Set Your Motivation On Fire
	Distinguishing Fiery Motivation From Normal Motivation <  Previous Contents Next  >

What is normal motivation?

Motivation is the drive or desire to accomplish a goal. It takes several other factors such as skill, technique, strategy, knowledge and time in order to reach a goal but motivation is the directing factor that holds all of these together. You need a certain type of behavior and state of mind in order to accomplish your goal and motivation is the key that activates, directs and maintains the behavior and state of mind until the goal is achieved.

If you feel angry, motivation is what started your anger, keeps you angry and determines how long you’re going to stay angry.

For example, there’s suddenly a blackout in your home – this is the obstacle or challenge. You have to find some source of light – this is the goal. You think a candle is a good source of light without electricity – this is knowledge. You know how to use a matchstick or a lighter to light the candle – this is technique. You have about five minutes to search for a candle – this is time. You use your hands to feel for the candle and matches in the dark – this is strategy.

All these factors may occur in a series or simultaneously and motivation is needed with each factor for you to accomplish the task of finding some source of light. If you lose motivation at one stage, it might cause delay or difficulty in finishing the task or compromise the main goal altogether.

What is fiery motivation?

Fiery motivation is the drive or desire to accomplish a goal using all available resources and accessing higher forms of behavior to maintain the drive or desire. In other words, fiery motivation will not be discouraged or lose steam but instead will become more focused and keep alert until the goal is achieved. The body, mind and emotions will only relax once the task is done.

In this case, fiery motivation redirects all forms of stress where it can completely be ignored since you only focus on one specific thing. One possible consequence may be burning out afterwards since you may have increased stress levels in other areas of yourself in order to remain focused and maintain your drive.

Using all available resources and accessing higher forms of behavior can be defined as the spontaneous and simultaneous manner of maintaining the state of need for accomplishment. As mentioned earlier, motivation starts, directs and maintains behavior during normal circumstances. However, fiery motivation does more than that in the sense that it intensifies behavior. You might temporarily or permanently perceive things differently just so you reach your goal.

The motivating factor of interest might turn into passion or gratification of receiving a reward might turn into need.

How can you set normal motivation on fire?

With practice and experience, you can maintain normal motivation. However there are various emotional and psychological approaches needed in order to create the fiery kind. All these basically point out one general idea –you have to know yourself very well. Since your emotions, ideas, personality and behavior are the factors that motivation controls, you should first familiarize yourself with these.

Know your strengths, weaknesses and tendencies so that you’ll be able to identify which ones are needed during times of obstacles and challenges. Once you learn how to identify them, you’ll then learn how to intensify each accordingly and set them on fire.

How do obstacles and challenges become insurmountable?

Literally, the word “insurmountable” means impossible or insoluble. This may mean that the level of stress is beyond what you are capable of. What’s interesting about fiery motivation is that it allows your capability and capacity to go beyond the normal level, thus responding appropriately or more than the intensity and duration of the stress. Of course this would lead to success or accomplishment of the goal at hand.

In order to increase your capabilities to overcome obstacles and challenges, you should also know why they became insurmountable in the first place. Here are some reasons.

1. Wrong stimuli. A stimulus is the factor that triggers motivation to activate a behavior or respond to stress. However, stimuli are also specific or have a range of responses as well and if the behavior or response activated does not pertain to the situation at hand, the stress will not be relieved and over time it may develop and become more severe.

2. Unlearned strategy. If you are experiencing particular obstacles and challenges for the first time, they seem much more difficult to solve. This is because you may not have learned the proper skills or knowledge needed to overcome the stress or you still do not realize what strategy or approach will work best to deal with the problem. Sometimes you have to do the trial-and-error method just to know the right procedure in facing certain problems.

3. Emotion without a goal. It is important to know that motivation is not the same thing as emotion. Motivation drives your emotions to accomplish a goal while emotions can exist with no particular goal. You have to link the emotions you’re feeling when facing obstacles and challenges with certain goals so that your feelings and thoughts will be directed toward them.

4. Imbalanced system. If one of your systems, namely psychological, physical, mental, spiritual or social is disturbed, it is very likely that you will also have a hard time overcoming stress. You have to attain homeostasis in order to focus directly on the problem and solution. Going forth with an impaired system will cause you to lose motivation, making challenges insurmountable.

5. Lack or loss of model. Oftentimes you use models or representations that you imitate or use the same procedure and solution of in order to get motivated and achieve goals. The model may be in the form of past experiences or a mentor who advises you how to deal with challenges. If the model or representation becomes distorted, loses meaning or you lose contact with it as you go along the processes of achieving your goal, challenges will begin to appear insurmountable.