“What motivates me in life?” - Ewaoluwa Ogungbire

Have you ever posed this question to yourself, “What motivates me in life?”

So what motivates you and what makes you wake up each morning? What drives you and why do you go through life each day?

If you are just like every other ordinary people, you have no idea what motivates you. You do not know why you want to wake up each morning, and you do not know what you want to do with your life.

Ordinary people wake up each morning because they have to go to work. And the reason they get to work is that they want to get paid. They want to pay their bills and expenses.

In other words, they are working for the money. This is why when they have a choice; they choose to run away from their work. They will choose to sleep longer and sleep later when they do not have to report to the office.

Most people spend a minimum of 8 hours a day into their work. And if you work because you want to make money to pay your bills, but you are not fulfilling your calling, you will never have the motivation in life.

You will feel motivated when you chase your dreams and are fulfilling your destiny, not when you chase money.

Money is the means to an end. Most people thought that all they want is money, but money is not the end product that they want.

In fact, what we truly want are feelings. People want to drive a bigger and better car because they want to feel good and prestige. They want to look good, and they want to feel the sense of accomplishment.

So what they want is not the money. They only need the money to buy the car that they desire.

Therefore, if you chase money blindly, you may end up rich, but you may not feel fulfilled deep within.

This is why Stephen Covey said, “If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.”

You do not want to end up wasting your life chasing for things that you don’t want. What you truly want should be deep within you.

Here’s another quote from Stephen Covey:

“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.”

So motivation should come from within, not from outside. It is not the physical things or money that will motivate you; it is the feeling of ownership, the feeling of proud and the sense of accomplishment that drive you.

The Desire to Avoid Pain and Gain Pleasure  

Why do you do what you do in life? You do something because you want to gain pleasure or to avoid pain.

Think about it, why do you read this right now? Maybe you want to avoid the pain you feel while working or you feel bored; that’s why you read this.

Or perhaps you feel pleasurable reading this right now. You feel pleasurable and motivated when you read articles like this.

Everything we do, we do because of these two forces, pain, and pleasure.

When you see a beautiful lady, and you would like to make friends with her, what would you do? Would you dare to approach her? Or would you just do nothing?

When the pleasure of getting to know someone is greater than the pain of getting rejected, you will go ahead and approach the lady.

On the other hand, if the pain of being rejected is greater than the pleasure to know her, you will never approach her.

That means, if you are not working on your dreams or taking action on your goals, it is simply because working on what you want is painful to you.

If it is pleasurable, you would have done it already.

People love to watch movies and surf Facebook; they feel pleasurable doing it, and that’s why they are doing it all the time.

When you are not acting on your goals, and you procrastinate on your dreams, it is either the pain for taking action is greater than the pleasure of achieving them, or the pain of not achieving your goals is just not strong enough.

A lot of people put off working on their goals. They feel pain taking action, and they feel pleasurable doing something else like watching TV.

However, after some time, their pain of not accomplishing their goals will become greater, and that forces them into taking action.

You know why some people put things off until the last minute now?

Now that you know pain and pleasure are the two forces that make you do what you do. So how can you use it to motivate you in life?

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.” – Napoleon Hill

6 Common Factors that Motivate People in Life

At this point, we already knew that what we truly want to accomplish in life always have something to do with our inner self.

However, let’s just look at things in the big picture what motivates people in life as of now…

1. Money and Rewards

Do I need to say more? As I have explained above, most people thought that what they want in life are monies and the next shiny objects, but what they never realized is that the physical things that they want are just the means to an end.

What they truly after is the feeling of owning the items.

Thus, if you are chasing for money and the rewards, think twice. What do you truly want? Is it the money? Or is it the feeling?

When you understand what you truly after, you will value the journey more. You will appreciate the progress and process more because those are what truly counts, not the end result.

This is why people said that success is a journey, not a destination.

It is your hard work and the effort that you poured in that make you who you are today. It is the journey that shapes you into the person you want to be, not the physical items.

Money is just the reward you get when you win the game, but what makes you win the game is the progress.

So focus on the progress and not the end result. What you have gone through is more important than what you have achieved in the end.

2. Desire to be The Best

Some people just cannot accept to be number two in their lives. They fight hard and they work hard because they hate to lose.

People such as Donald Trump and Usain Bold are good examples. They just hate losing.

