Who & What motivates you, and how?

Comfort and comfort foods motivates me.

I am motivated to help others hurting with mental health problems.

@Hawaii_Jake are you saying that if you had no one in your life who was hurting or who had a mental health problem – you would not be motivated and in turn would become a lazy fast food eating slug who abandoned all self improvement and lived a paycheck to paycheck existence until you eventually died?

Being motivated to help others to me doesn’t equal being motivated to help yourself. My question isn’t what about others motivates you to help them, but rather what motivates you to stay focused in regard to improving and working on the self?

My work in the mental health field motivates me to get out of bed in the mornings, brush my teeth, take my medication, eat a healthy breakfast, shower, wear clean clothes, drive safely to work, energetically lead the groups I do in learning how to deal with mental illness, be fully present and attentive to the clients, drive carefully around town to do my errands, eat more healthy meals, be sociable with my family and friends, participate in my hobbies, take more medicine, and go to bed after setting my alarm for the next morning.

Yes, I get tremendous satisfaction from my job that bleeds over into the rest of my life.

I’m sorry, @Jenniehowell, that we don’t know each other. I have a mental illness that allows me a unique perspective to work with others in the same situation. I am also intimately active in my local community theater. That’s the hobby I alluded to above. I am lucky enough to be a father, and my children give me a lot of satisfaction, too. There’s a lot more about me, but I’m not entirely sure how to fit it into a post for this question.

@Hawaii_Jake I gotcha. I guess I was looking for answers that would lend to my own motivation & focus beyond the basics of living in society. Something other than religion &/or children/loved ones. Things that would assist me in making my motivation self propelled as opposed to being dependent upon outside factors.

Those things that people use not just to motivate themselves to get out of bed and live life and go to work and do the basics such as hygiene, bill paying, child-rearing and providing shelter. Not what motivates you to keep going but what motivates you to never stop self improvement? What book, movie, story, concept, personal hero etc. motivates you to not stop bettering yourself & improving who and what you are? What do people look to in order to bounce right back up from their “down” moments so that their down moments don’t become their excuse to stay on the plateau and just live in society?

It is one thing to stay motivated to keep living. But to keep living is simply a plateau. Get up, perform basic hygiene, get dressed, go to work, feed the kids, pay the bills. Those are the plateau. But moving from someone with an enjoyment of learning to someone with a degree to someone who is a known expert in their field to someone who gets rich and becomes a philanthropist or becomes someone else’s personal hero beyond their immediate friends/family/loved ones. That is what I am talking about.

What motivates you to keep working your ass off at being better at being your best self? What motivates you to keep working your ass off at being better at one thing or another? Even if you literally never improved what would motivate you to keep working your ass off to never give up on trying to improve?

Responsibility and the perception of others.

What a great question. Sadly, I don’t have an answer for you. I’m in survival mode myself, right now. It’s about time I stepped up my efforts, so thanks for the reminder!

I can offer you some things to think about though:

Do you have a passion for anything? Did you have one in the past that you’ve slipped away from? What kinds of things make you feel happy or energetic in the moment you’re doing them? Whatever those things are, I’d do them a lot more often. Finding small satisfactions in life can lead to a greater overall sense of well-being, which, in turn, can lead to more of the same. Also, have you tried therapy and/or medication for your depression? It did me a world of good.

This would be a weird motivational tool for me, but what really motivated me was a part on Rambo 2 where Rambo told Murdock, ”I always believed the mind was the best weapon” I used that phase and applied that to my everyday life…as best as I could, and that phrase I must say got me through college university and other issues in my life. Rambo was always one of my childhood heroes and when I saw that movie I just decided to really listen and apply that phrase. Weird I know, but it really did help.

This program turned my life around 180 degrees. I work WRAP daily, and it keeps me on track and moving in the right direction.

@Eggie doesn’t seem too weird. I was prompted to ask the question because of a combo of A- being depressed and demotivated the last couple weeks regarding the state of my life & B-watching a special on RGIII (Robert Griffin III) and recognizing his level of motivation. He made a statement that happiness to some extent means work because we as Americans expect the right to pursuit of happiness rather than simply happiness alone. Pursuit insinuates that we must go get our happiness not that it lands in our laps. He of course said it differently but that was the basic point & it made me think.. lately I’ve been talking about the pursuit of happiness but haven’t been actually pursuing it. It can often be the little things that motivate us. Something as simple as a quote from a football special or a Rambo movie.

