Welcome to my first newsletter post and thank you for taking the time to read along with me. I’m not typically a writer, but I hope to improve with each post. 🙂
We all strive to achieve a number of things, may it be money, success, fulfillment, passions, health, etc.
However, some of us have different motivations as to why we are striving to pursue a particular thing.
Maybe we want to improve our health because we don’t want to end up getting ill, maybe we love our body and we want to take care of it, just because we love it.
Usually behind every motivation is an emotion, and if we dig deep and deep enough, we will find that it is usually fear or love that moves us to pursue things.
That’s what we are going to talk about, and respond to the questions:
- Is one of them better or “healthier” than the other?
- Which of them is a more powerful motivator?
- What of them should we strive towards?
First, let’s talk about Fear.
Fear
It’s no surprise to us that fear is the predominant motivator in a lot of our actions day to day.
Back in our “caveman” days, when we had to run and hunt wild animals, we needed to fear when we saw a wild Bear near us, that motivated us to run, and that fear is tied to our survival. In the modern days that same fear still occurs, however, it occurs now in things that are not directly correlated to our own survival, even though our mind thinks so. (Example: Public speaking in front of a big crowd can make us feel like we are going to die)
We concluded that fear is a powerful motivator, and we briefly discussed its origins. But how powerful is it you may ask?
There was a study experimenting with rats. A starving rat called Mike was put on a “treadmill”, the rat was put with cheese smell in front of it, and the velocity that the starving rat ran towards it was recorded. In the second experiment not only did they add smell of cheese in front but they also added cat smell from behind, as you can see on my lovely drawing below, the rat Mike, even starving, ran much faster in this second experiment.
This is why striving toward something that we want and at the same time running from something that we fear, can be a powerful motivator.
However.
In the long run, if our true purpose is to pursue fulfillment and content in life, maybe we don’t want to mindlessly pursue things because we are afraid of what might happen if we don’t. Would it be much better if we instead strived to achieve a good grade in school because we knew that we would learn interesting stuff in the process, instead of fear that we might not pass the exam? Wouldn’t it be much better? Wouldn’t be better to strive to be in shape, because we care and love our bodies, instead of fear of illness or social disapproval? Wouldn’t that be much better?
That’s what we are going to talk about next, how love can be a powerful force in our actions and persues and how we can get more fulfillment and content in our lives that way.
Love
When we do things because we are fearfully running away from something like the rat, Mike, and we end up not getting the outcome we desire because it was outside of our control, or any other reason, it doesn’t matter. We become devastated. But when we do things out of love, and we don’t end up getting the outcome we want, it’s much easier to accept that we did what we thought was best at the time, and we focus on what is within our control.
Doing things out of love is key in relationships too. Instead of helping others and our loved ones out of fear of being judged and disapproved of. Can’t we help our loved ones because we care and love them, not because we fear what would happen if we didn’t?
Hopefully, these examples helped you understand how love can be a better motivator for our actions and can help us pursue things in a more mindful and fulfilling way.
That being said, some people will tell you that you should use your fear to move towards the things that you want. There is not better or worse, but we should move towards more loving motivators and question the motivations behind our actions every time, and face the fear in the front when we have a chance to, even when that means stepping out of our comfort zone if we need to.
Conclusion and insights:
Even though love is the motivator we strive towards, fear can be a powerful motivator, especially in the beginning. But if we don’t want to mindlessly pursue things without fulfillment, happiness, and joy in the present moment. We should transition our motivations to a more loving way. This is obviously easier said than done, even some of the more fulfilled people question all the time the motivations behind their actions. But is something to keep in mind.
Practical actions (For the action takers):
When you find yourself doing because you fear some outcome, try to question your fear and if the fear really is crucial to your survival, don’t judge or resist the fear, just accept it and see what comes up. Then ask yourself, is there a way that I can strive to do this in a loving way? What does it look like?
Don’t beat yourself over it if you don’t let go of the fear at first, some fears are so tied to ourselves that require some time to be let go.
Hope you find something of value in this edition of Sunday Pause, and hope you have a lovely upcoming week! 🙂
Until next Sunday. 👋
– Idris Moura.
