“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
1 Corinthians 15:58
“Set your focus on things above, not on things of the earth”
Colossians 3:2
The meaning of motivation is literally “ a motive to act”, but men have turned it into something completely different. To the world, motivation is when you feel like taking an action. All the stars align, you are pumped and excited to go to work or to go train and you go out to pound the stone of discipline while spurred on by your warm and fuzzy feelings.
We as men know these occasions of motivation are rare and that they cannot be relied upon if our goal is to be successful.
You are only occasionally going to feel like keeping to all your disciplines. Only rarely will you desire to make those small sacrifices of discipline. The weak are the ones who wait for the stars to align before they take action. Men take the initiative and do the work when it is still inconvenient to do so. Men of character and strength improve themselves every day, not just on the days that it “feels right” to work. No Man judges whether or not he should take an action based on how he is feeling emotionally at the time.
Motivation is fickle, it is here one second and gone the next. Motivation should never be relied upon as your reason to act just as the emotional feeling of love should never be relied upon for any rational decision making. Both motivation and “love” can be here one second, and gone the next – but discipline always remains.
However, all that being said, we should still seek out motivation in the form of role models or stories that inspire us.
We should ingest a positive visual diet filled with motivation. In doing this we build a stockpile of motivation in our minds for whenever we need a boost.
Stories of men overcoming the odds and staring down their own personal adversity no matter how great or small it seemed to the world.
Examples of men who have achieved greatness in their chosen field serve as motivation to do well and they are out reminders for what is possible if we are willing to work.
When our minds and bodies are failing, we turn our minds to our role models, to the men who inspired us to take action in the first place, and we become energized to do even more work, to go even farther in our disciplines, to behave with increased masculinity and be more focused and determined in all that we do. We should fill our minds with men we admire and whom we want to be like. We must embed their words and philosophies in our minds and work to embody the spirit of the masculine Christian man.
The internet has placed dozens of excellent mentors at our fingertips. We no longer have an excuse not to improve in any facet of life. There is no justification for not knowing how to do something. There is no reason that we should not have any men to look up to.
Mantra
I am my own motivation.
Application I
Replace motivation with discipline. This can be done by forcing yourself to take action when you are not motivated. There is no simpler or easier way to become disciplined. You do not need to be the man who requires motivation to take action, you want to be the man who completes all of his work regardless of his personal feelings. Cast aside emotional motivation and take up the Blade of Discipline. Take the actions you do not want to take, that are uncomfortable, even painful but that bring the most profit.
Application II
Acquire mentors who inspire you, whether you know them personally or not does not matter. Here are some suggestions for men you can find online or in books:
- Jocko Willink (Leadership/Discipline/Masculinity)
- Jordan Peterson (Thinker/Lecturer/Writer)
- Robert Greene (Thinker/Writer)
- Elon Musk (Work Ethic)
I am not vouching for the morality of these men, some of them use profanity quite often, but they each embody a version of a masculine spirit and are great at what they have chosen to do in life. You do not have to copy their morality, only their skill and masculine characteristics.
You might look at this list of suggestions and tell me “There are not that many (if any) Christian men on this list!”.
That is correct, and it is because Christian men have this bad habit of being mediocre and forgotten. Christian men tend to be average and fail to achieve great things in life. Show young men a Man like Job or Abraham who gathered wealth and character and was still righteous and you will find another role model for them. But most Christian men are content to justify their failure by suggesting they are more spiritual for not focusing on worldly possessions.
Most Christian men do not have a psychotic work ethic.
The majority of Christian men do not gather great wealth.
Most Christian men are “theoretical success” rather than “experimental successes” (They say things like, “If I were X person, I would do X, Y and Z”, when in reality they would do none of those things because they have no idea how to manage anything which is why they are failures).
Your job is to break this mold of mediocrity and be a Christian Man who is also a respected Man of valor. We have no right to not use our time wisely and be great at our selected skills. When you pick a mentor for yourself, you must listen to him every day. Listen to his podcasts or speeches and lectures and actually try to apply some of the principles you hear. Try to embody a great and more focused mentality by being inspired by these men. Look at how other men act, and then act like them.
Conduct yourselves like men.