In very simple terms motivation is a push towards a goal. It is a mental process not a physical action, although when you are motivated there are certainly physiological responses felt. The physical part of motivation is the body responding to signals from the brain to move in a certain way.

Motivation is created in the primal brain. The primal brain is where the responses of Fight, Flight, Food, and Fornicate…. the 4 F’s exist. This part of the brain has existed for much longer than the creative adaptive area, which is still faily new in evolutionary terms. The 4F’s are the movement initiators which create action. The level to which you are motivated will depend on how much the 4 F’s are activated.

For example, you haven’t eaten in a few hours, your body is hungry, which taps non surprisingly into the Food part of the 4 F’s. The hungrier you get the more your mind will motivate you to eat something, it’s pretty simple stuff.

Some of the main problems occur in motivation when unbalanced emotions are involved. Motivation is not something people lack, just like confidence, being motivated is a natural process the mind goes through, however when you start introducing unbalanced emotions the mind is no longer able to give it’s normal output.

How does this work. Let’s say that you’re lacking motivation to exercise. Exercise is something the body needs and is something that your mind will make you do naturally. The way you see life, how your reality is filtered (it’s impossible to pay attention to everything), is created through the beliefs that you have about yourself. In this instance if you were to believe that you were a weak person, or that you were undeserving, which were made up of emotions like fear, anxiety, pressure, doubt, uncertainty, that would create a pretty strong boundary that would screw up the mental process that caused you to get motivated. Instead you avoid these emotions and go comfort eat fast food or sit in front of the telly for a few extra hours until something else comes up. Cravings for bad food often come from your mind trying to escape these bad feelings. This can be compounded by advertising telling you how highly you will be viewed and how great you will feel by eating badly.

Very often motivational speakers/products etc. will try to get you to power through these blocks, and this is ok if it’s only done as a one off. Longer term this is a mechanism that will not work, it requires constant day after day attention. You have to keep feeding yourself the power. Eventually the system that allows you to do this stops working because it never evolved to be used for such a long time. The only workable method is to find the underlying beliefs that prevent you from getting motivated. Once you take care of those motivation becomes something that happens naturally again. The technique that I have used both with myself and others to great effect that deals with these beliefs and the underlying emotions is the 3D Mind.