You Need A Bigger Problem

How To Have Unstoppable Motivation

Like most people, I bet you would like to be motivated all the time. You would like to have drive and passion that is always at its peak and allows you to achieve all the wonderful things you would like to achieve.

If you made New Year’s resolutions it is very likely that by now you have abandoned most of them. Somehow you can’t seem to muster the passion and determination that you had when you made them.

Don’t worry, it’s not your fault and neither are you alone in this. Some studies have shown that 71 percent of participants keep their resolutions for two weeks, 64 percent for a month and 50 percent for three months. 46% manage to keep their resolutions six months into the year.

It must come from within
So how do you fire up your motivation to such an extent that it doesn’t wane? Well, there are many ways and all have one thing in common. That is that the motivation has got to come from within. It has to be a motivation that stems from your values, mission and vision in life.

Very often we use shortcut methods of motivating ourselves. We listen to motivational talks and read motivational materials, which are all very useful, but without a way to truly internalize and personalize what we learn all these methods are futile.

Reading or listening to something positive does not necessarily alter your thinking and your belief system. It is the process of making those things you read and listen to deeply affect you on a conscious and unconscious level that makes for long term positive change.

Your problems are too small?
But today I would like to focus on one thing in particular. I recently heard something from Todd Beeler in the “Seven Hidden Secrets of Motivation” who said: “The biggest challenge you have is that you don’t have a bigger challenge facing you right now.” Read that again. “The biggest problem facing you in your motivation is that you don’t have a bigger problem facing you right now.”

People who really impact the world, live fulfilled lives or change things are people who had big challenges to overcome. They are people that had huge mountains to climb and were really focused and determined to climb those mountains.

Most of us are focused on ourselves. We want wealth, recognition, fame, power, happiness and so on. These things are good, but they are inward looking. They focus your attention on yourself.

Focus outward
Having a bigger problem to face requires you to look outward. It means to look at other people and think about what you can do for them. It is all about changing other people’s lives and making the world a little better for someone else. The great thing is that you cannot do that without automatically making things better for yourself in the process.

Service is the appropriate word to describe this. The more people you can be of service to, the more successful you can be. This service may be a physical or product an intangible service.

Abraham Maslow studied many self actualized people and came to some interesting conclusions. He found that such people focus on problems, but not ego based problems. They focus instead on mission based problems which centre on philosophical and moral issues. They have a wide frame of reference. The result is that these people have more serenity and peace of mind. A poet once wrote that “You need to have something to live for and something to die for.”

Having a bigger challenge and complexity increases your motivation. That is why you must find your macro vision. Give yourself, your time and your money to a worthy cause. It forces you to focus on something aside from yourself and is good for motivation. What you give will inevitably come back to you many times over.

Goal setting is overrated
Beeler says that “goal setting is overrated. Problem solving is often underrated. But problem solving can motivate you more than goal setting.”

Bill Gates, having made his billions, has found a higher purpose. He is now the biggest philanthropist in the world together with his contemporary and friend Warren Buffet. They are focused on helping others and solving the bigger problems the world is facing. However, their fortunes are not declining since they started doing this, they are growing.

There are plenty of other less well known names. Nido Qubein is one such person. Going to the United States as a teenager with little knowledge of English, no contacts and only $50 in his pocket, he ended up a mega success.

His foundation provides scholarships to 48 deserving young people each year. To-date the Qubein Foundation has granted more than 600 scholarships, worth over three million dollars. He is a multimillionaire, speaker, author and philanthropist.

Coming closer to home, Nelson Mandela is a man that had a dream of liberating his people from apartheid. He suffered for it for sometime, but ultimately he succeeded and made a legacy for himself that will outlive him for hundreds of years to come.

Your limitations and failures will shrink
Having a bigger problem to face draws you away from focusing on your limitations, your failures and your own abilities. It enables you to look at and focus on the wider picture.

With such a focus, your own fears, limitations and shortcomings seem to fade away. There is something bigger than just your success at stake. Other people’s lives and success depend on you achieving your dreams.

It is no small coincidence that some of the world’s most successful people and companies are those that are focused on bigger issues. They do make money, but their motive goes beyond just making money. It is the need to help people to solve a bigger problem that they face with whatever product or service that drives them.

That is why a company’s mission is very critical to its success or failure. The mission is what drives things forward and motivates people to achieve and perform at their best.

The answer to solving your problem is to go and find a bigger problem. The thing to help you fire up your motivation is to find a bigger challenge.