IF YOU EVER WONDERED WHAT MOTIVATION IS..?

Ever felt a sudden surge in your enthusiasm by simply thinking of a goal or aspiration of yours? Ever felt light talking your heart out to someone or through a gentle touch/hug, or simply because someone says, ‘I am there’? Consciously or unconsciously our lives are deeply entangled with the force of?motivation. This message is just to rekindle the consciousness.

Motivation is an unseen, intangible force that pushes you for more than you could have done, more than you ever thought of and more than the expectations of others. It keeps you going when the going gets tough, it gives you light when the eyes are shut. Unfortunately though, the need to seek and offer motivation is highly overlooked, partly because of self righteousness, partly because of self-centricity and mostly because of self doubts and inner conflicts. Motivation however is not an exclusively external force. If that was so,?Baba Sidhaye?probably would not have been mentioned in this excerpt.?Helen Keller?must have confided into seclusion and the world wouldn’t be as heterogeneous or diverse as it is, had there been no inner calling, had there been a world where people were simply motivated by things, places and people. Motivation is a complex phenomenon intertwined with emotions, events, successes, failures, love, hatred, passion, people and everything, for and because of which, you are alive. Now that’s pretty convoluted one right? Let’s go through a little journey of experiences; experiences that you might relate to; experiences that each one of you must have gone through at some point in time and if somehow you haven’t, I assure, you will.

1) The first attempt:

Sometimes, the very act of just trying something new pumps you up so much that you want to do it more and more. You won’t remember it (unless your parents have kept video recordings of your childhood), but I am sure you must have heard stories from your parents or simply watched videos of kids. I am talking about your first attempt at crawling on your all four limbs. You never stopped there, you just loved it, you wanted to do it more and more and so much that your parents had to pick you up from weird corners of the house and the colony you lived in. There was this strong force of motivation running through you, motivation to do it more, and explore all that you can do with this new found interest or ability of yours. That’s the magic of attempting something. It motivates you and it’s sheer ecstasy.

2) A bad attempt:

Sometimes you do something so bad that the guilt motivates you to make a better attempt. Remember the first time you tried to ride a bicycle? Most of us must have had quite a bad fall! Remember the subject you used to ace in your class but somehow didn’t do well in the same during the exam? Or if you are a tech savvy and occasionally play games in your leisurely own time, do you remember trying your hands on Flappy Bird or the T-Rex run (chrome’s dinosaur game)? Most of you wouldn’t have given up by failing once or twice or even more in any of these circumstances. If you don’t ignore your instinct, then you will realise that you (and everyone you have known) is a fierce competitor against self, a hard core believer that you can do better than what you have done till now. The diversity we confront in personalities merely boils down to the ease at which one gives up on this instinct! This instinct of doing better is always functional, it’s always there in you, the point at which you give up on it makes all the difference. It’s for this reason that a guilt prevails when we fail at something, this guilt challenges our basic instinct, and if you don’t give up to the challenge, it becomes a strong force of motivation. This motivation makes you victorious against the failed attempt, no matter how small or big the challenge is.

3)?A good Samaritan:

Sometimes, a simple push from a helpful close group or a caring person can motivate you to make more and better attempts. Ups and downs are quite tightly wired to the phenomenon of living. It requires an extra-ordinary self discipline, control and belief for achieving anything one wants, and even before that, to put efforts towards pursuing the goal. But we humans, being humans, the imperfect souls, do fail at many a things. And, being humans, we do feel down and disappointed. This disappointment can block the flow of positive thoughts, it can hit our self belief. At such fragile and vulnerable moments, where we start doubting our basic instinct, a good samaritan can do wonders to our state of mind. This Good Samaritan can come in various forms: parents, siblings, a co-worker, a friend, partner or even a random stranger down the lane. A Good Samaritan is capable of observing either (or both) of the following two things: (1) Your pain (2) Your potential. Your pain can be felt by an empath and this empathetic samaritan will try to mitigate your suffering. If you have such people around, be grateful, cherish them, value them, and realise that you are an extremely rich person. If you don’t have such people around, they will come, just keep your doors open and do not push them away when they knock. The moments of vulnerability can often make us rigid and rude, and quite often we pass our pain to such empaths who are rather trying to help you, motivate you. And, then there are certain people who know you very well, they know your potential, and simply cannot see you in pain. Such people, the likes of your parents, siblings, friends or partner, will support you and pull you out of the sink of guilt and vulnerability. They will remind you that this is not the end of the world, you can try again, you will try better and you can do it! These simple gestures and words are powerhouses of motivation and positivity. If you ever go into a state of vulnerability, do not hesitate to express your pain to your loved ones, and importantly, when you see anyone in a state of disappointment and pain, do not hesitate to offer a piece of motivation to them. Be a Good Samaritan to someone, it will do wonders to your own spirit. I hope this significance of a Good Samaritan is relatable.

4)?Inspiration:

Sachin Tendulkar, Kalpana Chawla, Mary Kom, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, PT Usha, Har Gobind Khorana, Albert Einstein, Roger Federer, Mother Teresa, Neeraj Chopra, Amitabh Bachchan and the list of inspiring personalities is endless. They have inspired so many people in the world who wish to follow their footsteps. When you set a goal for yourself, in the process of achieving the same, you look for references – who has done it earlier and how they did it. Through these questions, you end up finding inspirations. Inspirations from their success, and from their failure as well. Inspirations are rather surplus in this world. It need not come from a celebrity or a popular person. Here is an interesting real story. Babita, a mother of 3, a house wife, who faced quite a lot of hardships in life in the form of poverty, patriarchal society and ill health, once watched a song a.k.a advert. It was an advertisement about the joy of going to School (School chalein hum, written by former PM of India, Late Sh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji). Here is the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfEssugS3No

A song that inspired millions to go to School and learn. A song that inspired millions of parents to send their children to School. A song of inspiration..

This song inspired Babita to go to school! At the age of 43, with the financial support from her good Samaritan, her younger brother (Raj), she started studying. A fun fact is that her own son was studying in Senior secondary school (XI standard) when she joined the same class. And a funnier fact is that Babita is the mother of the author of this article! My mother graduated in arts, much before I graduated in Technology. She enjoyed the phase of learning and need not say, that inspiration from song, from her brother, may be from her kids too, kept her going! And she rose above every single pressure and hurdle, for she was motivated! I plan to write a complete piece on Babita too, for that’s a story of a girl, a woman, a mother, a housewife, a student and a teacher. It’s an inspiring cocktail of emotions and I am sure it will help a lot of people to find some inspiration, some light, some motivation. Babita later taught in a school for next 12 years, supporting her family’s financial needs and living a better life.

5) Humiliation:

When someone humiliates you for an inability or lack of capability, it can push you hard, very hard to prove them wrong. The stature of the person humiliating you can play a great role in the level of motivation that grips. A person insignificant in your own perception may hardly have any impact through his/her words of humiliation (one often tends to pass it off). However, the questions raised at your worth by someone you respect or by someone you are already jealous/insecure of, can add fuel to the fire to do something and negate this disrespect. This may not work for a person who is already in a shell of de-motivation or distress. Humiliation can rather amplify the insecurity, inferiority complex and lack of confidence of a person who is going through a tough phase. It therefore becomes important that we always weigh our words well before dumping them on a person or situation.?

6) Self belief and humility:

And, some people can simply find motivation through self belief and humility. Belief that I can, and humility that I am not the best, but I can be one!

This is what I think, Motivation is.

I occasionally write at: https://www.fyndinglife.com, where I wrote this piece long ago. I continue to add to my 'experiences with motivation' and other philosophical aspects of life there, before I would bring the matured enough pieces to LinkedIn or other platforms.