„It is the soul’s duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.“ – Dame Rebecca West
I’m curious about your motivation. Are you clear about what you want, are you creating the life that you desire?
If yes, you usually have a great amount of motivation and energy towards it. You are here because you know that personal development will increase your ability to fulfill your desires and want to connect with people alike.
If no, maybe you are here to start and make progress into this direction. If your daily level of motivation is not as you wish it to be, then this is not because that is just the way it is. Although sometimes it may seem so and even people around us may contribute unconsciously to this limiting belief, your motivation is something that you alone are responsible of.
It is because you haven’t tapped into your deepest desires and are in the creative act to fulfill them. You don’t need to look outside to find what you want, you need first to look inside and find it and then express it into the world. You use the outside world as a feedback-system, as something that stimulates you and that shows you what works and what doesn’t work. But the impulse comes from your desire inside.
So, what is it that drives you? What do you want to create? What are you here for on earth? And how can you contribute to others?
These questions are really fundamental and to answer them is to make the first real step in fulfilling your dreams in life. Oh and by the way, I think we are able to answer the questions several times in our lives differently. This may be by new knowledge, by having fulfilled the former desires or by changing circumstances or interests. If you can tell your deep desires right now, such ones that really excite you, then you have made some serious reflection and maybe even set written goals towards them. If you currently have difficulties with your motivation and are not very happy with your live situation, then maybe we can look into the process of how to find out about your desires … (and if you know them, well then read on anyway ;))
You are allowed to desire
First I like to encourage you to really go for your desires and for want you want. Because although you know what you want, deep down you may also feel that it is a bit selfish to want that much for yourself. But rethink this thought. If you are able to create what you want, you are also able to inspire other people to go for what they want and you usually create something of value for others. This is the foundation of contribution to others, may it be by jobs, by ideas, by the products of your creative work or by inspiration.
Also there may be the fear of failing or the fear of looking foolish. Listen, is being true to yourself not the most important thing to do? And also the basis of being true with others? And as I already covered , the fear of failure is really an illusion. You have to fail, in order to succeed. Only by failing in small terms or sometimes also in big terms you get feedback of what works and what doesn’t. If you use this feedback to learn and to grow, your failures are learning experiences on your way to succeed.
So, you are officially allowed to go for your desires! ;-)
How do we reveal our burning desires?
I think it begins with recognizing what you really like, where you can’t get enough of and where you hate to stop working on. I can remember those things very early in my life. I started obsessively painting images of Disney comic-figures like Mickey Mouse or Goofy as they were shown in miniature on my private stamp collection. I later painted the floppy-discs of my Amiga 500 games and then directly in the computer, developing small graphic-intense demo-programs that I shared with my friends. Later I started websites and computer game levels in great detail. Now I have this blog here J These creative acts gave me so much joy, that I always dived totally into it. You can also call that the act of creation and being in flow, the state when you become one with what you create. I may be extreme in this direction, but I think there is something similar in everyone and the key is to discover it and then run with it. It maybe something totally different for you. Maybe it is working with other people or animals, maybe it is being in nature or a sport you like, or it is science like mathematics, astronomy. The point that I’m making here is: find out what you do with great passion and joy and almost without effort.
If we recognized this, then usually a burning desire is somehow connected with it. And this process above gives us an orientation of something that we know and that we can develop from. For instance my passion for creativity and technology developed into the desire to start something with games and with the internet. When the opportunity presented itself, I jumped on and founded a company that creates internet sites for gamers. The burning desire then was to create something outstanding here, something that fulfills me when I see it. The key here is it came right off from what I loved to do before and I developed a personal vision out of it that motivated me to stretch myself joyfully.
So if you look at what you really enjoy and what you would like to have or create, connect these two together and then develop a greater vision for this for you.
Developing a personal vision
Here comes the key to ignite your desire. If you have found an area where you are and would like to expand in the future (and again, this maybe something totally different as in my example), then your task is to create this future as clearly as you can in your head. You develop a personal vision for yourself where you see that what you desire now.
