Get Fearless
I held an event at the house last week focused on getting out of a funk. About 3x more attendees showed up than is typical for these casual, barefoot, wine-on-the-rug affairs. Clearly I'd hit a nerve with the topic, and people showed up with a new level of presence and supportiveness. When they left, they felt a high of fearlessness.
By far the most pervasive issue for folks was how to stay motivated. To which I immediately responded: "um, well... you tell me?"
What motivates you? When was the last time you made time for it?
Lack of motivation causes funks; not the other way around.
What motivates me is pretty simple: the dopamine-serotonin double whammy of serving other people directly.
The attention, the sense of purpose, and the instant feedback is a literal drug. So, in practice, me staying motivated looks like programming human interaction: group athletic activities; events at my house; free strategy sessions.
Solopreneurship, as I've mentioned many times, is a friggin' minefield of demotivation for someone as attention-basking as I am. But this is the path I choose, and with good reason--so I design a system that works for me within the constraints. I create a flow of time and resources around those activities because the ROI is there.
If you don't invest that time and those resources, you end up demotivated, and eventually in a funk. And yet--we (including me!!) constantly slip on this. Suddenly, we find ourselves unmoored, without the creativity we need to even SET goals, much less accomplish them.
We've got to make it easier for ourselves by adding some structure and accountability to the mix.
When was the last time you took responsibility for what motivates you? How good would it feel to be surrounded by women infusing their creativity into yours (somehow it's always easier to help others than it is to help ourselves, amirite?)?
We weren't meant to do this on our own. Sign up for a free 30-minute session here to see if this is the right fit for you, and PLEASE forward this email to someone you think is ready to read it.
A poem I keep coming back to:
That Which Resembles the Grave But Isn't
Always falling into a hole, then saying “ok, this is not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of the hole which is not the grave, falling into a hole again, saying “ok, this is also not your grave, get out of this hole,” getting out of that hole, falling into another one; sometimes falling into a hole within a hole, or many holes within holes, getting out of them one after the other, then falling again, saying “this is not your grave, get out of the hole”; sometimes being pushed, saying “you can not push me into this hole, it is not my grave,” and getting out defiantly, then falling into a hole again without any pushing; sometimes falling into a set of holes whose structures are predictable, ideological, and long dug, often falling into this set of structural and impersonal holes; sometimes falling into holes with other people, with other people, saying “this is not our mass grave, get out of this hole,” all together getting out of the hole together, hands and legs and arms and human ladders of each other to get out of the hole that is not the mass grave but that will only be gotten out of together; sometimes the willful-falling into a hole which is not the grave because it is easier than not falling into a hole really, but then once in it, realizing it is not the grave, getting out of the hole eventually; sometimes falling into a hole and languishing there for days, weeks, months, years, because while not the grave very difficult, still, to climb out of and you know after this hole there’s just another and another; sometimes surveying the landscape of holes and wishing for a high quality final hole; sometimes thinking of who has fallen into holes which are not graves but might be better if they were; sometimes too ardently contemplating the final hole while trying to avoid the provisional ones; sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying “look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from that which resembles the grave but isn’t!”
- Anne Boyer
Question for you:
What do you need to do that you don't want to do?