You tell yourself you don’t have the strength. That you lack the motivation. You tell yourself it’s not “authentic”. That it’s not “You”. But that’s exactly why you don’t grow.
You tell yourself you need to grow so that you can go out and live your dream life. Only when you’ve grown fully can you go out in pursuit of your vision. Well, I didn’t always want to be an author; many times, I felt like writing was a drag. I started keeping a diary at five, and sometimes, I’d only write a sentence. It took time to start to enjoy writing. Imagine if, at five, I had told myself, “Writing wasn’t for me,” back then? Now, I average 10 posts a month just on Substack… When did it become authentic? When did I get my motivation?
Still, no matter what I write, I can feel perfectionism. Whatever I write, I feel like it wasn’t what I had hoped it would be. I told myself it had to feel authentic, that it had to feel like me, and that this writing wasn’t real enough, not deep enough, not good enough. Despite the fact that I was the one who wrote it. And I’d go back and forth. Perhaps I wasn’t meant to be an author— perhaps I needed to be somehow different? Or maybe I needed to do something before I was allowed to write and publish my first book. Perhaps I needed to take a course. Perhaps I needed to get more life experience first…
Now, there were times when I fought back. I forced myself to sit down and write. I pushed myself to improve and work hard at it. I’d spend days writing. But then that nagging voice would return, telling me what I had written wasn’t good enough, that nobody would read it. That it just wasn’t in my nature. My problem? I thought I needed to arrive at the final destination before I could start the journey.
Of course, it’s the other way around. The word “authentic” has become one of the most effective tools for staying stuck. You tell yourself you need change to feel genuine. You tell yourself motivation has to feel real before you can do it. But you have no idea what real authenticity is.
How many times have I told myself not to do something because:
“I don’t have the energy to”
“I don’t know if I have the motivation.”
“I still feel too scared.”
“It doesn’t feel natural enough.”
“I need to master another skill first.”
Why do we make these kinds of excuses? Well, back in the days, I would say it was because “I’m a perfectionist” – I have high standards, I’d explain to my friends and family. That’s why I’m not sharing my writing with others. That’s why I’m not blogging. That’s why every time I finish a piece of writing, I press delete and try to hide all traces of the text. I want to make sure, when I really do it, I do it right. I love to keep my thoughts and ideas safe and private. I like to keep my deepest thoughts out of the spotlight. When in front of a camera, I share only the most simple and superficial, only what I think other people will understand, because they could never understand my deepest thoughts.
But what I really meant was:
I’m scared to be vulnerable in front of other people. I don’t want to be caught ignorant around others. I’m afraid of failure. I’m afraid of being called a quitter if I stop or give up later.
The motivation-and-energy thing sounds like a real excuse at first. After all, how could you do something if you don’t feel like doing it? I shouldn’t have to force myself into the gym. I should want to go there, and only if I genuinely want to be there is it authentic; otherwise, it’s forced and fake, right?
Once again, we fundamentally misunderstand something about energy and motivation. We think that at times, we find it in some kind of genetic nature, some inherent value or goal, that existed before the activity and was then channeled into it. Or we believe it comes from our friends and family cheering us on, telling us, “You can do it.” You say you don’t feel like going to the gym today? I say go to the gym today, even if just for five minutes, and then decide how you feel. You say, “I don’t feel like writing today.” I say: Write a paragraph, and then tell me how you feel. Don’t tell me your energy account balance before you’ve tried to make a deposit.
We think motivation comes from authentically wanting something and then going out and doing it. So we think we have to find ourselves before we can start working towards our goals, which we assume we will have motivation for by the time we’ve discovered “our inner nature” or the motivation we were missing. This is why so many people are stuck in an endless search for themselves, one personality test at a time…
In reality, motivation is going out and doing something, and then, in the moment of doing, feeling the joy, the bliss, the satisfaction you get from doing it. Yes, it’s true, if you had a poor night’s rest, if you’re hungry, if you’re exhausted from a hard day of work, you may not have the capacity to enjoy an activity. Recharging energy and resting is real and healthy. But…
What is the difference between recharging and hiding? Both look identical from the outside. You’re sitting still, you’re not working. Only you know which one it is. And it’s easy to lie.
The thing is, once you’ve built up that energy, though, you’ve got to burn it to feel it. You can’t keep depositing energy into the energy bank. You have to invest it and reap the returns over time. So many times, people tell me, “I don’t have energy,” when what they mean is, “I have energy, but I don’t know where to put it.” You see, energy has a million colors and shapes. You can be intellectually tired after a day of research and study, but you might still have physical energy to move and exercise. But you only know what kind of energy you’ve got once you get into an activity.
It’s like when you start up a barbecue. We were barbecuing earlier today to celebrate the Swedish spring. It takes a while for the heat to go up. At first, there’s just flames and sparks. People often think the flames are hot, but they’re really not. You have to wait for the red smolder to appear. That’s when it’s really hot. It’s the same with motivation. People might act hyped and excited before they start doing something, but it’s mostly smoke and flame. The real enjoyment comes with prolonged immersion, and motivation is a cumulative effect of doing something longer and longer. Motivation is cumulative. The grind matters. You build up momentum by giving something effort and attention. The more attention you give to something, and the longer you give it, the more immersed you become.
You might not have the energy to socialize or go to a social event, but you might very well have the energy to spend the evening with yourself, writing, painting, or engaging in some meaningful personal activity. But often, you assume that you don’t have energy when really, you’re just not stimulated. Energy is what happens after you’ve sat down to paint. You only enjoy reading a book once you’ve read past a few pages. You only really enjoy a jog once you’ve gotten past the first few minutes of it. Be careful when you tell yourself, “I’m not a reader” or “I’m not a jogger.” Ask yourself how you’d feel after reading for a minute, for five minutes, for half an hour, for a year, for a lifetime… And ask yourself how it would change your perception of yourself.
The next time, if you go to a gym, ask the people there: What was their first time at the gym like? How did they feel? How long did it take them to build a healthy gym routine? How long did they think about it before they started? You’ll soon realize that it took a long time before “gym rat” became an identity token for these people. It can take years for a habit to become a “natural extension of who you are”. It might happen in a month or a year; you might be lifting dumbbells for a lifetime and yet never really identify with it, because you only do it a few days a week, because you don’t have the bulky body, because you’re only doing it to relax and unwind from work…
Think about the moment in an activity when the self-consciousness dissolves, and you’re just doing it. There’s no question about whether it’s authentic or not anymore.
Authenticity isn’t about deciding you want to do something and then going out to do it. Authenticity was me spending days writing something and then sharing it with all my classmates at school, not thinking about whether it was a cliché, just having fun, sharing a story, drawing a cover, coming up with a title, and exploring where the story was going. Not because I loved to write or wanted to become an author, but because I was 8 and wanted to explore what it felt to write.
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