Staying motivated with Fear, Greed and Love

This is crazy, how can negatives be positives?

Let’s take a look at the opportunities that allow us to wake up every morning. We awake to attend a business meeting, a conference call, a virtual meeting or just going to a market place to buy the vegetables, and many such activities.

What can these activities do for us?

Simply, it is a need for us to earn or complete a task that we have scheduled for ourselves. there is FEAR of underperforming and not making good with our tasks as it can lead to a negative outcome. This fear of failure is our motivation to perform and make us good with the need of completing the task. The fear of not performing or sub-performance is a good motivation tool to help us with the value that we would like to add to our lives.

What about Greed?

When we were children, we were often given bribes or targets to achieve that would motivate us to achieve the task. It could have been a toy, a food item or a product that we wanted to have like clothes or shoes or anything. These were the incentives that were given and we also give our children. This greed of getting what we wanted so desperately, helped us in performing and making good with our needs.

But love is the opposite of Fear and Greed!

True, Love is the most powerful tool of motivation but also a difficult proposition as it does not fade away. We need to understand that love has many dimensions to it and it can help us in achieving our goals for life.

Take parents as an example, no matter what happens they want to provide for their family. Food, shelter, education and vacations too. They go with all their might to ensure that the family is provided for. Sometimes both parents work and provide or just one. Either way, the love for the family allows us to think with logic and humility to achieve our goals.

Love also has a dimension in relationships, when we truly love someone. We do not look at their negatives but see their positives to justify your relationship and to be in the relationship. If we extend this love to our fellow workers and the persons whom we associate with, think of the cordial relations and the network that you can build for yourself.

Its not easy

Fear and Greed have a limited time span as you can overcome fear and greed by achieving your goals or overcoming the fear that was there for failure with repeated success in a task. so we can term these as short term motivations for us to work around the lethargic behaviour that we instil in ourselves.

Love on the other hand is long-lasting and has a strong imposition on the goals to be achieved there is less need for us to work on it, it’s more innate than the other two motivation tools. It has been witnessed that people with love are more dedicated to their work with passion and resonance to achieve than people with fear and greed cannot.

Take a personal example, when you were in school or college and there was a person of the same or opposite sex that we were attracted to and they were not. You would go out of your way to ensure their needs were met or fulfilled at the cost of your happiness. On the other hand, if the person responded to you with positivity. You would be more motivated to groom yourself, meet them or even have a smile on your face when you would think about them. It was a beautiful feeling. More importantly, you would fulfil your tasks with more vigour and determination and ensure there was the timely delivery of the outcomes.

The change that one sees in oneself with these motivations can be profound. The fear of loss, the greed of achieving more than what you need and the love for the appreciation and attraction to do a task can move mountains.

Try it, you will see the reason why you are successful or a failure. You will also learn why you do mistakes with just three counts of measure.

~Written by Roshan Dsouza, Life Consultant and Counselling Psychologist

Roshan terms himself as a life consultant because he has the experience of being an employee, running a business and counselling. Using the statistical ability and the mental prowess of a leader he helps guide business houses into profit-making decisions by harnessing their instincts with the right data. This gives them an edge into calling a bluff or making the best deal.

Also, a counsellor he works with clients with disorders and helps them find their purpose, thereby solving the problem. An avid body language study, he specializes in peoples reactions without the need for them to speak, still working on reading poker players