Finding Motivation Through Curiosity
Becoming a badass takes work. Most of you will already know that. It requires hours in the gym, hours locked away at work, and time spent looking closely at your own weaknesses.
It’s a difficult process, and as a natural consequence, can be difficult to maintain over time. In fact, finding motivation can be one of the biggest challenges that men encounter on their journey.
After all, it’s normal for motivation to come and go. Add a whole bunch of difficulty, and motivation levels can bounce up and down like a kid on a trampoline.
And we all know how difficult things can be when motivation hits a low point. Simple tasks like getting off the couch can feel overwhelming… forget about hitting the grind.
But this is exactly why developing the ability to find and maintain motivation is so important. If you want to squeeze more out of life, finding motivation needs to be a skill that sits in your back pocket ready to be used at all times.
But before we talk about how to do this, there’s one small thing that we need to cover – discipline.
Whenever motivation is brought up in the male self-improvement space, the response is generally something like: “Forget about motivation, focus on discipline.”
And there is a valid point here. After all, motivation doesn’t matter if you’re able to convince yourself to do the thing anyway.
With this point in mind, I want to make it clear that discipline is absolutely a vital skill and something you should be continually working to build.
However, people often use the ‘discipline trumps motivation’ argument as a reason to ignore motivation entirely. I believe this to be a mistake.
It’s a mistake because beating brain chemistry is difficult. Yes, it’s possible. That’s discipline in a nutshell, after all. You’re convincing yourself to act in spite of brain chemistry that’s pushing you not to.
But wouldn’t it be easier if your brain was on your side?
Picture it like a river. Discipline will get you in the river but motivation determines whether you’re swimming with or against the current. Finding motivation when you previously had none will transition you from swimming against the current, to speeding along with it.
So, without further adieu, let’s look at a useful tactic that I’ve found for finding motivation in the moments when I really need it.
Story Time - Finding Motivation Through Astronomy
A few months ago, I finally got around to watching Interstellar. Yes, yes, I know - about time, right? That’s what all my friends said.
The verdict? It’s as incredible as everyone said and I should have watched it way sooner. Big surprise, huh?.
To me, the more surprising outcome was how captured I was by the space and interplanetary themes. I’d never been a sci-fi guy… I stand firmly on the opinion that Star Wars is overrated. But I couldn’t help but feel awe-inspired and curious about everything shown to me in the movie.
So, I did what any curious young man does. I started researching it. I grabbed some books, put together a YouTube playlist, and generally immersed myself in all things outside of our atmosphere.
Eventually, I found myself at my local park in the middle of the night, looking up at the stars. Now, equipped with a stargazing app and a cheap set of binoculars, it’s developed into a slick little hobby.
And you know what? It’s been an effortless process. There was never a lack of motivation. In fact, motivation wasn’t even in the equation. Curiosity was driving me to pursue my interest from one stage to the next.
And that’s the point of this article.
Curiosity is a Powerful Force
Curiosity is powerful for two simple reasons.
First, it shows you what you’re intrinsically driven towards, and second, it supplies you with an endless amount of motivation. Pursuing curiosity is like driving a car that doesn’t need fuel, as long as you continue driving in the right direction.
Most importantly, as you pursue your curiosity, you’ll often be pulled out of your everyday existence. You’ll be reminded of just how incredible the world truly is and how lucky you are to be alive.
*For anyone experiencing déjà vu, I spoke about similar ideas in my article about novelty. I don’t think the amount of overlap is a coincidence.
Anyway, if you’re finding yourself lacking in motivation, it’s time for a reframe. Give the following exercise a try.
Exercise - Reframing What’s Important
While it can be used for most motivation-related issues, the following exercise is particularly useful for overcoming procrastination. To keep things simple, I’ve broken it down into 4 simple steps.
Step 1 - Forget.
Think about whatever it is that’s been getting in the way of your motivation. Often, this will be an unappealing task - e.g: you’re having trouble dragging yourself off the couch because you really can’t be bothered writing that email or washing the dishes. In other cases, it might be due to stress, or lack of sleep, or <insert human problem here>.
Whatever it is, recognise it and then put it out of your mind. Yep, that’s right. Totally forget about it. It can wait until later.
Step 2 - Embrace curiosity.
Now that you’ve free’d up some mental real estate, it’s time to choose something new to think about.
Think through the things that have been occupying your mind over the last few weeks. Has there been anything exciting? Anything you’ve found yourself curious about?
If you can’t think of anything, think about your interests. What’s something in your life that consistently excites you? That’s your new focus.
*Two important restrictions on this one:
Don’t choose something that’s an obvious distraction. This isn’t an excuse to boot up a video game. Choose something that you’d potentially benefit from learning more about.
Try to avoid choosing a topic that you’re already largely familiar with. It’s easier to generate excitement when you’re encountering something fresh.
Step 3 - Dive in.
Once you’ve chosen your topic, set a timer for 30 minutes and start Googling. You’ve got full permission to immerse yourself in this new topic. Watch YouTube videos, read articles, dive down the rabbit hole.
The whole point of this is to follow your curiosity and allow the excitement to build up. If all goes well, you’ll hit the end of the 30 minutes filled with wonder and with a fresh perspective.
Step 4 - Back to work.
As soon as the 30 minutes is up, pivot immediately back to whatever you were meant to be doing. If the previous steps worked, you should find yourself with enough motivation to start whatever activity you were delaying. And starting is half the battle.
Anyway, hopefully this exercise works for you as well as it works for me. At the very least, play around with it. Through exploration, you might find certain activities that consistently have an exciting and motivating effect on you. If you find something like this, you’ll always have it in your back pocket whenever you feel your motivation drop. And that’s a badass tool to have.