Your journal prompts this week:
Looking back on my biggest accomplishments, what kept me motivated, or what encouraged me to keep going when things got hard?
How do I feel about what tends to motivate me, and is there anything I would change about that?
When in my life have I felt the need to prove myself to others, and how did it feel to act from this space?
What would I like to be motivated by going forward? What is the true motivation I want to nurture?
Quick note: My family is moving to Arizona, so I will be taking a brief break next week and there will not be a new episode or prompts. I’ll be back the week of July 17!
When other kids made fun of me growing up, there were certain storylines I relied on to make myself feel better. These stories were fed to me by the adults around me and various media (TV shows, books, teen magazine articles) and they all had similar threads, such as:
It will get better
One day none of this will matter
They make fun of you because they're secretly insecure and unhappy
One day you'll surpass or become "better than" the people who made fun of you by becoming more successful, richer, or prettier (or all three)
The last one is the more harmful narrative, though I fortunately see it less and less in today's world. But when I was a kid, that was one that was regularly reinforced. There were even movies that made jokes of it. Remember that super hot mean girl from high school? Yeah, she didn't age well and is miserable because she hasn't done much with her life since. But that nerdy kid who didn't have any friends and could never get a date? He's super rich now and way more successful than any popular kid in his graduating class. He arrives to his own high school reunion in a helicopter, that's how rich he is! (Anyone else watch Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion? Am I showing my age here?)
It's also not uncommon to hear celebrities thank their doubters, bullies, and haters in interviews and acceptance speeches. Thanks for giving me a hard time, they say, because that's what motivated me to get me where I am today.
This sets up a wonderful, redemptive story, one that bullied, "uncool" kids everywhere can latch onto. And I was one of them.
This started for me at the end of 6th grade, when I realized people mostly just liked to make fun of me. I had developed earlier than all the other girls and was awkward and uncomfortable in my own skin, but doing my best to pretend otherwise. Being half Mexican, I also stood out in that I didn't look exactly like the other girls in my predominantly white, Christian town. (For one, my half wavy, half straight hair was always difficult to tame and could rarely handle the popular haircuts and styles of the early 90's.) I took a good look at at myself in comparison to the other kids, and acknowledged that I wasn't pretty or popular, I wasn't athletic, and I didn't seem to have any other special talents that made me stand out.
But then I saw how the "smart" kids were treated. Everyone looked up to them. All the movies I saw reinforced that the smart kids won in the end. So I decided that over summer break, I would "become smart."
And thus began years of painful perfectionism, chasing the best grades and forcing myself into advanced classes I may or may not have been mentally ready for. When I got into Northwestern University via early decision senior year of high school and the class rankings were released, showing I was in the top ten, one of the popular girls who used to ignore me said, "I didn't realize you were that smart." She then pestered me for months to tell her my ACT and SAT scores because she wanted to get into Northwestern too, and needed to know how her scores measured up. This led to my senior year, cringe-worthy motto of, "Screw you guys, I got into Northwestern."
Yeah, that one is embarrassing.
For much of my life, my biggest motivator has been to prove people wrong about me. I still hear the middle school version of me saying to myself, one day, the people who were so mean to me will wish they had been nice. Or at the very least, they'll feel bad because I will end up more successful and happy. I wasn't focused on how overcoming the teasing and bullying would build my character, would teach me to love myself regardless of what others said about me—I was just focused on who would "win" in the end.
Even now, as an adult, I sometimes feel the need to rewrite my own story to get an ending that will outweigh or justify the rocky start. But the big difference is that now I can recognize this is not the kind of motivation I want to have. Because what those old storylines fail to acknowledge is that not everyone becomes super successful just because they were the smart kid in school. And not everyone who was popular is going to lead a mediocre adult life. It's just not that simple—human beings aren't that simple.
And then there is the reality that, at some point in our lives, we are all bullies or mean girls. We all have the capacity to hurt people, often without even realizing it. What we learn as we grow is how to not let how other people treat us define our worth. And if our only motivation is to change how others perceive us, it's very likely we'll still end up disappointed. (And maybe also end up stuck in a life we never actually wanted but that seems, on the surface, impressive.)
I honestly wonder who I would be today if I had embraced my more creative, messy side from a young age, instead of striving for polished perfection. Who would I be now if my motive wasn't to prove people wrong, but to instead create the life I really want, to do what I really enjoy? What if I hadn't spent the summer before seventh grade inside the house, teaching myself algebra via a computer program?
I've been thinking about motive and motivation since learning more about Human Design. As a Generator, I learned that I do my best when motivated by hope. And I do think this has been a more dormant motive for me, one that has been eclipsed by my motivation to prove others wrong. But underneath that need to prove is hope that things won't always feel so hard, that I will find my way, that my story is building to something better than I could have even dreamed of—and all I have to do is let it naturally unfold.
What do I have hope for now? That I can build a life and career that allows me to fully be my creative self, to enjoy my time with my loved ones while also creating in service to others. I have hope for a future in which all those rules that I thought I had to follow to succeed weren't really necessary. I honestly have hope that success is not at all how I thought it was originally defined.
There's a fine line between being motivated by the hope that I can show people this is possible, and being motivated by the need to prove to people it is possible.
Deconditioning myself from this desire and need to prove will be a process. But what I'm doing is learning to notice when I'm taking the focus off of hope and shifting into competition and comparison. When this happens, I have to stop and ask myself, how much do I want to do this for me and me alone? My reason for doing something doesn't have to be anything more than that I believe in myself and my worth, that I believe in what I am creating.
Looking back on all your major accomplishments, what has motivated you? Perhaps there are old stories you are also hanging on to that take you away from a motivation that is more aligned with who you are.
Share insights from your journaling in the comments below. If you feel called to share something you’re working through around your motivation, I will pull an oracle or tarot card for you to provide deeper insight!
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