A Story About The Mysteries Of Motivation
In this lesson I really want to show you the difference between talking about your dreams and having the energy and courage to follow through on your ambitions.
I’ve already talked about when I produced the first COMMERCIAL copy of Subvert Magazine. But it wasn’t the first ACTUAL copy.
I’d made a smaller version of the magazine maybe 6 months earlier.
It was made from a single sheet of paper, folded cleverly. It contained a few cool articles and some edgy graphics. It was a typical student magazine. I made it once and then stopped.
It wasn’t until the end of my art degree, when I saw dozens and dozens of my amazingly talented friends, highly skilled and creative people, quitting their dreams and starting work in low paid retail and service jobs. That was when things changed for me.
It just seemed like all this talent and potential was being poured down the drain. Ignored and wasted by society. I HAD to do something. I HAD to keep all those dreams alive.
It was that cause, a cause much bigger than my own needs that gave me the energy to overcome all those fears and obstacles, especially the commercial aspects of a real magazine, that had prevented me from getting past Edition 1 previously.
I learned that the energy we can tap into for a real cause or mission just blows away the limited energy we have for purely self indulgent means.
When we’re only working for ourselves, we’re only tapping into a fraction of our abilities, so whenever I start a project now, I look at the bigger picture.
It isn’t about being completely selfless at all. In fact I don’t believe in the pretence of trying to be a saint and sacrifice yourself for everyone else. But I do believe, because I’ve experienced the benefits first hand, that tying your own success to the success and benefit of others gives you strength, energy, courage and tenacity that are hard to find otherwise.
Are you ready to unlock your abilities? Lets get started…
A Lesson About Finding Your Cause
We’ve already touched on the biggest problem most of us face: we are all walking around with low self esteem. When it comes to overcoming our fears and making more money, we tend to believe…
a) We don’t have what it takes and
b) We don’t deserve much more than we already have.
These self esteem issues take time and effort to resolve. But we can attack them with multiple weapons, from as many angles as possible, at the same time.
Life is not about putting everything off, until some point in the future, when we’ve worked out all our issues and reached enlightenment!
So, another powerful way to overcome our feeling that we don’t deserve to be too wealthy or too successful is to attach our success to something bigger than ourselves.
A cause, a mission. Something of significance in the wider world.
If nothing else it gets us out of our heads from time to time. When we’ve worn ourselves out with all our personal issues, we can put them to one side, take a rest and work for the cause instead.
There will be many mornings when you get out of bed and doubt your own ability, your own strength. Those are the days when having a bigger mission will provide you will the inner strength, the drive and motivation to fling back the covers and continue to make your mark.
But which causes are we to get involved with? What missions are worth our attention and what sort of commitment are we talking about here?
That’s entirely down to you. But it must be something you can believe in.
Your mission can be to encourage others. It can be the sharing of information. Or providing resources to people who weren’t lucky enough to be born with the advantages we were.
You can make your cause a central part of your main work, or it can be totally unrelated. Part of my cause is to help ambitious individuals follow their dreams, stay the course and make their mark.
I apply that, as a part of my main work, but also in different ways. I work with ambitious individuals who live in parts of the world where resources and opportunities are scarce.
Personally I prefer to share ideas, knowledge, stories and inspiration. Things that lead to action. I find these are things that empower people to become stronger and more independent and grow into leaders in their own communities.
I follow the old maxim of: give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.
Whatever your mission or cause it should have some personal meaning to you. It should match your values. YOUR values. Not your parents or your friends or even your customers values. YOURS.
You can make your cause a public part of your business, or a totally private one. Its primary purpose is your personal, internal motivation.
It doesn’t exist to make you “look” charitable. To impress other people. It exists to make you feel better as a human being whose efforts make a significance in the lives of others. It makes your life worthwhile. It allows you to express your values in a useful way.
Now, how much of your time, effort and money you attribute to your mission or cause is again, entirely up to you. A useful way to look at this is to set a baseline income that is purely for you and your family. This should cover all your basic needs comfortably.
Then, commit a percentage of your time or income over and above this level to furthering your mission or your cause.
This could be anything from 5% to 50%. The more resistance you have to earning lots of money, the more you may find this strategy useful. By trying your fortunes to the positive cause of helping lots of others, you are able to overcome your own feelings that you don’t deserve wealth, or the silly idea that becoming wealthy makes you a bad person.
This is nonsense of course, but if that’s what you’ve been raised to believe, trying to consciously convince you of that can be a losing battle. We all have to recognise and work with the limitations, fears and faulty beliefs we’ve inherited. And remodel our image of who we are, what we deserve and what we can achieve, one small step at a time.
So, what is the mission or cause you’re going to choose? Will it allow you to express your deepest values and unlock your hidden potential? Make a choice, set your baseline and the percentage of time or money you’re going to commit and START unlocking your energies and making the world a better place right away!
Test Your Skills In The Playground
Are you ready to test your skills and see how much you’ve learned?
Take Action, Step Outside Yourself
Choose a cause or create a mission that appeals to your deepest values. Tie your success to this cause TODAY. There is no better way to raise your self esteem and unlock your abilities, than to be part of something bigger than yourself.