Motivation vs Inspiration

Motivation and inspiration are two words that are often used interchangeably. However, there is a fundamental difference, and understanding this difference makes a whole lot difference in the quality of your life. (Photo credit)

Motivation is based on lack

Motivation is what you feel when you hit the bottom. Or when you hear a motivational speaker talk about how he doubled his income by practicing his success principles. It’s based on lack. You seek out something you don’t possess. That is, your thinking mind seeks out what it thinks missing in you.

So when you are motivated, you are driven to work hard. For a while, this is great. But soon, you run out of gas. The stress of pressuring yourself to be someone you are not wears you out. This is why few people succeed with motivation in the long run.

It doesn’t mean your willpower is weak. Motivation has innate problems. If you intuitively felt weary or even depressed at motivational arts (you know, like the photo of a climber with the word “Success” or “Persistence”) or felt uncomfortable with motivation speeches and slogans, you are not alone and you are quite keen at sensing some lies.

Motivation is more or less manipulative. Many organizations and their managers use motivation to push people to their goals, not their own.

Inspiration is based on who you really are

Inspiration, on the other hand, is what you feel when you read something that deeply resonates within you. You might also feel inspired with music, arts, or being in nature. I’m talking about the kind of writing, music, and arts that remind you who you really are on the soul level. Or you may be inspired when you are in love.

We are essentially the soul in the body. But we often forget this. This physical world is full of distractions, and there are various peer pressures to stay in the social circles based on materialism. Deep down, however, we never forget who we really are. And this sense of self realization comes to surface when we experience something as beautiful as we knew in the spiritual world. This is inspiration.

When you are inspired, you are empowered. You are becoming who you really are, so there is no manipulative pressure. Instead there is expansive joy. This soul level joy continues as long as you stay inspired, and losing this inspiration is the last thing you want. Unfortunately, we still do lose our inspiration — again, this physical world is very distracting — but even when you do, the experience leaves you feeling warm inside.

Motivation and inspiration in the real world

Not many people use these two words with clear consciousness, so you need to be your own authority to tell which is which. Just because a book says it’s “inspirational” doesn’t mean it is — it may be motivational.

For instance, I happened to see an “inspirational” website that said, “This is your second act…your chance to live large so that you don’t wake up one morning, decades too late, wondering what the hell just happened.” Do you see how it uses the fear tactic and sense of lack to get people to action? I call this motivational. A bad one at that — I don’t like the age discrimination it’s based on.

The example of inspirational resource is hard to quote because each person is different so each person finds different things to be inspiring. For me, Marianne Williamson’s following quote has been super inspirational. As I wrote in my eBook, it changed my life:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

What inspires you? And have you been driven unduly by motivation? Please share in the comment. Thank you.

8245 Lightworkers Can Change The World

“Akemi, you write about creating the New World of love, light, truth, abundance and power. And you mention incredible possibility of living just as long as we want, or living as something you call ‘lightbody’. They are all great, but I don’t think people are ready for this. It’s going to take a long time before these things happen, like another 100 years or so.”

I just summarized some of the emails I’ve been getting. What do you think? How long do you think it will take for us to create the New World?  (Photo credit)

History tells how change happens

When we look into history, it is clear that NONE of the social changes happened when the general public was ready. Changes are initiated by only a handful of individuals. Even they don’t really know where things are going, but they get going anyway. Eventually (sometimes faster than you think) it collects momentum. By the time people notice, the change is happening already and there is no going back. Whoa.

Think of the French Revolution. Initially, people were just frustrated with high taxes and widespread poverty, and wanted to have some say in politics. So the meeting of Estates-General (something like the congress, with representatives elected by voting) was held in May 1789. Some of the representatives of this meeting, however, were brilliant — they were those handful of individuals who had a vision, at least a vision to get started.

Things developed quickly. But even when the citizens took arms and assaulted the Bastille on July 14, most people weren’t thinking of de-crowning the king, not to mention killing him. They were thinking of modified, constitutional monarchy, not the end of monarchy. The king got executed in January 1793.

Okay, that was a bloody crazy social change, with considerable backlash. Then how about the information revolution that we went through?

When Bill Gates first said, “A computer on every desktop,” people sneered. Computers in those days were huge and expensive. But he, along with some other bright people, had a vision.

Do you remember when you first got your email address? I was attending college in 1996 when they assigned email addresses to all students and faculty. Many people didn’t know what to do with it. I remember quite a few fellow students still wrote their term papers by hand and then typed them up with the computers in the library, instead of using typewriters. To connect to the internet back then, people used phone modems.

By 1999, home computers and the internet got so big it caused ridiculous stock market surge — and crash. Okay, the stock crash was sad, but the important thing here is that, by then, it was unthinkable to live without computers and internet. Did the general public foresee it in as late as mid 1990s? No.

How many people does it take to change the world?

So I know it doesn’t take so many people to start changing the world. My question has been, exactly how many does it take? 10% of the population? No, I guess much less. 5%? 1%?

Well, I came across the answer in Gregg Braden’s book The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief. He maintains the minimum number required for the change is the square root of 1% of the population. (page 48) And this is based on the power of belief, not necessarily the direct actions.

The world population is assumed to be 6.797 billion as of this writing. So 8,245 or more people can change the world.

Are there 8,245 or more lightworkers out there? I think so. We are set for a change.

It’s not going to take another 100 years. I don’t honestly know if it can be done by 2012, but I am confident it will take a lot less time than some people naively think it would.

2012

While talking about 2012, check out the three part posts Evita Ochel published recently about a conference she attended. It’s called Choice Point 2012, featuring Gregg Braden, Bruce Lipton, and Alberto Villoldo.

Just the fact this kind of conference is held says something, doesn’t it? It probably attracted a large crowd. The so-called New Age is not about a few lightheaded special people any more. There are many of us — a lot more than 8,245, I bet.

The New World I envision

The link at the beginning of this post will take you to the summary post of my Creating the New World series, but let me share my vision of the New World again.

It is a world beyond dualism. There will be nothing that is not Love and Light. When all is Love and Light, all is Truth, and the world is naturally Abundant. It is a world of peace and harmony, where we celebrate our diversity. Each soul realizes their innate Power.

Each soul can live just as long as they want in good health because dis-ease is an abnormality. Everyone is a miracle worker. In other words, we will remember our extrasensory, so-called supernatural powers.

Will there be some kind of backlash or confusion before this New World materialize? Maybe. I’m envisioning even the end of monetary system, so some disorientation and adjustment will be necessary. Overall, however, I think things will be good.

The Ultimate Productivity Tip

I’ll make this post really short because everyone who reads about productivity is in a hurry. (photo credit)

If you have been following this Yes to Me blog, you probably have noticed that I’ve never even mentioned things like productivity and time management. This is because there is only one tip about productivity that really matters. It’s so simple. Yet so many people don’t seem to see it. It’s:

Do what matters to you.

Not what your boss wants you to do. Not what your spouse or parents want you to do. Not what you think you should be doing. Do what you “must” do in your life. Put everything else behind it.

If you only have two years to live, what do you do? I’m saying two years because if it’s only a few months, you probably just panic. With two years, you do have significant time. What do you do?

Well, two years or twenty years or more, that is what matters in your life. Do it. Now.

See, you don’t need fancy productivity tools and gadgets. You don’t need to read time management books. They just waste your time. They are for people who submit themselves to do other people’s things. They over-schedule their life, stressed out, probably sacrificing their health and shortening their life, and yet achieve so little — of what matters to themselves.

To conclude, let me repeat: The ultimate productivity tip is to do what matters to you. Period.

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