Envision this in your head and see what you want to accomplish as clear as possible. This is not a terribly easy task, you should really put a lot of energy into it, as well as emotions. The intensity of how you do this determines the degree of clarity you can gain. If you envision make your pictures big, bright and clear! You may want to draw something on a sheet of paper and especially make some notes about your vision and describe it in writing.
What then happens is something almost magic. By seeing clearly that what you desire, the brain activates a process of creation towards this vision. It is like Michelangelo seeing his statue David in the solid rock and then simply cutting off the pieces from it to reveal what he always saw in his head underneath it. That is what is called having a vision. And it is nothing spooky, it is real and a huge source for creating something extraordinary.
This kind and amount of energy that becomes activated by seeing such a compelling vision for yourself, rooted in what you truly want, is really the source of what I wrote at the beginning of the article. It is the source of an abundance of motivation to create that what you already see. Your personal vision takes control of your future: it creates it in advance.
Some additional tweaking
Another opportunity to intensify your personal drive to fulfill your desire is to commit 100% to it. I found it very interesting what happened, as I continuously decided myself to go for the next step in my vision fully, by saying no to other things. Those things were highly interesting and joyful to do, but they distracted me from what I really wanted to do and drained energy from my original vision.
You can align yourself fully with your vision by deciding this is what you commit yourself to. This is also very powerful. It feels like getting out of your way and the way of the vision to come true. It is almost like resonating on the same frequency as the thing you want to create. It is removing any inner resistance to your vision coming into existence. This also implies how you see yourself or how you see the world and is in direct relationship with removing limiting beliefs to become a No-Limit person (a term that Wayne Dyer made popular ).
The thing is if we find our desires and we develop them clearly into a vision, everything becomes easy. If you put yourself really into it, take it seriously with your best intentions for yourself, It goes up to a point where you can see your vision so clearly, that you are like on autopilot. You can act like an arrow towards your vision and that’s why you know what is right on the way and what not. Then you don’t need to think it over and ponder about decisions too long. The simple question of „Will this provide to my vision and help me on my way, yes or no?“ is answered intuitively and so you can lead yourself easily towards what you want. Where do I know this from you may ask. Because I experienced it very intensively by my own. And I loved this process of taking the invisible from inside and making it visible. It is the act of creation or of manifestation if you like and it is a source of fulfillment, wealth and happiness. You literally become a part of this creation process by deciding to do so from within.
The two biggest burning desires for me are 1) Become and stay sober and 2) Playing (and creating a fantastic) video golf. I started to do both of these but have not achieved either goal. I was sober for 18 months but have not been lately. I have written two self-help books on sobriety but neither is selling well. I have designed a 36-hole video-and-mystery-adventure game but it has not been created.
Hi Myrko,
nice to meet you.
Thank for your article. I have googled a lot in order to find an anwer to my question:
„how to grow desire inside“ and finally I found your article.
The main problem is that at the moment I have an aim but I have not desire to satisfy it even if I would like to do it. Desire it seems something we cannot control. It is something that burn us from inside.
I feel a great energy, I have many passions, many activities but I am not able to focus my energy in a unique point in order to achieve it.
You have any advice for me?
Thanks for helping.
xx
Hi Myrko, really a great article.
Peter, really good to hear that. Thanks a lot! I wish you all the success you ever wanted! :)
Myrko.. my two ambtions now in life.. 1 to achieve my recent goals and 2 too shake your hand. you have given me what ive been missing all my life..
@Agnes: It’s certainly good to know your motivations. Yes, reflect on those. For instance, if your main motivation is to show someone else that you are better… maybe you can leverage that desire and reach your goal. But then maybe that wasn’t something you would have chosen all by yourself and may in fact be the opposite of what you really want. So your burning desire is probably best when it comes from deep inside yourself, fulfilling your own needs and wants.
