Advice for those having trouble with motivation and enjoying what they do.

[Costau]

Hey everyone.

This video is a summation of the positive attitude I think CA does its best to promote to people.:)

To me learning and becoming good at anything is comparable to the Chinese finger trap metaphor. As cheesy as it may sound, the more you concentrate on struggling, stressing, and analyzing the best way to become this great famous artist, the more steps you are taking backwards. The fundamental idea of becoming as good as you can be at anything is to just relax, let go, release yourself and enjoy the actual process of learning. People over complicate this idea, due to fear of not achieving what they want to become because all they seem to be focused on is the result.

Personaly, worry has been my problem lately(the past year!). With the help of friends and studying, I finally feel good again about doing what I almost gave up on.

"You can control the action, but not the outcome."

I hope this helps whoever needs to hear it.

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Just a bonus. This guy has a great attitude as well, and favorite artist of mine.
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[armando]

Pleasure tends to be overemphasized as a motivator because many people are pop-nihilists. When your life has no meaning pain becomes unbearable, that's basic psychology.
He says that a kid learning to walk is happy because she focuses on the process. He neglects to mention that kids often cry and throw tantrums. Kids are not examples for adults to base their lives on. Kids don't have big problems because they lack developed consciousness like adults, they are problems for their parents.
Life is always a problem, and the problem starts once we become conscious. We are almost constantly in conflict with ourselves and our environment. We are disoriented and life consists in constantly reorienting ourselves. Think about the kid learning to walk, each step is a fall, and there are constant adjustments to keep balance.
Life is not a conscious choice to seek happiness. It is finding ourselves alive and needing to do things which are imposed by instinct and the environment. We have to make decisions we don't choose to make decisions.
Everyone needs faith and hope. The simplest things require it, if I want a coke then I have faith and hope that it will be in stock at the corner store otherwise I wouldn't bother going out. Our faith and hope must be in harmony with reality. I would be totally out of wack if I thought that the corner store should have ambrosia. He's selling ambrosia when he says that the "external world rearranges itselfs to accomodate the new person you are becoming".

[Costau]

The speaker did explain the kid cried. Sure, there are frustrations in life. The main problem though is personalizing it, and creating models in your head that if you don't do this YOU have no purpose and suck at life. Failure should be looked at just as a result, not a consequence. You live and learn, but the important thing is to do your best not to let it define who you are and especially not to let anyone else define or convince you of who you are.

It's very hard to accept this, cause there is no guarantee. But, if anyone would just take the time to ignore their self doubts and concentrate on the thing at hand, stuff just basically seems to fall into place.

You have to learn to trust yourself. I know it's hard to not fight this advice, when a person has convinced themselves that it is not worth it or their life sucks. We basically become our own abusive parent, and convince ourselves why we could never do something. They have to fight it though, and create the habits it takes to being a person of "worth" and positive.

It's the irony of life. If you worry, and become disgruntled over your situation, you end up becoming what you don't want. If you relax, concentrate, and enjoy your time with what you do and with the people around you good things happen.

[sodAp]

armando, "the world rearranges itself..." etc etc, doesnt mean that the world actually changes, what changes is your view of the world affecting everything you do. It surprised me that you said that.

[armando]

You're freely interpreting what he said. He literally says that miracles happen, he's not talking metaphorically, he's talking about intentionalism. Deepak Chapra and a bunch of other guys make their living talking about it.
He also literally says that our "inate nature is happiness". This is rubbish. Our natural state is finding ourselves disoriented, then struggling to orient ourselves. Most of this struggle has already been accomplished for you by thinkers throughout history, then filtered through society. You can find this idea in many many philosophies, in my opinion all real philosphies contain it. He recommends going back to the state of a child. That is impossible and bad advice. Sometimes we have to do stuff we don't want to do. We can't will our selves to be happy about it.
I just have a problem with people giving lectures but not really saying anything.

[daeyeth]

You're freely interpreting what he said.
As you are, and as everyone does. This is your own interpretation


He also literally says that our "inate nature is happiness". This is rubbish. Our natural state is finding ourselves disoriented, then struggling to orient ourselves. Most of this struggle has already been accomplished for you by thinkers throughout history, then filtered through society.
Innate nature is to be content, being ignorant of the hindsight of what sadness and struggle is. Animals may have struggles but for they're most part, they are content and not disoriented. That is the natural state.


He recommends going back to the state of a child. That is impossible and bad advice.
He recommends that happiness isn't achieving your goals, it's going after them and being content of the outcome which is out of your control.


Sometimes we have to do stuff we don't want to do. We can't will our selves to be happy about it.
Your insinuating that his speech was supposed to be some "be happy" pill for everyone, which it's not. The issue you bring up is something he doesn't address and therefore completely irrelevant. There are variables to everything ppl say in a lecture and it is impossible to address them all. That's why lectures are focused on specific problems. In this case, he is very specifically talking to business or corporate ppl and addressing their common issue of not being satisfied with what you have, always wanting more, and being depressed when you can't get it.

That's it. That's the only thing this lecture concerns. If you can apply that to other facets of life, great. If you can't, that takes nothing way from his advice as he wasn't talking about that issue to begin with.


