What Motivates You To Action ?

Personal motivation takes many forms.  Finding motivation can be difficult, whether it is for yourself or to support others.  Lasting motivation comes from deep-rooted values, but even these beliefs are not enough to motivate us to action in some situations.  What gets you moving and accomplishing things you want or need to do often depends less on your long-term goals and more on the here and now.

For me, I have found motivation from a variety of sources.  Music motivates me ... sometimes.  Exercise motivates me ... sometimes.  My wife and kids motivate me ... sometimes when I don't want to be motivated.  To Do lists and thinking about the end of a project motivates me much of the time.  But one thing motivates me every single time it happens!  I have yet to experience a situation where I do not take action when this one thing occurs.

I am always motivated by ... ANGER.

To be clear right from the start, my reaction to anger is almost always positive and not destructive.  The feeling of anger or disappointment just lights a fire for me that gives me energy to make changes or take action that will allow me to avoid that feeling in the future.  Dirty dishes piled up in the sink?  I can channel that frustration long enough to load the dishwasher.  Tree roots tangled with sprinkler lines?  I will take out my frustration on untangling that mess.  Opponent keeps scoring at will on the basketball court?  I will redirect my energy to tighter defense, if only to stop him once.

Even blogging has come in waves, often motivated by things that begin to rile me up.  I don't expect anyone to go back and track it, but I think you will find frustration, disappointment, discontent, or otherwise some form of anger, as the genesis for many of my posts.  But look closely and I think you'll see that the anger quickly gives way to more positive reactions and ideas on how to improve that situation going forward.  At least that is my hope.


Song Of The Day:
Not necessarily one of my favorite Bobby McFerrin songs, ** "Angry" just fits this post too well not to use.  I like that the lyrics and his delivery of them suggest a more positive reaction to situations that frustrate us.  This is not a hurt others kind of anger, but a we could make this better kind of response.
**Apologies for the song link not being included here ... I will remedy that once I can get a video loaded to YouTube.
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