Jennifer Lyon


Wednesday, May 26th, 2021
Jen’s Wednesday Wisdom

Selling Motivation is pretty big business these days.  You’ve probably heard all the big time gurus who’ve made millions off selling motivation: Tony Robbins, Rachel Hollis, Dave Ramsey and a quite a few others. There’s a whole slew of folks out there happy to sell us motivation. They’ll offer an online class, personal coaching sessions, workshops or expensive multi-day conference.

They swear they can motivate us to fix our body, health, job, marriage or finances in five easy steps.

We can buy motivation anywhere these days. Seriously, motivation is big business. If you’re not convinced, take a look at the diet and fitness industry. Motivation is HUMONGOUS there.

Motivation is selling a dream to the buyer while enriching the seller. That’s all fine. Motivation is a great way to jump start a project, or help us keep believing in ourselves, or sometimes, or just give us a kick in the backside. Motivational events are also great places to network with people who have similar goals.

But you know what Motivation gurus can’t sell us?

Internal Drive. We either have it for our dream goals or we don’t. It’s internal, meaning its derived from our mind/body/spirit, not from an external source. Internal Drive is the fire in our belly to do the steps to achieve our goal no matter what.

Even when it’s boring.

Even when it feels overwhelming and impossible.

Even when we make mistakes, fail and have to start over again and again.

Internal Drive will push us. Internal Drive is the voice in our head that nags us back to the project, the voice that wakes us in the night, demanding we figure out the answer to the problem.

Motivation fades away.

Internal Drive won’t let up until we finish.

So sure, when we need a small push to get over a hump,  or to network with a community who have similar goals as us, motivational gurus or groups can be helpful. They may even be worth the investment.

But when we want the staying power to achieve long-term success, we need to look inside ourselves for internal motivation.

6 comments to “Jen’s Wednesday Wisdom”

  1. B.E. Sanderson
    May 26th, 2021 at 6:17 am · Link

    Yep yep yep. All very true. And very wise. I need to figure out why my Internal Drive has stalled. Actually, it’s not stalled per se. It’s running, but nothing else is moving. Like I slipped a belt somewhere. The drive train has derailed. Somethin’.

    On a side note, when I first read the title of this post, I thought it said Jett’s Wednesday Wisdom and I thought it was going to be in the POV on your granddog. Umm… yeah, I shouldn’t try thinking first thing in the morning. LOL More coffee… STAT.



  2. Silver James
    May 26th, 2021 at 8:06 am · Link

    Did you see that you can now schedule “pay-per-view” classes/meetings/speeches on a FB page? Yuppers. AND IT’S FREE TO USE! (For the timebeing.) Eventually, you’ll pay for it because FB is all about the 🤑 honey.

    As for you wisdom, you are spot on! I saw a lot of this when I was active in writing groups. People would join, be all fired up and motivated and then they’d fall away when they realized writing a book is a job, it’s hard, and you have to dedicate yourself to it. You have to have that Internal Drive and the absolute certainty that not only is this what you want, but that this is what you are meant to do.

    It is easy to get discouraged, or Real Life creeps in and makes it harder to get back to things. If we’re lucky, we eventually figure out how to maintain that drive train and stay on track…even if it takes 3 or 4 years. Which is how long it took me to finish my upcoming release. Yeah, I wrote other, intervening books (different series) but those were hard to write too, because the Internal Drive wasn’t firing on all cylinders. The darn thing has to be nurtured just like every other important thing in our lives.

    Wise words, today Jen, and whether they are yours, Jett the dog’s, or Joan Jett’s (my first thought upon reading B.E.’s comment 🤣 ), we each have to figure out what works for us. Thanks for the boost today! 🥰



  3. Viki S.
    May 26th, 2021 at 2:44 pm · Link

    Nice positive post.

    I think I need to lube my internal drive train :). It seems to be sticking a bit too frequently.

    Sure hope you’re having a great day!



  4. Jenn
    May 26th, 2021 at 5:25 pm · Link

    B.E., It feels that way sometimes, but I suspect we’re turned to focus our drive where we need it to be in our lives :-)

    LOLOL, now those would be some fun blogs!



  5. Jenn
    May 26th, 2021 at 5:33 pm · Link

    Silver no I didn’t see that! Wow! Now that’s interesting. For sure, FB will monetize the heck out of that as soon as they hook in enough people.

    Yes, I saw it too in writer’s groups :-)

    Once, no one would have considered it odd for a book or series to take three or four years to develop. We are putting too much pressure on ourselves now in some ways. Also…it’s smart to work on other projects while the first one is percolating. You do that really well!

    Internal drive is the engine, and like all engines, it needs maintenance to keep running–which is me rewording what you said about nurturing :-) Mainly because I think of internal drive as physical maintenance like sleep, food and breaks, while I think of creativity needing more spiritual nurturing to grow and develop ideas. But I’m probably splitting hairs or something….



  6. Jenn
    May 26th, 2021 at 5:35 pm · Link

    Viki, um lube??? LOL! That made me choke, probably because I have a sex scene on my mind :-) But I totally agree that we have to keep it running. And it can get off course for sure.

    Hope your day is going well too!



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