I just have a problem with people giving lectures but not really saying anything.
You have a problem with the lecture not saying anything to a different issue, other variables, which he isn't concerned with and isn't addressing in the first place. You didn't agree with things he said and therefore he's not saying anything to you. That's too bad. But you're not everybody and some ppl will be able to take something away from what he's said. He said something, just not to you apparently.

[c0ffee]

The talks about accepting world as it is, without comparing it to something else is similar to "thinking on the right side of the brain".
To go into this state person has to overwhelm left calculating side of the brain by listening to music, sometimes speak.
The child age is a nice example of free mind, because it's still on the road where non-stereotypical right side of mind works for gathering thinking templates which left side uses.

[velderia]

"You can control the action, but not the outcome."



You live and learn, but the important thing is to do your best not to let it define who you are and especially not to let anyone else define or convince you of who you are.

...

It's the irony of life. If you worry, and become disgruntled over your situation, you end up becoming what you don't want. If you relax, concentrate, and enjoy your time with what you do and with the people around you good things happen.
I didn't watch the videos yet because I don't really have my headphones on, but overall, these things are pretty true to me. I'm just starting to learn them though. I have a nasty habit of letting people judge me for my own personal decisions or letting them make decisions for me, and taking them way too seriously. Following that habit just makes me beat myself up mentally (and sometimes physically) with no progress. It's not until recently that I said "I care, but I don't care, so I'm just going to do what I've always wanted to do", and I'm slowly seeing results, and I've improved over a few months more than I did in the past two years.

Even then I've had my moments but that's only because history tends to repeat itself. : P

[Baron Impossible]

Only watched the first one but he quickly showed himself to be what he is - a motivational speaker. Nothing wrong with that but it shouldn't be confused with any serious analysis. On the surface it sounds like sense but it has no real substance and doesn't stack up. A number of philosophers / psychologists have taken the view that happiness is natural state and that the drudgery of everyday life should be considered abnormal, such as Abraham Maslow and later Colin Wilson (nuttier than squirrel shit but very sharp), but their reasoning has little to do with any "if... then..." premise. In fact Maslow's reasoning was almost the opposite, that people need to achieve certain things in order to reach genuine happiness, or self actualisation as he called it. I have my own ideas but I'll spare you.

[sodAp]

i think thats the point. motivating people to do things and stop worrying so much. It's helped me for sure

[Nibras]

To me learning and becoming good at anything is comparable to the Chinese finger trap metaphor. As cheesy as it may sound, the more you concentrate on struggling, stressing, and analyzing the best way to become this great famous artist, the more steps you are taking backwards. The fundamental idea of becoming as good as you can be at anything is to just relax, let go, release yourself and enjoy the actual process of learning. People over complicate this idea, due to fear of not achieving what they want to become because all they seem to be focused on is the result.

That's just brilliant.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this and to share what has helped you with others.
What you've said there has just cleared up a couple of things for me, I've been thinking about this idea but I just couldn't seem to place it by myself and this has really helped.

Thanks again and best of luck with whatever you do

[Crane]

You don't have to take everything he says literally, or even agree with 99% of it, I guess its like art, everyone is gonna take what they need from this and likewise sources.

Its RAS

'Part of your brain is known as the Reticular Activating System - or RAS. Your RAS plays a vital part in your ability to achieve goals.

What is this RAS?

Imagine that you're walking through a busy noise airport passenger terminal. Think of all the noise - hundreds of people talking, music, announcements, luggage carriers. How much of this noise is brought to your attention? Not a lot. True, you can hear a general background noise, but not many of us bother to listen to each individual sound.

But then a new announcement comes over the public address system - saying your name or maybe your flight. Suddenly your attention is full on. Your RAS is the automatic mechanism inside your brain that brings relevant information to your attention. '

While most of what is said is just blah blah blah, something along that line will jump out at you and you'll be like 'FUCK YEAH!! now I get what (whatever you were having trouble with)'

Its all good and well if you don't agree with what he says, you don't really have to write a speech saying X is wrong and blah blah, in short, Its really not what was said, but what is taken away.

Personally, im always looking for motivation, but never for conflict.

[Nibras]

Crane "Fuck yeah! Now I get why I only remember some stuff"
:P Very awesome.

And I just watched both videos, I agree a hell of a lot more with what he has to say in the second video and it does make quiet a alot of sense when you think of it in terms of painting.
If you really dedicate yourself to the process and to just painting your ass off the outcome is much greater then if you were focused on nothing but what the end result would be.

[Whirly]

If I was to over simply this would I be right in saying: (not actually fully watched vids yet so pre-emptive post here)

Drawing because drawing is fun is better that drawing to become a good artist.

This is because drawing to be a good means stressing over the correct way, not doing well, researching etc

Sound right? ..... if so I am so doing it wrong! lol

[Whirly]

seems very much like an extension of "its the journey not the destination" and "live for today not yesterday or tomorrow"

For a paradigm to be repeated so much there must be some truth here.

[Costau]

That's just brilliant.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this and to share what has helped you with others.
What you've said there has just cleared up a couple of things for me, I've been thinking about this idea but I just couldn't seem to place it by myself and this has really helped.

Thanks again and best of luck with whatever you do

Wish I could have realized this at your age, glad I could help. Good luck.