Page 39 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

Our society encourages us to seek comfort. Most products and services

advertised day and night are designed to make us more comfortable and less
challenged.

But, only challenge causes growth. Only challenge will test our skills and
make us better. Only challenge and the self-motivation to engage the challenge
will transform us. Every challenge we face is an opportunity to create a more
skillful self.

It is up to you to constantly look for challenges that motivate you. It’s up to
you to notice when you’re buried alive in a comfort zone. It’s up to you to notice
when you are spending your life, in the image of the poet William Olsen, like a
flower “living under the wind.”

Use your comfort zones to rest in, not to live in. Use them consciously to
relax and restore your energy as you mentally prepare for your next challenge.
But if you use comfort zones to live in forever, they become what rock singer
Sting calls your “soul cages.” Break free. Fly away.

24. Run your own plays

Design your own life’s game plan. Let the game respond to you rather than
the other way around. Be like Bill Walsh, the former head coach of the San
Francisco 49ers. Everybody thought he was eccentric because of how
extensively he planned his plays in advance of each game. Most coaches would
wait to see how the game unfolded, then respond with plays that reacted to the
other team. Not Bill Walsh. Walsh would pace the sidelines with a big sheet of
plays that his team was going to run, no matter what. He wanted the other team
to respond to him. Walsh won Super Bowls with his unorthodox proactive
approach. But all he did was to act on the crucial difference between creating
and reacting.

Many of us can spend whole days reacting without being aware of it. We
wake up reacting to news on the clock radio. Then we react to feelings in our
body. Then we start reacting to our spouse or our children. Soon we get in the
car and react to traffic, honking the horn and using sign language. Then, at work,
we see an e-mail on our computer screen and react to that. We react to stupid
customers and insensitive bosses who are intruding on our day. During a break,
we react to a waitress at lunch. This habit of reacting can go on all day, every