Light Your Motivation on Fire
Sometimes, we want to think that approaching the finish line of something should be motivation enough to keep us running towards it at full force. However, if it’s been a very long race and anyone else is involved, that’s not necessarily true.
Last week, I danced in an international folkdance festival. The week is one of my favorite experiences of the whole year. It is also incredibly grueling.
The run of the festival mirrors the natural ebb and flow of many big projects or goals. Opening night is like the start of any big project. You’re highly motivated and in a full-on dream state. The adrenaline is pushing you forward, and you feel like you can do anything. As the project moves on, however, fatigue settles in and that adrenaline? Well, it has definitely left. As the project continues, you begin to find a flow. It’s not the high energy experience of the beginning, but you find yourself making steady progress with good levels of performance. However, as the project draws to a close, interesting things can happen.
Science shows that we have a tendency to assimilate towards others when we’re working toward a specific achievement. Especially in competitive environments, it is easy for individuals to stop looking at the objective end goal and instead simply look at how they are performing compared to others. This means, if everyone on the project is tired, then the likelihood of the group banding together around a lower standard for project completion is higher. However, it also means, if the entire group is highly motived and energetic, then the energy can spread and create an even better end result. This assimilation has been shown to be especially powerful as you are reaching the end of your goal.
This means that a peak time to add a boost of motivation for a project is right before you finish it. For individuals and leaders who want to truly make it across the finish line with flair, here’s a trick that I learned at this year’s World Folkfest.
Here’s where I was at. Closing night is always a mixed bag of emotions. There is the joy of sharing our art. But there is also a budding subconscious feeling of loss because the event we have spent months working on is coming to an end. Additionally, there is physical fatigue from dancing night after night. With all of that, it is hard to anticipate what level of performance we are going to be able to deliver.
I was very intentional about this week. I had focused on balancing activities that stretched me and activities that added to my recovery. Although it was a little tired, my body felt like it was ready to perform. My spirit, however, was holding back a little. I tried meditating, and I tried chatting with friends. I also knew that since this was our biggest and most interactive audience of the week, I was hoping the audience would help add to my energy. Still, without the adrenaline and butterflies of opening night, I wondered if this performance was going to be good enough to feel like I had walked away doing my best.
Then a surprise dance number changed everything.
On closing night, the festival likes to add a little extra. We had black light performances from the Native American hoop dancers, and the audience gobbled it up. You could feel their excitement building. Then, the festival announced another surprise. Fire dancers were to be the second to last number. The energy in the festival’s park, which had already been higher than anytime previously, exploded. The sound of the drums, the heat of the fire, the smell of the outdoors, and the power of shouting “chi-hu” as group, created something truly magical. It was more than just the props that were on fire… this group lit our motivation to truly give our best. All the previous fatigue and trepidation was forgotten and our limbs buzzed as we mounted the steps for the final closing number. When the show ended, the celebration didn’t. Instead of laying down backstage in exhaustion, many dancers gathered in a circle to keep the dance going late into the night.
So, when we are reaching the end of a big project, assignment, or event, how can we add our own fire dancers to it? We need to look for ways to infuse fun, excitement, connection, and wonder into the last leg of our race. It can be just the thing we need to not just cross the finish line but to dance our way past it.
Thanks for reading with me today. I hope your motivation is lit on fire sometime this week.
References: Huang, S.-c., Lin, S. C., & Zhang, Y. (2019). When individual goal pursuit turns competitive: How we sabotage and coast. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(3), 605–620. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000170