Why do you think Muhammad Ali works so hard? This is because he desires to be the champion.

“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'” – Muhammad Ali

And because their desire to be the best is so strong that they are willing to go all out and give all their best to achieve the number one status.

They sacrifice their time and work hard every single day to become the best. Are you willing to do that?

Are you willing to sacrifice your weekend or your nighttime to work on your dreams? Are you willing to wake up at 5am each morning so that you can have a head-start than others?

3. Helping the Others

Some people are motivated by helping others. They want to see changes in people’s lives and they want to fight for a better future for the world.

These are philanthropists, and they are willing to give up a huge portion of their wealth to make the world a better place.

In 2010, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett announced the Giving Pledge campaign to recruit and inspire wealthy people of the world to give a majority of their wealth to philanthropy.

When they first launched the campaign, there are as much as 40 people joined the campaign and have pledged $125 billion for charity purposes. As of March 2016, the campaign has recruited 142 members.

These are the people who are motivated and driven to help others and to make the world a better place. They are inspired to change other people’s lives.

While not everyone is driven to help others, but if you are, it is good.

You just need to understand what motivates you in life so that you can channel your energy through the right platform and achieve greater success in life.

4. Power and Fame

There is another group of people who are motivated by power and fame. Politicians are a great example here.

These are the people who inspired to become the leader and they are driven to achieve greater power and fame in life.

They want to lead and bring their company, their people and their nation to a greater height.

What about you? Do you chase for power and fame? Do you start your business to achieve what you want or because you feel good in leading your team?

You have to know what you truly desire deep within yourself.

5. Recognition

Recognition is another factor that makes certain people motivated. They want to prove that either they are right or someone is wrong.

They want the recognition from themselves or others. Do you know how Lee Iacocca achieved his recognition through reviving Chrysler in the 80s?

It is said that Ford Motors fired Lee and he felt so angry that he wanted to build a company to rival Ford. As a result, he joined Chrysler, which was in trouble at that time.

Lee then leads Chrysler to become a great automobile company again. Although Chrysler went bankrupt in 2009, it has truly shown that Lee Iacocca’s drive for recognition and to prove himself was a strong force to achieving success in life.

There was another similar story about Thomas Watson, who used to work for a company called NCR. Tom Watson was fired there and he wanted to prove his ex-company was wrong.

After that, Tom Watson joined a smaller company called CTR and grew it to become what was known as IBM today. He has led IBM for 40 years and has turned it into one of the leading technology companies.

So are you desire to be recognized? Do you want to prove yourself or prove that someone is wrong?

6. The Passion

The final factor that motivates most people in lives is passion. Why do you think all the successful people do what they do? Why do you think they are willing to wake up early and work harder than ordinary people? The answer is that they are passionate about what they do.

Think about it, there are times when you feel so motivated for something that you are willing to sacrifice your leisure time for it.

Maybe it is your favorite sport? Maybe it is when you got the chance to travel somewhere you love?

Whatever the reason, I believe that you understand the power of passion. When you are so passionate about something, you will think about it all the time. You will be willing to wake up early and sacrifice your sleep for it.

This is why passion is important because it can drive you each day to achieve what you want in life.

Sadly, most people never develop their passion in their work. They work like a zombie without feeling any passion. They make sure they are not the first one to reach the office and not the last one to leave.

No wonder most people are just plain ordinary. You are reading this because you want to be extraordinary and you want to accomplish great things in your life.

How To Channel Your Motivation For Success

So now you understand what motivates people to achieve what they want in life. You know why people do what they do and how you can make use of the power of pain and pleasure to drive yourself.

What you can do right now is to identify what drives you. From the 6 factors above, which one do you think can drive you the most?

Sometimes you may be driven by a few factors together, but there will be a dominant one. So find out the one that motivates you the most.

And when you know what motivates you in life, all you need to do is to enhance the factor and create an intention for it.

For example, if you are motivated because you want to prove yourself right, write it down and review it daily.

You want to create a reminder for yourself so that you will be reminded by what motivates you.

Steve Jobs used to have a portrait of Albert Einstein in his house. He wanted to remind himself of his vision and to use technology and design to change the world. Thus, whenever he saw the portrait and recalled his vision, he directs himself to the right path.

You can do the same by creating the intention of what motivates you.

Quote:, be that successful man you want to be buy doing following the greatest path.