I don’t want to be you. I want to be inspired by you.

I am lucky enough to have powerful and kind people present in my life, and more recently I have made a conscious effort to surround myself with those people more. It is fuel for your own ambitions - observing those striving for themselves, getting results and making a difference.

I sometimes have ‘dead-days’ where I’m desperate to make things happen, but mentally and physically can’t push myself. If you live with anxiety or have low mood then you may understand what I’m talking about. On those days the guilt then kicks in, a vicious cycle of feeling too low/tired/unmotivated to do something, realising that if you could do it that it might make things better, then feeling bad because your body still.won’t.move.

I’ll share something I have recently learnt from reading a book written by Johann Hari, called Lost Connections.

“Ever since the 1960’s, psychologists have known that there are two different ways you can motivate yourself to get out of bed in the morning. The first are called intrinsic motives – they are things you do purely because you value them in and of themselves, not because you get anything out of them. At the same time, there’s a rival set of values, which are called extrinsic motivates. They’re the things you do not because you actually want to do them, but because you’ll get something in return”.

To use this in an example related to my previous blog interviewing my friend Olivia – Olivia gets joy from writing, directing and working on her own films, she doesn’t yet make much money from this but she knows that this is what she should be doing, she is being driven by intrinsic motives. At the same time, whenever we have spoken she will tell me about a new ‘crew’ role she will have coming up, still working in film but a less enjoyable role just to build contacts, gain experience and make some money, driven by extrinsic motives.

A study by American Psychologist Tim Kasser, who I also read about in the same book Lost Connections, found that ‘people who achieve their intrinsic goals did become significantly happier, and less depressed and anxious…twelve different studies have, in the years since, found that the more materialist and extrinsically motivated you become, the more anxious you will be’.

I have always been inspired by other people who follow their own path, and if they become successful alongside doing so – then that’s great. As we all know, our lives on social media are not transparent. In the minds of others, you become whoever you present to the screen. By surrounding myself with the passionate people I started off this post mentioning, I have worked more on what makes me happy (smaller scale, in real life, only for me). Much of my motivation now comes from seeing them achieve happiness through their own intrinsic motives, like a walk up a mountain, and realising that although I don’t have the same goals, by focusing on myself and the small things that make me smile, I will find ways to get out of bed.

You can buy Lost Connections here: https://thelostconnections.com/