If you don’t feel any right now, yes that’s fine. There are phases in life, I’m sure something new is just on your horizon … :-)
What if now I don’t have any goal or burning desire for something and I am happy just to be and observe people around me? Who knows, maybe I am just building for my next burning experience. From my experience until now, in relation with people around me and with myself, I feel that is true. Also, isn’t trying to understand why you want to do that something bearing similar importance to that of knowing your goal? Should I not ask myself „What is that helping me to achieve and I don’t have it already?“ And if you find an answer, than you go for it. If you feel that you are maybe deflecting from an emotion/ simply trying to respond to a fear you have/trying to address a complex, than what? You should solve that first ( maybe by becoming a No Limit person) or is just time to take a conscious decision to go for your goal and stay aware of that emotion/fear/complex too? Or you simply discard it and strongly believe that your new goal will transform you?
real nice one Myrko,
this burning desire can be a very powerful motivating force
once someone can access it he can become motivated to do whatever he wants
thank you :)
I think its so true that „we“ are responsible for our motivation, so many times I see people not become motivated or get down on life but in reality it is they who needs to change and make something better to turn themselves around.
-Jean
Jehh thanks for the kind comment! :)
Maintaining the flame … One thing that really helps is visualizing your goal. Seeing it should excite you and make you jump out of the bed and get to work on it. That’s the kind of right goal. Maybe make a picture of it, not only in your head but in reality and put it up prominent on your wall :)
You cannot cluster your wall, that’s the equivalent to having too much goals, which means having no real goal. Maybe you need to focus a bit more on the more desirable few goals.
How many goals is enough? For me, I have 7 areas in life, and I have vision on each, and just started to aim to accomplish 1 goal for each category. That means, I will work on 7 major goals per year, is that too much? Is that an indicator that I’m not focus enough? Maybe, these goals are interconnected and help each other to make me a better ‚me‘. How do you know what is enough?
I just found you online, and on my 2nd video. I’m already learning, thanks!
You write better articles than anybody on the internet. You honestly gratify and captivate me. You inspire for the better, and you promote the dream. I just find it hard to wake up and remember my goal (95% average). I try to plaster my wall, but perhaps it’s a little too clustered now? Do you have an article that speaks directly to maintaining the flame? Haha, sounds like a rekindling marriage article, but I find that I am having the most difficulty with that. Perhaps I will be able to see what I am doing wrong. For know, I am armed with a great amount of newly found ambition and mental focus, and I hope it will forever stay this way (as I once was…grade 12 second semester=disaster)
Amazing, enlightner and great post… but.. alex had to said.. „only the ego cants things“
we are our ego
our ego is ourselves
our inner voice (unconscious) is our ego who is programed with all the information about ourselves…
so a healthy ego is, per example, i share success !!
an ill ego is, per example, team success is thanks to me because i did it most of the job
in the perspective of this post, without intention nothing will exist and intention is your burning desire.
and everything take us to the ego or your goals to became who you wanna be.
ego isn’t bad if that was what you were trying to mean
thanks !!
Only the ego wants things?
Hm yes, and if it wants things, isn’t it worth doing the best you can do to get there? I mean „it“ wants it? So how to react to it? Transcend it and say „No, the real me doesn’t want it“? Maybe, if you are really fine with it. Otherwise it seems a bit like self-delusion at least for me.
I found for myself, at the stage I am, I really like wanting. I try to want things that really give me enjoyment and others too, if possible. It’s part of my creation. I try to influence it by my spirit or soul, it is a constant dialog of spirit and mind.
I mean I’m in this world of form and I’m creating constantly. So wanting is the idea of what is good to create around me and others. And if I have a vision and want to go there, I think it’s best to make that vision as clear as possible, see it right here and put my energy behind it.
If you come from the spiritual side, wanting for the enjoyment of things or to do right action is still happening.
If you are 21 and say I want a girlfriend, how do I make it happen? I think that is a very healthy way of working on yourself :)
I have just become inspired by someone famous. They have been well sucessful, even where they started out. They just didn’t get to the top that quick. But I have a burning deep desire to learn Spanish today. Since I have this desire at this moment, should I do it?
I thought only the ego wanted things?
Loved your article…. I can feel the passion and energy behind the words… Inspiring…