How to remain motivated and excel every moment? || IIM Ahmedabad (2020)

Questioner (Q): How can one find direction in life? How to find a mission worth pursuing? How to find excellence in every second?

Acharya Prashant (AP): You have to know what you are doing. Once you know what you are doing, then the knowledge itself is the motivator. Whereas, if what is happening is happening perchance, or in an accidental flow, or in a very unconscious way, then you will very frequently feel at a loss of energy; you will not know why you should exert yourself at all, and you will require tons of external motivation. If you are somebody who frequently needs to be motivated through an external source, then you should ask yourself, “Do I really know what I am doing?”

I will come back to the word I used a while back—‘love’. If you are doing something that you know is being done because it deserves to be done, then you will not demand returns from your efforts; that knowledge, that realization that what you are doing is absolutely important makes you choiceless. And then you just do what you have to do without bothering about this or that. Otherwise, your energy levels depend so much on the situations. Just got some positive results, you feel encouraged, energized; let down by the situations, you feel demotivated, totally sapped of energy.

So, every day, maybe two times, three times, might be a good idea to question yourself: “What am I here for? What am I doing? What is this thing really all about? I don’t have infinite time. I might be young, but still all that I have left is another fifty years at most, and fifty years are nothing. In terms of historical time, fifty years is a blink. So, fifty years will just pass away like a dream. What am I spending my time for? What exactly am I doing this very moment?” If you don’t ask this question, then that which you are doing has immense power to suck you in and carry you away.