Got Motivation?
Shreya Kabir
Topper’s interviews are so interesting, right? Inspiring and full of motivation. And when you are watching such interviews, you get all charged up with energy, right? Everything seems so possible then and you start making plans of reaching to LBSNAA. As you might be reading this motivational blog section, this also would have given you lots of mental impetus to strive harder in your IAS preparation journey. Mentally actions have been taken, but have they materialised? Will they materialise?
When it comes to channelizing that inspiration you got from watching the interview into your preparation, sometimes all that remains are just the words in your head and no driving power in them. All the motivation you got from reading or watching blogs and interviews fizzles out sooner or later. Then what? Your preparation goes on with the same pace and you keep beating yourself up for lagging behind. What actually happens to that motivation?
Procrastination happens. Lack of will power happens. And ultimately what happens is pent up of frustration. Motivation if it remains only in your head and does not translate itself into your boosted up preparation, then it is of no use. One must realize that getting inspired mentally and then taking no actions in the real world of preparation, only leads to dissatisfaction and ironically to demotivation. To cover this demotivation, one again looks up for motivation and hence the cycle continues. “If you have to change your results, you have to change your thinking first”.
The key lies in generating ‘internal motivation’. No matter how much external motivation you are able to muster, no matter how many inspirational videos you watch, no matter how many people give you a motivational dose, not even a single stone will move if you don’t apply ‘your’ force on it. It’s ‘you’ who has to ultimately pace up your preparation or achieve your daily targets. And this will require you to be motivated from within. Nothing can make you work like self-motivation. If you have self-motivation and ways and methods to revive yourself from demotivation then you don’t have to rely on any external motivation.
Having said this, this does not mean that one shouldn’t seek inspiration from successful people or get a piece of motivation when in distress. This only means that, all these things will not work till you decide to take some action. And, your decision to take action comes from your internal motivation. Self-motivation is the biggest asset you can possess during this arduous preparation period. It is something that can set you apart from other aspirants. Now the question, how to generate this inner 
motivation?
That’s a very subjective question and the answer to it depends from person to person. But, one objective and major answer lies in ‘how much committed you are towards yours goals’! The desire to achieve your goals will constantly give you motivation to keep going in your preparation. Then in times of crisis, the external motivation will only rekindle your swayed commitment towards your goal of being an IAS. But, the commitment has to be yours, from within ‘you’!
-Confucius
