Just Do it: How Much Motivation Do We Need Nowadays?

The message (you literally only need this information from this article): stop wasting your time on blindly consuming self help materials. Learn things that matter. Find the time, and do them. Don’t waste your time reading how not to waste time.

Self-help, motivation, at some point, we all need it, especially for programmers. When we are doing something new and exciting, such as waking up early, we are all into it, for the first days. But soon after, all the excitement goes away. So, a little motivation and long term view can help, right? But do we need it that much? Are we helping ourselves by others’ capitalization on it?

Let’s take something practical. You know, some things are really hard for me. Resolving IT issues with my laptop is hard, waking up early is hard, and to mind my own business is hard too.

There are also really hard things for me, the ones my subconscious tries to seriously avoid. One of those things is exercising. Exercising is damn hard — especially running.

Nonetheless, sometimes you have to ignore the urges to stay warm at home and just go, or should I say, ignore the urges of staying warm at bed and go to the living room. As running, and cardio in general, is quite challenging, focus on the moment is really difficult: your thoughts get randomized and lost, and no matter what you do to focus the breathing, your mind just goes somewhere else.

I eventually started listening to audiobooks, to help me with my focus issue. «Focusing on somebody’s voice helped to further enjoy the run, and enjoy the physical effort, somehow». That’s what I thought.

The audiobook was about self-help. It was not the first audiobook on self-motivation I was consuming.

“If you want to learn more about X, get our app on Y”.

Suddently, I started to get uncomfortable. Why is the person that said she was there all for helping trying to sell me things I do not need? The author resumed, but from that moment on I just hear «Bla bla bla”, as Dracula says in Hotel Transilvania. That’s where you start to notice something’s wrong.

Self-motivation materials are positive: they bring good vibes, a little push to try harder — and some even propose some actionable items you can use in your life., for example, tips about how to behave, how to have relationships, how to have a relationship, how not to have a relationship, how to invest.

Everything is perfect and very shinny. Until it isn’t. Until the author’s focus is shifted from trying to help you to try helping himself. Invariably, you get unloaded with unnecessary information. It’s really easy to market yourself if you surprise people with your:

“Enlightened” you: formed by your personality development, accomplishments, incredible routines…

“Dark” side: formed by your addictions, bad choices, personality issues, and so on. Of course that if someone reveals their defects, it’s because they already have moved on. “Today I will write about how I can’t forgive a person no matter how hard I try” — said no glamorous guru ever. He also said “Today I feel what am I teaching is not completely honest”.

Surely, some authors may remain genuine all the time, but I would doubt it. Ultimately, it seems to me that it is easy to “wear a mask”. It’s somehow like in happens at LinkedIn: how many people can you see with the labels “Entrepreneur”, “Speaker”, or “Expert”, although they started no successful company, just talked once at school or have a shallow understanding of what they claim they are experts at, respectively?

From all the self-help books I read, their messages could be resumed to a few points:

1) If we moderately direct our energy to help others we feel well.

2) We can always improve a certain area of our lives (at the expense of something else).

3) Do this and that to get what you want (or what I would like you to want).

The third point actually comes in different flavors: advising people as if preaching, or suggesting actions based on (supposed) past experience.

If I could sum up all those materials, that’s what I would take. Why? Because what matters, is actually what are you doing. Less talk, more action.

Although self-help is not necessarily hypocritical, one could argue that it tends to be. At the same time, I’m not saying that we shouldn’t follow others — but we must think for ourselves. We need to understand what is a good life for us: not necessarily what others sell as a good life. Who can tell what my happiness is? Do I really need money, to travel, and to build schools anywhere far away from my home to be happy? Or donating to a cause I believe is good enough? It depends.

Self-help is dangerously biased. From the perspective of critical thinking, unbiased, self-help books can be quite enriching. I remember reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, in which the author defends that you should actively fight for your goals, and think for yourself. If I could summarize it I would say “business opportunities are there, so you should go for them, and invest in your education”.

