone,” because they don’t want to put themselves in a stressful position. Sometimes, they might get motivated to do something, but it doesn’t last because they have gotten used to the way things are, and they are afraid of having an uneasy life.

Pure motivation can’t work to pick people out of their comfort zones unless they set an extreme desire for their goals. An anonymous quote that I’ve heard before says, “Motivation is just an ignition while discipline is riding in the car.” It means that if we don’t know where we need to go, then ignition of the car is just useless. The world is comprised of two kinds of people.

Those who are successful and those who are either unsuccessful or on their way to success. The unsuccessful people try to imitate what a successful person says and does.

I would not disagree with what they are doing. However, they need to think about the perception, ideas and thoughts of the person they are imitating instead of just going through the motions. Otherwise, they are misusing the meaning of motivation.

Everyone has different perceptions and ideas, but the way to success is the same. Unless people have discipline, they will not be successful in their own lives.

Here is a story that reveals why motivation is not everything. There was a small, eight-year-old kid in a small town. He was an introverted guy, which is why his friends did not like him. He had a hand lens that he bought, and his friends usually played with it.

One day, he saw his friends burning a piece of paper with the lens. On the next day, he did the same thing that his friend had done. Unfortunately, the paper did not burn, which made him sad.

On the following day, the paper became hot, but it did not burn. He tried for several more days and after a while, he finally succeeded in burning the paper.

This story reveals that to meet your goals, strong desire is needed as much as motivation. The boy had a strong desire to burn the paper, and he finally did. The next factor you need to achieve your goals is concentration.

In the story, the boy centered the concentration of the sun’s rays on to the paper, and it burned. The third factor is repetition. It has been said that practice makes a man perfect.

If he had not tried again and again, he would not have been successful. Hence, desire, discipline, concentration and repetition are relatively important to get success.

Motivation won’t work until these things are taken care of. It is our turn to be more self-driven and dedicated towards the things we want; not what others want. People often think that the more they care for others, the stronger they will be.

But that is not the truth. The truth is that they are making themselves weak by not putting themselves first. This is also the thing that pushes them toward the possessions that others have.

But what about their use of motivation and why they are motivated? They are just using their motivation the wrong way for their own satisfaction. They might be full of motivational quotes in mind, and they might feel like they are doing something good, but it is likely just self-satisfaction.

In reality, they have done little to change their own lives. At the end of the day, they get zero results because they were motivated for the wrong reasons. Thus, motivation in and of itself is not a bad thing. Rather, it is connected to other aspects such as our own vision, desires and goals.