Video: Podcast #36 Motivating Yourself

Introduction:
Thanks for clicking on Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling. I’m Curtis Smith and I invite you to subscribe to our podcast and to like and share it as well. I hope you enjoy today’s episode.

Podcast #36:

Curtis: Hi everyone, and welcome to Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling. I’m your host Curtis Smith. Today on the podcast we are joined by Mike Megonnell. Mike is one of the great counselors here at Crosswinds Counseling. Mike or Michael, I’m going to call you both. Michael does not care and my mind sometimes just goes back and forth. So Michael, let’s jump in. We’re talking about motivation today. What does that topic mean to you as a counselor? 

Michael: Well, I think what it means is evaluating why you’re not doing something or like I – the thought as I was thinking about it I was like, we really need to in my opinion, rethink motivation as a culture. Or like how it’s popularized, because there’s always a reason why you’re doing something and the issue isn’t that you’re – not that you can’t do it, or that it’s something like impossible for you to do. There’s a very, in most cases, and I would probably venture to say in all cases, there’s usually a pretty like deep reason, or an underlying reason why you’re not doing something. So. Usually when I talk to my clients, and they’re like you know they have something that they want to do, like let’s say, ‘Oh, I want to watch my eating habits,’ or something like that. It’s like okay, ‘Well, what do you know, what’s your plan for doing that?’ And they talk through their plan, and then they just can’t seem to execute it. They can’t get over the hump, and you know, and um usually what they’ll do is start beating themselves up. ‘Oh, I’m just so lazy.’ ‘I’m just so stupid.’ ‘Oh, I’m just so this.’ And um one of my therapists that I listened to like online and stuff, I loved how he worded [it]. He said, ‘You’re a bad boss, and a worse employee.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, what does that mean?’ And what he meant by that was you know we have the part of ourselves that’s the boss, that tells us what to do, and then the employee part doesn’t listen. And then what does the boss do? Just berate the employee for being a stupid lazy employee, and he was like well instead of doing that, why don’t you sit down and have a conversation with the employee, and ask yourself, ‘Okay, why am I not doing this? What’s really going on?’ And then inevitably you’ll always get to a deeper issue. I might – and so my surface level issue that I usually go to is walking my dog. So probably about a year and a half ago I knew I needed to walk my dog, and I would get home from work and I would sit down on the couch and then I would watch my dog run around the living room and you know look at me with those puppy eyes, and I’d be like ‘I ain’t going man. Ain’t happening.’ You know, and so I just learned that – like heard the my – the therapist say this and so then I was like okay well let me sit down and have a conversation with myself. So, I sat there, and I was like, ‘Okay, what do I not like about taking my dog for a walk?’ And the first thing that came to my mind was I hated the park by my house. Like on one hand it was like, ‘Oh, this is really convenient.’ It’s the park. It’s literally like right next to my house. 

Curtis: Yeah. 

Michael: So why wouldn’t I like going there? Well, I grew up on a farm where if we were taking the dog quote quote “for a walk,” that meant I hopped on a tractor, drove back over the field, and the dog just ran with me, and I didn’t even know where the dog went, and then I’d come back and the dog would be there. And I’m like, ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing for the past two hours, but I had fun.’ So, I was like I hated having my dog on the leash, and I hated like just, I wanted to go for a walk, and just like get my mind off of stuff, but because there were other people in the park, because it was a populated – it was a popular park, like I would constantly have to be worrying about, ‘Okay where – what’s my dog doing? What’s my dog engaging with and stuff like that so once I realized that I was like, ‘Oh, there’s a cemetery not too far away.’ So I can put my dog in the car and drive to the cemetery, and then the dog, I can have the leash, and I can just walk around the park and the dog can wander off and do whatever the heck the dog’s doing, and you know if they get too far away, I’ll call them back and things, but that was a lot more freeing to me, and a lot less stressful, and so then I just honestly, that’s still something that I do to this day is, if I can, I will take my dog to the cemetery and I will walk around. And that is just such a peaceful thing for me to do, and I enjoy it, and like so it made the task easier, and it’s funny because again I could have just sat there and berated myself on why am I not taking my dog for for a walk. ‘I’m just so lazy.’ ‘I’m just so this.’ And it’s like, no, there was specific reasons that I could remove to do that. 

Curtis: Yeah, so it’s sometimes it sounds like there’s motivation, why we do something, but sometimes maybe it’s about getting to the root of what’s the lack of motivation. What’s the barrier here? What’s keeping you from being motivated to do what you know you should do? 