Is this bad advice? Hardly. You need to fight for yourself and stand a position because no else will do it for you. Although the book states a positive message, it gives the feeling that you do not need formal education, as in universities. While it is true that you don’t need to go to university to do whatever you want, you are giving away unique opportunities to leverage your potential.

Think about it: the world is created and idealized not only by philosophers, art people, and business people but also by scientists, who make technological, sociological and economic progress go further. In social countries, like Portugal, for around 5 years and 5000€ (a master-level course), you can position yourself to be an expert in a given area.

An expert that could have counted with the support of experts, entrepreneurs, researchers, professors, and the school community. No wonder that most successful people in the tech and business world have a college degree. Of course, you need to know how to get the most out of college, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Besides, it is reasonable to understand why that book doesn’t stand for college education: the author built up his success without it and without the inherent debt. But not everyone is that author. Nobody is author, except the author. As you are not the author, the author’s experience may not apply.

Do you get what I’m trying to convey here?

Please, consider the following situation:

Fancy guru: *clears throat* X is true. Think about how sad will you be if that’s not true. Furthermore, I propose you to consume all my materials in order to be happy and have all the success I think you deserve, although I do not know you. And, by the way, you may need to download the apps, give part of your money to coaches, pay monthly subscriptions, and join a community of followers who practice rituals and love our mission for extra 42% productivity.

You: Buuuut… I wake up at 10, and my life goes really well. I don’t work 12 hours per day, and…

*Fancy guru interrupts*

Fancy guru: you are doing it wrong. You need to embrace pain because it is necessary. You can only develop yourself and grow through pain. You can only reach your potential if you work a lot! When I was your age I worked 16 hours per day, non-stop. I suffered a lot but eventually, I turned myself into a millionaire.

You: I do not think a normal human should sacrifice so much just to be a little more successful. I would be trading my personal relationships and health for money or a few more publications. It is not worth it.

Fancy guru: If you think like that, you will never be rich! I think you should be surrounded by entrepreneurs that are optimistic, and full of energy. Come on, join our club!

Writers, speakers, and also people who want to persuade others often use several logical fallacies: on the previous speech we can see appeal to emotion appeal to authority, appeal to ignorance, hasty generalization, circular argument, and slippery slope, but others such as the bandwagon appeal, straw man, and equivocation are also used. However, just because some people deliver information via fallacies, it does not necessarily mean that it is untrue. Nonetheless, it is generally a good idea to take everything we are said with a grain or two of salt. After all, many motivational folks are business people selling a product.

And it could go on and on. Invariably, you are always wrong, you know nothing about life, and you can’t get better without help. Except that… it is not necessarily like that. Nobody knows your life better than yourself. There is no need to insert yourself in shady Ponzi schemes to get to know people that can help you.

There is no need for you to sell someone else’s bad products for you to succeed. you can do it without being exploited, and without thinking that it’s fine to do the same to others.

Consuming too much self-help materials probably does not help you, at least in the long run, or at least it stops helping. In a previous article of mine, with a fairly click-baity name, “1337 tips for productivity”, I stated the only one tip you need (spoiler: when you know what you should do, just start doing it).

This is my call to action: stop wasting your time on consuming self help materials. Learn things that matter. Find the time, and do them. Don’t waste your time reading how not to waste time. You can bet on technology, or you can bet on philosophy. Once you find what drives you, invest energy on it. make sure that what you learn will help you shape society in a good way. While knowing how to trade stocks barely helps someone else than you, people who build platforms with 0% commission will help themselves and others. At least that. Make those banks sweat and obligate themselves to serve the customer better.

My thoughts:

If I had to sum up my points to people that have no time to read:

• Self-help materials are good for consulting from time to time, as long as they are actively bringing positive change into your life.
• Self-help materials are very subjective. Take everything that is being told to you with caution. I would advise you not follow anyone blindly.
• Self-help communities might help, as long as there are no shady businesses, Ponzi schemes, or the need for recurrently waste time on them.
• Many quality self-help materials are cheap or even free, and many times were written by people with no intention of making money out of desperate people.

Disclaimer: this is a revisited article.

Previously published at https://hackernoon.com/my-perspective-about-the-motivational-market-mz3436k3