Vlad's thoughts

I’d like to share a strange thing about myself. Since my childhood I remember a deep internal confidence: whatever I do, whatever happens in my life, I’ll be a happy and successful man. It didn’t push me towards silly or reckless acts – I never jumped from the rooftop, never poked a hungry tiger with a stick or anything like that. This concern helps me to not to worry and make the most correct decisions in all cases – from writing a school test in math to making for important decisions in my job. I understand I’m not invincible, not all-powerful and I don’t have a 100% chance of success in all my challenges, but tranquility and reasonableness allow me to get a maximal chance of success whatever I do. I can’t call myself an optimist, but I understand that even a failure is not a disaster and my life will be OK after it.  

Funny thing – I thought everybody had this internal confidence until I was 14. I thought people failed only because they didn’t train enough or because they took a too hard mission. But later I was surprised with people failing things they surely could do just because they were too nervous and unsure about themselves!

I think this confidence was ‘implanted’ into me by my parents, who always loved me, respected me and believed in me no matter what I was doing. They never manipulated me with things like ‘Mommy will love you if you get excellent marks in school’ or ‘Daddy will dislike you if you brake a cup’, instead they told me ‘Mommy loves you anyway, but getting an excellent mark in school will help you in future’ or ‘Daddy loves you whatever happens, but it’s so sad you broke his favorite cup’. I think this unconditional love helped me to form an ‘island of safety’ inside, something I can never lose (unless a really unhappy accident happens to me). It’s like a deep foundation of a building: you can break a tough fortress to the ground-zero with an atomic bomb, but its foundation will remain undamaged and the fortress can be rebuilt from the ashes and may become even better.

I wonder how many people have the same feeling inside?

Hello! My name is Vlad, I’m 25 and I’d like to share some of my thoughts about life in this personal blog. This blog is not commercial, I am not intended to insult anyone or brake any law, I don’t claim this blog to be the ultimate truth of the world.

The first post is about motivation. We often hear how important it is to stay motivated, there’re lots of people, companies, books which promise a man to find motivation. But what is motivation?

Motivation can be determined as ‘the reason for people's actions, desires, and needs’, but usually people understand it as some method of making yourself doing stuff you don’t want to do at the moment. Let’s imagine a few common situations. 

‘I understand I need to write a diploma, but I’m too lazy to do it. I’d be happy to find motivation to write it. What book should I read to get motivation?’

‘I want to start going to the gym, to become fit and healthy. I even bought a mounthly gym membership. But I always find a reason to skip the training and I always promise myself I won’t skip the next one. But the same happens again and again. Where do I find motivation to go to the gym?’

I think all situations like this have nothing to do with ‘motivation’ as a method of making yourself doing stuff you don’t want, the important things here are:

1. Deep internal desire to achieve the goal at the moment. If you really don’t want it or not sure about it, you’ll allways put your goal begind something more inportant for you.

2. Effective metod for achieving it. People often make mistakes, sometimes we choose incorrect or uneffective method because we don’t know an effective one, or it even may not exist yet.

3. Internal confidence in the fact the chosen method is working. Even the true desire and the correct method are not enough. If you’re not sure the method is working, this may lead you to doing other stuff, which would surely lead you to one of other true desires.

4. Possibility to achieve the claimed goal with currents methods and in general. Let’s be honest, some problems can’t be solved at the moment, some of them look very much like they are unsolvable at all.

If you’re thirsty, you really want to get some water, you won’t postpone getting water till Monday, you won’t be too lazy to do it right now - you already have the internal desire for water. Then you should choose an effective method in which you’re sure. You can take water from your teapot, go to the nearest lake, buy some water, steal it, or pray to the sky for rain to fall. Among these you would choose the correct method according to your possibilities and internal persuasions and at the moment. Besides, you know drinkable water exists in our world and a person can get it.

If you’re facing a problem with lack of ‘motivation’ you should first ask yourself the following list of questions

1. Do I really want this? Is this my true desire?

2. Am I making it right? Maybe I should choose a more effective method?

3. Am I sure this method really works?

4. Is this goal achieveble at the moment with known methods and current resources?

5.  Is this goal achieveble at all with all methods and resources one can ever find?

From my own expirience, my own laziness and low ‘motivation’ were caused by the following:

In ~60%  it was caused by lack of my internal desire to do this. It could have been my parent’s desire, my friends desire, socially imposed desire, but not my own.

In ~20% I was trying to achieve my goal using wrong method.

In ~10% I wasn’t sure the chosen method was working, so I didn’t put enough efforts into it.

In ~5% it was impossible to achieve the goal with current methods and possibilities.

In ~5% it was impossible achieve the goal with any things I could imagine.