Motivation Lessons from a Four Year Old

One of the hottest topics in the personal development world is that of motivation. What sparks it off? and how can we keep motivated in our daily lives? Very often, and quite rightly, motivation is closely associated with enthusiasm and goal-setting, or in broader terms knowing one’s purpose in life. Mmhh…big concept isn’t it?

As with any other bulky concept that has far-reaching implications,  the best way to understand it – and ultimately make practical use of it – is simplifying it and deconstructing it into easily replicable parts. For this matter I had a very good help from my 4 year old daughter.

Kaya springs out of bed every single morning with sparkling eyes beaming enthusiasm for her new day. Every day has some novelty and something new she will discover and look forward to. Her world is one big playground. The unknown is not a source of anxiety for her as in us adults but a space of possibilities were new wonderful things can come her way. Everything is a stimulus that impinges on her fresh mind.

On the other hand, the average adult mind is bogged down by a long list of things to attend to, unresolved issues, unkown variables and dull routine tasks which most of the time are managed by an overworked brain and a tired body.

So what are the constants in Kaya’s world that we can re-adopt? or perhaps what are the constants in us adults that we need to discard or re-engineer?

There are a lot very good practical tips and techniques on improving motivation but I will focus on 7 items that I have observed from Kaya or I sometimes find challenging in myself

1. Don’t forget to Play: All work no fun dulls the mind & spirit. It’s certainly not on Kaya’s agenda. We have to appease the playful/childish part of our mind which desperately seeks leisure and fun instead of boring mundane tasks. Most of the time we shun it completely which puts us off balance and demotivates us.  Having the mind look forward for fun time whether in or out of our daily tasks will keep the motivation engine oiled.

2. Don’t stare at the unknown: Apathy is when we lose traction forward sometimes because we don’t see light (the goal) at the end of  our tunnel (the task or problem). The future is unknown to all of us. If you stare at it too long it may get you. It blacks out your vision and makes you lose the will to move on with your mission.

3. Remind yourself you are the director: I love watching or overhearing Kaya playing and directing roles in some tea party with her dolls and fluffy friends. It’s like she is the director of some movie in her head – “You sit here and you drink this or eat that”. The thing is that she feels part of the creative process – meaning that her plans and ideas are realized in her staged tea parties.   Do you believe you are you your own creative director?

4. Project it in HD: Visualization and imagery are a powerful self-motivating tool. Many practices and disciplines focus on visualization. The ability to project and visualize your goals or a desired situation are a way of instructing your subconscious to act in that direction.  Children naturally have very vivid imagination. When Kaya describes something here eyes stare & sparkle as if the whole thing is happening vividly right in front of her eyes. It’s a full screen HD projection – something we unfortunately lose and forget as our creativity is killed through the education process when we grow up.

5. Simplify, simplify & simplify more: You cannot be very motivated if you are swamped by things running concurrently. I have to admit that this is something I fall victim to sometimes. I have to remind myself to focus down on one plan – one goal. Kaya keeps things simple…of course she’s a child. But that’s it isn’t it? We get bogged down by so many things as adults that it’s hard to keep the fire going on one thing.   Simplifying and decluttering things can help us stay motivated much easier.

6. Get past the future: There is no tomorrow in Kaya’s world. Everything takes place here and now for her. As adults we are very much constrained by future outcomes, plans for a better life, more income or more security. Apart from creating general anxiety, this worrying about the future dissipates a lot of our energy and focus on our immediate actions and hence our motivation.

7. Leave the door open for other possibilities: It’s an irony that the more we learn and experience the more we limit our mind to possibilities. A child’s mind is more open to possibilities because it’s not a full vessel. By associating things to past occurences, we are limiting our mind to be set on certain outcomes only and discard the others. Of course this is in a way inevitable as it constitutes learning. The brain is by nature an associative engine. But through practice we can become aware of this limitation and transcend it and look ‘outside of the box’. This is what creativity is about and this is why children are in general more creative. By opening ourselves up to creativity we are automatically breaking the barriers to motivation.

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Tagged as: 4 year old, Kaya, motivation