Why Lies Motivate Me

If I’m driving, showering or working out I’m most likely letting my mind wander, the exception being that sometimes on long drives I push myself to listen to audio books while I drive (gotta be well-read, right?). The music is typically on in any of the three scenarios above and that seems to help my mind escape so I set it free to seek whatever thoughts it wants to settle on. After awhile I’ll mentally hold out my arm again and catch my mind so I can review whatever it has caught — think hawking but mentally.

As I drove with the music drawing my thoughts from me, my mind wandered into how much better I was working to be than a friend I have. They are a writer, though I consider them a ‘true’ writer and myself not so much of a true one sometimes — maybe it would be better to say they’re a Writer and I a writer, but I digress. Their training is based in passion and far more formal education while mine is passion alone with a lot of reading sprinkled with trial and error.

My thoughts about them continued until I concluded that I had to continue working and pushing harder on a project I have because, ‘They aren’t doing something like that and I want it done before they can do it.’ but as I neared my destination I realized this was not the first time I had created such a dialogue in my head about my goals and my need to reach them before other people could.

I’m quite type A and very self-motivated, but with the realization above I begin to wonder if my ‘self’ motivation is merely me just fighting to be ‘better’ than the other people around me, since one of the previous times I caught myself doing this very thing was when a different friend who is a certified personal trainer was telling me about their fitness goals and for months my days at the gym were pushed a bit harder, a bit further, all while thinking ‘They’re probably still at the gym, they must be.’

While I have not spoken with my Writer friend (it’s still early as I write this) I do recall when I spoke with the trainer friend after that push in fitness. It turned out that they were so motivated to do better because they were actually slacking more than they felt they ought, but their promises still remained glued in my heart and mind.

Whether I contact the Writer to inquire whether they have similar goals that I do has little sway on my motivation, I believe that if I continue to hold myself to the version of them that they project, whether they obtain it or not, I will be the better for it. There is an argument to be made that by accepting that I must out-perform my contact’s preferred versions of themselves that I do little but promise myself exhaustion, and I would agree, if I wasn’t so dead set on sleeping more restfully than another one of my peers.

All jokes aside, motivation is important. Discovering it in other people’s ‘greatness’ even when it is not as great as they may want it to be is a viable way to maintain a productive clip. This isn’t to say that one should hijack other people’s goals, but if you’re fueled by competition and you have similar goals as someone else, I would consider using that as fuel. Perhaps don’t tell the other person, as they may not be as aggressive and you could come across as too intense, but if you can obtain the gusto to get something done that is often half the battle.

-Matt S.