Please stop motivating me!
Inspiration gets about 264 million hits on Google and motivation about 128 million. So it's obviously more popular to inspire than to motivate. But what does these words really mean?
The words are continuously used in the same context, continuously getting mixed around as if they were equals and as if using them together would strengthen what is trying to be said.
At PsychologyToday.com Paula Davis-Laack, a lawyer turned stress and resilience expert, published the articel “25 Quotes That Will Inspire and Motivate You”. While reading the quotes over and over again I tried to figure out which quotes were inspiring and which were the motivating ones. But before I could conclude that I had to define inspiration and motivation.
According to Cambridge Dictionaries Online motivation is “enthusiasm for doing something”; inspiration is “someone or something that gives you ideas for doing something”, “a sudden good idea”, “someone that people admire and want to be like”. By those definitions we can conclude… nothing.
The definition of inspiration and motivation is deeper. I would rather state that for example, people feel bad because they keep motivating themselves to things they don’t really want to do:
- I need to get up and go to work, my motivation is that I need the money to pay my bills.
- I need to motivate myself to go for a run, since I am fat and have to lose weight.
- I feel motivated to live of strawberries for an entire month. It is cheap and I will lose weight.
On the contrary people are inspired to do things they really want:
- I feel so inspired about this new project and have a bunch of great ideas that will come to use.
- I am so inspired to go for a run, it makes me feel lovely and I enjoy the lovely feeling.
- I am inspired to eat healthy and well, it makes me feel good and it helps me taking care of my body and mind.
I read a great post “Inspiration vs. motivation” written by Jonathan, who himself is a true inspiration. At one point he states “What lights you up?” And I really believe that is something we all should live after. That what truly lights you up is and should be your inspiration.
Some people might feel that putting motivation in a negative context is wrong. But that of course depends on how you want to define your life. Paying taxes, bills and buying milk is something you need to do and that you often have to motivate yourself in order to do. But those kind of things are part of life. So feel free to motivate yourself away doing those things. But when the day-to-day duties are done - let yourself live by inspiration.
Remember - at the end of the day it is the inspiration that will put that smile back on your face when they ran out of milk in the store, your kids are screaming at the kitchen table wanting milk or when you can’t login to your Internet Bank and therefore are unable to pay your bills.
If we stay true to the inspiration that comes from within and the one that inspiring people around us awaken inside us we will also end up living inspiring lives, less stress filled lives, lives were the kids won’t scream at the kitchen table because they know that the “milk-issue” isn’t the end of the world. You will end up living a life worth telling about. Not a life that is defined by double-sided quotes, that will keep you circling around - taking you nowhere.
PS. If someone puts quotes from Ludacris and Ellen DeGeneres in the same article as quotes from Thomas Edison and Oscar Wilde - maybe you shouldn’t take the article all that seriously. DS.