Motivation and Fear: What’s The Connection?
Maybe you, too, are having these feelings and thoughts while scrolling through these funny work memes about stress. Maybe it was some event that triggered them inside you, or maybe it has been a slow and gradual process, but now you find yourself with very little of the motivation you used to have for your work and career. And it’s a tricky spot to be in.
Sometimes, even admitting that you relate to such stress funny quotes about work feels like exposing a secret, as our culture values drive and ambition.
However, according to career change expert Sara Young Wang, what we call motivation can actually be a harmful concept. And you losing it can be an opportunity to see this and open the door for change. “There is something else much more sane, sustainable and nourishing to orient one’s life; a real motivation that isn’t even motivation at all,” she wrote in Forbes.
“Before 2015, I lived my life with a ton of motivation driving me,” Sara Young Wang said. “It got me up every morning and propelled my day. I worked hard and gave ‘success’ my all. Rest and enjoyment of life were a distant consideration or something that would only come in the future. It was exhausting. So much so that I completely burnt myself out. By the end of grad school and three jobs later I crashed.”
Sara then took a look at what all that motivation was really about—fear. “From speaking with my coaching clients I can see that’s the energy behind many people's motivation in their work. To say, ‘I’m motivated’ can often really mean, “I’m afraid and I’m going to work hard to get this thing I think I need to be safe.””
Personally, Sara was generating all of her energy to work hard, strive and succeed from fear that she’s not good enough if she doesn't make something important and successful of herself.
“I didn’t have any genuine desire to do the things I was doing in my life. I was only doing them so I could meet the need of proving my worth through names on a resume or accomplishments,” Sara explained. “There was no authentic desire underpinning the motivation to get up every day, just a ton of fear.”
Maybe you don’t think of it in terms of proving yourself, and maybe these funny memes about work stress are merely a distraction to you. Still, maybe it’s a level of wealth you think will make you feel safe. Or maybe it's achieving something you think will finally win you your parents’ approval.
“It could be any number of things, but I bet if you look there’s some fear there that has been providing the fuel to your past motivation,” Sara said. “And while your motivation may be waning now from sheer exhaustion, that fear is likely still there and creating panic that you need to get your drive back ASAP. But, you just can’t. And that’s an invitation to look directly at the fear.”
Sara believes the fear is probably lying to you and making you deny yourself for delayed rewards that actually never come.
“First, look closely at what your fear is telling you. What is it saying you need to be or get? What does it say the consequences for failure are? Fear is more often than not, lying to you. [Try to see that] your thinking is not necessarily accurate. For me, the truth is that I already am enough. We are all already enough. No proving is ever required,” she said.
“Next, look at what your fear has been getting you to do and the lengths it’s been getting you to go. There’s usually an inner narrative that says something like, “I need to sacrifice myself, deny my needs, my genuine desires, my enjoyment of life for the future reward, for the thing I need to feel safe.””
But the thing is, according to Sara, the future you’re hoping for never actually comes. Even if you hit the mark, get the promotion, the job title, even the raise, you never really palm the feeling of security you're so desperately chasing. “The target just moves further out,” she said. “The fatigue from this hamster wheel is part of the burnout.”