Even though they live far away, my kids motivate me to be someone they can look up to by coping with adversity. Also a dear friend has begun to help me learn what true loving and honesty are about. My own self-esteem motivates me to keep in shape and keep my weight down.

fear and guilt (i have heard those are the two biggest motivators in life). it seems to be true for me.
however, I am, in a lot of ways in the same situation you are. but….i’m pretty sure I can only find the answers within myself.

one of the things that tend to motivate me to do things beyond the basics is music though.
especially showtunes….I love musical theater and did it half my life.

I’m basically a lazy slug in most ways. My biggest (only?) motivator is wanting to learn as much as I can before I die, so that I can express myself fully in a hopefully meaningful way. Right now, I’m still on the learning part, because it doesn’t feel like I know enough to move onto the “doing” part yet.

At work, I try as many different wines as I can and learn every little bit of context and information about them. I’m working on little nitpicky things like learning all the small specific wine regions, all the regional wine laws and so on. I’m also trying to figure out how to make it easier for people to learn and enjoy wine, without being too cutesy about it. The first wine book I ever read was something like “The ‘You Go, Girl!’ Guide to Wine” and it literally had wine and cute outfit pairings. I think they were trying to make the information accessible and not intimidating, and they just went way too far.

I want to make a book or something that presents the information the same way I learned it. I learned through osmosis by working in wine shops, and it’s more like a learning spiral than a straight line. You learn one big idea, and then a bunch of other big concepts, then some other stuff, then loop back to the first things. Now you’ve got a solid base of general knowledge, and you’re ready for smaller details about thing #1.

In my personal time, I’m a reading omnivore, and I’m on a big poetry tear these days. I want to understand what makes the best writing work, not just the thoughts and emotions behind it, but how to put words and sentences together in the most effective way. There are many times when I feel overwhelmed by an ineffable thought or feeling, and I want to be able to understand and share those moments, and maybe even say something insightful about them.

But as far as real world motivation? Hahaha, no. The bills barely get paid, because I am literally too lazy to go into online banking and pay them on time. The money is there. I eat fast food because I’m too lazy to cook or do dishes, and I’m up at 3 AM fluthering on a work night.

@Jenniehowell What do you really care about? In your Q you mention wanting to go out more, exercise more, and find a better job. To me those are more symptoms of true happiness, than the cause of it. Like, when you feel happy enough to get out more and meet people, you will do it. What are you passionate about? When is the last time you devoted yourself to something?

I am motivated by creative endeavors and quick minded, humorous and lively, extroverted people.
Nothing launches my rocket better than a creative project, chock full of wide open, brainstorming, creative idea generating, FUN!
I used to work in interior design and nothing is more fun ( well…maybe landscaping ) than going into an empty house and transforming it into an amazing, aesthetic masterpiece!
I am never at a loss for creative ideas and do not enjoy those without verve and vision who are only capable of talking about their mundane, daily lives and routines.

Small minds talk about people, mediocre minds talk about things and GREAT minds talk about ideas! My kinda people!

@Haleth Thanks for the answer! I care about a lot of things & it’s too difficult to list them all. I asked the question because lately I seem to lack the drive to stick to things I think I need to do. Exercise is one of those things – I would love to say that I exercise 3–5 days weekly but so far it’s more like monthly. I’d like to get motivated to actually get out of the bed and start consistently zipping down the road on my bike. I often allow myself to get caught up in things such as Fluther and then next thing you know the house isn’t clean, the lawn isn’t mowed, the resume isn’t completed, the bike is still on the rack etc. etc. I’m seeking that “something” that will give me the drive or focus or whatever it is I need to actually stay focused and “finish” that which I start.

@Jenniehowell
I am having the same problem and have for many years. I have no idea what the answer is. In the past 3 months I have been starting and stopping an exercise routine every couple weeks it seems. Something always “gets in the way” and then I stop. Then I rally again. Then something else gets in the way. It seems my will is just not enough

Shift happens. lol

What keeps you focused, motivated & determined to keep bettering your life? Perhaps that’s why an old wise saying claims that the saddest person is the one who doesn’t know what they want. Well I know that feeling now at 40 myself. I don’t have the same motivations I used to, but yet I’m not sure what I want to do regarding relationships/dating, career, goals, etc. I’m sorry I likely wasn’t much help to you here, because I’m trying to figure out the answer to your question regarding my own life right now.