Why Motivated People Are Miserable
The challenge in front of you is not the challenge that matters.
When I was younger, I put a lot of pressure on myself for experiences, efforts, and projects to go a certain way.
Like most people, I wanted the best outcome for myself, and nothing else would make me happy. Because of this, I spent a lot of time being unhappy with my outcomes — even when they were objectively pretty good.
I wanted X people at my seminar. I wanted an article to get Y likes and make me Z dollars. I wanted to finish every tournament in first place.
I will admit that some good came of this — a high standard for myself, a strong work ethic, and a resilience to failure.
However, the problem was that if I didn’t get the result that I wanted, I defaulted to being unhappy with my performance, feeling I just needed to fix my mistakes and get to back work, and I put even more pressure on myself to succeed “next time”.
Most motivated people are in a similar boat.
Here’s how you can work harder and hate your life less.
My biggest regret.
In hindsight, my biggest regret from the early parts of my career is that I wish I hadn’t spent all that time being upset and that I had spent more time enjoying improvement in Jiu-Jitsu and writing.
For me, to be totally honest with you, external validation in my career hasn’t really come in the way that I have wanted it to.
In Jiu-Jitsu, I’ve beaten some really good athletes. I’ve had some huge wins. A lot of those wins were ignored by a lot of Jiu-Jitsu media outlets and I’ve really struggled to establish myself in the sport compared to other athletes in my division who I have wins over.
I’ll give myself a little credit, but for me, Jiu-Jitsu and trying to make it my life has been a non-stop hustle for the last 7 years.
I’ve had similar struggles in writing and business, but recently the competitive Jiu-Jitsu struggles have really been the thing that has been on my mind.
Either way, the external validation that you get from being recognized for your accolades does not satisfy you for very long. It is not a sustainable source of motivation. It comes and goes. It’s fickle.
For me, whenever I get a big opportunity in Jiu-Jitsu or a big win, I feel immensely validated for a while, but then it goes away. I’m back to baseline or even slightly below thanks to the way dopamine works.
This has made me realize there’s only one thing worth wanting.
What you really want (or at least, what I really want).
Skill improvement is the thing you really want.
The external results are important, don’t get me wrong, but they should have less to do with your well-being than you think.
The problem is that a lot of people do what I do when I’m upset or bitter. We start to base how we feel about our skill on what other people are saying (or not saying) and we put pressure on ourselves to get that external reinforcement to develop internal satisfaction.
I hope you can see how this would create problems for happiness, long-term success, and general enjoyment of the pursuit.
There’s a great quote from Naval Ravikant that I really like:
“Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
Sometimes, I set too many goals. I have too many ambitions.
This makes me really unhappy at times and it disconnects me from the things I do every day to pursue those goals. I start to feel more like a hamster on a wheel than a human having an experience.
The lesson for today is to have fewer desires and to not let your desires overpower you.
But how does this hold up in real life?
When I first started writing, I tended to get attached to my suffering. I used it for attention.
Most of the suffering I had was a result of too many goals, not enough skill to achieve them, and a burning feeling that once I got what I wanted, I would be happy.
But that’s not what happens.
Every achievement is just a gateway to the next opportunity. Every opportunity is a gateway to the next achievement. Every failure is a gateway to a lesson. Every lesson is a gateway to another opportunity.
Competitive life is cyclical like this. Maybe one day I’ll make a diagram.
This should make you realize that success and achievement are not enough for happiness. If you focus on competitive success, this is the cycle that you’re going to experience over and over again.
That’s good, but these are not the only things worth pursuing and not the only things worth acting on in a good life.
Furthermore, when you detach from your notions of who you must be based on what you don’t have and need to get, you can start to connect with who you are when you strip away the constructed identity you constantly use in day-to-day life. I like the idea that I am somebody beyond just my goals and ambitions.
I also believe that when you free yourself from the negative pressure that you put on yourself, you’re going to improve faster, feel better, and enjoy the games you play more deeply. You won’t be forcing things as much because you are more concerned with development than success.
Closing Thoughts
My best technique for getting over the misery of motivation is reminding myself that if I zoom ahead long enough, I really won’t give too much of a fuck about what I’m anxious about.
It makes me realize that even my grandest expectations are not so grand in the long run.
This isn’t to say that expectations and goals are bad, but if they are stopping you from enjoying life, performing at those goals, and doing what you want to do well, then you’ve got a pressure problem.
Pressure makes a short life feel longer and less enjoyable.
Look — life is short. Your window to actualize and do great work is shorter.
That itself is enough pressure to stop most people from ever even trying. That’s why we have a society full of people who are doomscrolling instead of thinking and experimenting.
Learn to overcome pressure and anxiety and to act anyway. This is how you do the things that you once thought were impossible.
This is how you slay demons, hunt dragons, and find your way home.
I used this quote at the end of an article a few weeks ago, and I’m going to use it again to close here because it’s that powerful to me:
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”― Rainer Maria Rilke
The Grappler’s Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models, the world’s #1 Jiu-Jitsu podcast!
This week’s episode features Cal McDonald!
Cal is a BJJ black belt under Rob Biernacki from Island Top Team and is the author of the new "BJJ Foundations" instructional alongside Stephan Kesting from Grapplearts.
In this episode, Cal discusses "automatic grappling," or the science of how we can improve our reaction time and make better decisions by thinking less when we train.
To listen, look up BJJ Mental Models wherever you listen to your podcasts or just hit this link.
I read this weird Twitter thread last week from some hyper-masculine guy about things that men should “never wear”.
It contained the many clothing items you might expect:
Socks with sandals
Silly socks
Turtlenecks
Cargo shorts
And lots of other silly things that I didn’t know were so horrible to wear.
You what he didn’t mention?
Sleeveless polos?
You know why?
Sleeveless polos are badass. No one — not even weird bros on Twitter who write masculinity content — would ever tell you not to wear a sleeveless polo.
Anyway, get yourself a Brolo. Use “Chris10” at checkout.
Also published this week:
10 Questions With Atos Brown Belt Rose Miller
Today we have another interview! Rose Miller trains out of Atos HQ in San Diego, where she is a brown belt under Andre Galvao. She’s a Jiu-Jitsu coach, strength coach, and nutritionist. You’ve probably seen some of her videos on Instagram, which cover fundamental techniques, concepts for beginners, and other essential Jiu-Jitsu lessons that Rose “wishes she knew at white belt”.
If you enjoyed reading this article, share it with friends! Or, click on the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack!
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