The Difference between Impulsive Desire vs. Motivation.

Many people see other people achieving things and assume it must be “easy” for them and that being motivated will make it feel easy. However, the feeling of something being easy to do is often due to impulsive desires and not how motivation or willpower or discipline feels.

Trying to wait on the emotion of wanting to do something means your emotions are in control of whether you can act. When you start to live a life where your short-term wants and desires control your actions – your life will be out of control and it will result in unhappiness.

For example: If you go to the gym because you hate your body one week and then stop going because you hate how hard the work is -that is not an example of a lack of follow-through. You had continuous follow through of always listening to the part of you that desires to avoid pain and negative emotion.

It is rare to have a singular motivation without inner conflict. A competing interest can motivate you to change your life, but it won’t erase your body’s desire to avoid pain or seek short-term rewards or enjoyment. Willpower feels like conflict and is the ability to stay in that state of conflict until you’ve done what needs to be done. Willpower is a limited resource, however, but more on that part comes later.

Reflection Questions:

• Do you want to be in control of your wants or do you want to be controlled by the whims of your emotions and impulsive desires?

Practice activity for cultivating internal awareness:

• Force yourself to do something (without telling yourself it will be enjoyable and without trying to bait yourself with hypothetical rewards in the future – since that’s outcome-focused. (Can be something like going for a 30-minute walk without your phone or going to the bathroom without your phone.)
• Jot down the experience of it or do a voice memo to replay later for reflection.

Reflect on how to improve:

• How did you feel about this activity?
• What was good about it/ what was hard about it?
• Is there something that could make it easier or better next time?