Tag: fear

Motivation

Whoever unlocks the secret to motivation will be incredibly rewarded for those insights.

I like to work out. I like to have worked out. But I often struggle to begin a workout. And I don’t have the slightest clue as to why that is. I’ve completed several marathons and half-marathons, Ironman and 70.3 triathlons, century and multi-day bike rides, and I’ve been training – save when I’ve been injured – for nearly 15 years.

And I still choose my bed or my sofa over my workout more often than prudence would dictate.

Meeting someone for a run or a ride is perhaps the best way to get me to the start of my workout. The terror that comes with committing to something I’ve not done before is another effective method. Absent either of those prods I’m just as likely to turn off the alarm or find a seems-like-compelling-at-the-time reason to do something else.

Perhaps it is as simple as genetic coding. We rest because we’re programmed to do so, to conserve our energies. Or maybe I’m just afraid or anxious or worried about falling short. Which is why, you’d think, that I’d be more determined to practice. If we ever needed evidence to show that we’re not a rational species I think our collective behavior around exercise would settle the argument: we know physical activity is critical to our health, and yet we seem to actively avoid it.

No, not always. But consistently.

And I feel tremendously disappointed with my choice when I bail on a workout. If the positive vibe post-workout isn’t enough motivation, you’d think the post-workout-shirking shame would do the trick. But no.

So what can get me to the gym day in and day out?

That is the more-than-one-million-dollar question.

Regrets

Parenting is many things. I just wish I knew how to make all of them easier.

I have found, however, that it’s easier on my children when I temper the regrets I feel about my own life and the choices I’ve made in it. I have many regrets. And I have finally learned that they color many of my interactions with my daughters, and rarely in a positive way.

I was a timid kid. By nature as well as circumstance. I tended to sit back and observe when faced with a new situation, and moving as my family did every three years in my formative years meant I was often in a new situation. I was also self-conscious about entering late into an activity, so even after I felt like I understood what was going on I was reluctant to engage. So I regularly sat apart and wished I could be a part of the action.

My daughters are reserved as well. Which was evident from their births. They are decidedly different in many respects, but in this area they are the same. They are shy on first meeting, like me. They are slow to jump in. We’ve moved just once though, when they were both very young, so I think perhaps their comfort with familiar friends and familiar places is higher than mine was at their ages..

Knowing how excluded I felt as a child, and knowing how sad that felt to me, I encouraged my daughters to throw themselves into new situations, to embrace change, to step forward at every opportunity. I did so with the best of intentions, trying to help them avoid the isolation I felt when I was their ages. But I fear all I did was add stress to their lives, which is, of course, just what kids these days need more of. I forgot the first – and really only – rule of successful parenting: love the child you have, not the child you want. Or, said specifically to me, love the child you have, not the child you were.

I did the same with sports and with musical instruments, insisting not just on their participation, but their dedication. We did let them choose their activities, but we also insisted that they have activities, their mother for her reasons, me in the hope they would engage more fully than I did with the world I so desperately wanted to be more a part of. But rather than let that be the end of it, rather than let them decide how much of each activity they’d bite off, I tried to force engagement. Which runs counter to my daughters’ natures. And mine too.

As adults, they both feel anxious at times, and I wonder how much of that is just their nature and how much I contributed to it with my prodding. They are also more accomplished than I was then, so how much of that is their nature and how much the result of my hectoring? I tend to give them credit for their achievements and take blame for their stress. If happiness is the goal of life – and I believe it is – both stress and accomplishment are important parts of the happiness equation. I hope I’ve balanced some of the stress I induced with some of the striving they’ve experienced. But I don’t really know, and I suspect they’ll never know either.

Sharing

Sharing feels good. Really good.

So why do we resist it so much? Especially when we have so much.

I get that conserving energy is a biological motivation deeply enbedded in our DNA. Our ancestors didn’t know when they would eat next, or find water, or need shelter, so hoarding resources was critical to their survival.

And yet they were also social animals. They lived in family groups and in communities. Working with other people was critical to their survival.

We are still social animals. We still live in communities, and I know not only that I derive most of my own satisfaction and pleasure from interacting with other people but also that I could not survive without a community to support me. I am a hobbyist potter who knows zero about acquiring food on my own, zero about building even modestly effective shelter, zero about machines or carpentry or any other necessary skill for truly independent off-the-grid living.

But do we still need to hoard resources?

Because we seem to believe we do. People in my broader family, good friends and neighbors, other people I know and respect seem to want to acquire and retain more than what it appears to me that they need. I don’t judge them for their decisions – I don’t know the details of their circumstances, and I believe strongly in self-determination – but I wonder if they’re not making decisions based on fear rather than a realistic reading of their circumstances.

I retired last year from my corporate career. I was very worried about whether or not I had enough money to transition to my new career, which is still undetermined 15 months later. I did. It seems we prepare for the worst – how else to ensure that we’ll make it through. But the worst only happens to a small fraction of us, so the rest of us have over-prepared. And there’s a cost to each of us for that and to our community at large. Because in acquiring and keeping something we don’t really need, we deprive someone else of its use, someone who might need it more than we do.

My experience is that our community helps those who draw the short straws, who see disaster upend their lives. If we trusted that we wouldn’t be left out in the cold, that our families would have something to eat, that our basic needs would be met while we rebuilt our lives, then I wonder if we could curtail some of the selfishness we see around us, the selfishness that inhibits us, that undermines community and wastes resources that could be better used by someone who needs them more.

Courage

What is courage? And, more importantly, can I be brave?

Perhaps it’s my current preoccupation with death, or perhaps it’s the confrontations with my government and other citizens that seem so inevitable as I write these words, but courage has been on my mind a lot recently. And wondering how I will respond in situations when it is required.

I don’t think I’m very brave. I have jumped off a platform with a bungy cord attached to me. I have challenged myself with physical feats of endurance that haven’t been comfortable. I contemplate tattoos and career changes and vegan diets without pause, and I will try new things without reserve (to be fair, only after due deliberation however!).

But that doesn’t feel like courage to me.

In each of those situations I believe I understand the risks and that a disastrous outcome is so unlikely that I don’t need to feed it any emotional energy. I am not afraid, so I don’t need courage. Commitment, resolve, focus, discipline, adaptability – all those, yes. But not courage.

So what does take courage?

I believe in positive. I believe in win-win. I believe in encouraging others, and that we can do our best when we strive for a result by using our strengths rather than avoid an outcome by mitigating our shortcomings. Or maybe I tell myself this because I really hate hurting people. Even merely disappointing others unsettles me, whether or not it’s necessary. I’m not comfortable imposing myself on people either. For me, those circumstances take courage, courage that is often found wanting.

So how will I respond when I am called to do something both important and uncomfortable? Will I rise to the occasion? Alas, I fear the data to this point isn’t very promising.