Michael: And yeah, like that’s a good example of like just practical things where I was like, okay you know, and again it’s funny, they’re rooted and I say practical, but they were rooted deep into like how I function as a person. You know, like, I grew up without having to worry about keeping a dog on a leash and stuff so that was really a pet peeve of mine, but then you can get a lot deeper. So, like I go into like, all right, calling an insurance company. I hate calling insurance companies you know 

 Curtis: I think most of us understand what you’re talking about. 

Michael: Absolutely, but so you know I – was like something that I needed to do, and on one hand you can say, ‘Oh, this is a simple task. Like I just need to dial a number, and then just talk to them.’ Well, I just couldn’t do it. Like I couldn’t find myself, like I couldn’t bring myself to do it. And as I dug into it, it was like, oh there’s a fear element here. And like for me the fear of inadequacy is huge. And like so when I thought – it’s funny because again, you get deep with this stuff. And it’s like, ‘Okay. So, I’m afraid.’ So when I think about calling the insurance company, I’m afraid of looking stupid because I have no idea what to say to an insurance company, cuz, you know, I just don’t really think about that stuff on a daily basis. So, it was like okay, now I have this obstacle, and it wasn’t a practical obstacle. It was a obstacle of one of my deep issues of that fear of being inadequate. And so, then I was like okay now I need to contend with this. So then I would go through and do like my different exercises. When, like how do I face my fears and overcome it?  

Curtis: How much, I’m curious – how many, when you’re with patients and with clients, how many times are they aware of what the problem is? Or how much of it is getting them to be aware, oh this is connected to some deeper rooted fear of inadequacy or something else? How much of it is you having to explore that? Or how much of it is, they usually come in with some awareness of it? Is it a 50/50 kind of thing, or do you find that most people aren’t even aware of why they’re lacking the motivation. 

 Michael: It’s interesting because I would say, I would say we always know what the problem is. It’s just a matter of am I willing to let the truth be said, you know. So, I would say it’s that obstacle of like, am I willing to admit to myself and to the world? And like just, am I willing to admit that this is what the problem is you know. So even using my example of the insurance stuff. Like part of me just cringes at that, you know, and I can’t. And so that part of me is working super hard to do everything I can to come up with excuses, and come up with reasons why I don’t just surrender the fact that I’m afraid, you know. And it’s funny because then you can link this to what God calls us to. The truth will set you free. He doesn’t want us to be – He doesn’t want me to be unafraid. He doesn’t want me to you know, pretend to be some kind of awesome, you know, know-it-all kind of thing. That’s pride. He wants me to be humble. He wants me to ask Him for help you know, and that’s – I can’t tell you how. It’s funny because like leaning on God and casting our anxieties, and just any – all those roadblocks, those things that get in our way. Like that’s what it’s about. And you know, so again, it’s like if you sit there, and I would say do some contemplative prayer and say, ‘Okay, God what’s the problem?’ Inevitably, He will tell you. You know, it’s just a matter of like, ‘Okay do I – how do I work through the obstacles and the things that I’ve put in place to hide the truth for me?’ Because that’s the other thing too, is like we put things in the way to protect ourselves from the truth, you know. And I don’t shouldn’t air – use air quotes, it’s like, no, the reason why we hide from those things that rob us of our motivation, if we want to use that word is because it’s a dragon. It’s a scary monster that we do not want to face, you know. And so again, using the simple examples of an insurance company. Like fear is a huge monster for me. In my life I am always afraid that I will be inadequate. I will always [be] afraid that little Mike, Little Mikey, that’s why my family always called me, will not be strong enough to do what’s called on him to do. And it’s funny because it goes all the way back to my childhood. I was the youngest in my family and everyone else, like 12-13 other people were older than me, and they weren’t all my siblings, they were my cousins and stuff like that, but then I’m growing up as a little kid watching 16-18 year-old athletes, most of them became collegiate athletes. So just awesome guys just handle stuff and then here’s Little Mikey. I can’t pick up a hay bale, you know. I can’t – I don’t know how to you know, butcher a cow. And so I was like, ‘Okay, I can’t do these things.’ And so, then the fear became, I won’t be able to do anything, you know, and what’s funny is that’s why I became Christian because… 

Curtis: Really. 

Michael: Yeah because the – when I heard the gospel message, I heard God say, ‘I can do something with you, and I want to do something with you.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, sign me up.’ 

Curtis: Yeah, that’s powerful Michael. Thank you so much. If you would like to get to the root of maybe why you have motivation issues, or a lack of motivation, Michael is one of the wonderful counselors here at Crosswinds Counseling, and you can find them all at crosswindscounseling.org. Mike thanks again for being on the podcast today. Thank you for joining us. We’ll see you next time on Conversations with Crosswinds Counseling.  

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