Mastering Passion and Motivation

Being passionate, motivated and sticking to your commitments is a function of your ability to:

1. generate yourself


2. construct your environment such that it is responsible for generating you


3. be in the right place at the right time, so that the universe lines everything up just right, i.e. fluke it.

Some of those things probably won't make sense to you just yet, but stick with it, I'll get to them.

Most of the time when we, human beings, are passionate or motivated to do something it's a fluke. It's something we're temporarily fascinated by, or maybe we're passionate about something because of our parents or a past experience (e.g. a friend dying of cancer, might compel us to start a charity). Whatever the reason, we are commonly motivated by our environment. Something happens, and we respond by becoming passionate or motivated about something new.

What you want to know about this is that having your passions driven by your environment gives you little control over your life**, and will commonly leave you with a sense of dissatisfaction. Take a look and I think you'll find this to be relatively true.

So if fluking it gets the job done, but isn't on the road to a fulfilling life, then lets talk about the other two options. Generating yourself and creating your environment such that it generates you really go hand in hand. So what is "generating yourself." If you imagine yourself as an entity with one responsibility: being. Not doing, not having, just being. You have the choice of being happy, sad, joyful, free, loving, passionate, excited, ... etc. Generating yourself is basically taking responsibility for who you are being, and without needing anything or anyone else, creating that state of being in yourself, authentically. It's important to note generating yourself isn't faking something and it definitely isn't pretending. It creating that state of being for yourself. It will take some practice, but don't force it, just give it a go.

You'll find generating yourself can be difficult at times, and everyone has moments where they are unable or not willing to generate themselves. Having your environment setup to encourage your passions and to motivate you creates a very powerful space for you to operate in and is really a physical form of your commitment.

If you can master generating yourself and successfully setup your environment, you will be on the track to passion and motivation. And as time goes on you'll find yourself being less dependent on your environment and surroundings to motivate you. There will just exist you and your commitments being fulfilled^.



**For all the Christians out there don't read this and go into defense mode about how only God should have control over our life and confusing your environment with God, this isn't what I'm talking about. You should hand your life over to God, but that doesn't mean you become a leaf in the wind. God wants us to develop consistency and control over ourselves, and part of this is developing our ability to be focused.

^There are many things that can get in the way of you being passionate and motivated. The above is one approach and it won't necessarily make a difference to you. Stayed tuned though, in the not-so-distant future I'm writing about another thing called INTEGRITY which will open a whole new world to fulfilling your commitments.