Most people say that they are missing motivation to achieve something important for them in their lives.

And in this article, I will share with you the bottom line of motivation. And I promise you, if you listen to what I am going to say today, you will not need to surf the Internet, or search, or even watch another YouTube episode or anything relevant to motivation.

When we speak about motivation, motivation is mainly about pleasure and pain. When people are motivated to do something, it is because they are either seeking pleasure or avoiding pain.

And when we translate this equation of Pleasure and Pain to actionable items that we can follow; it is translated into three things.

These things summarize the word motivation.

And you must have these things or pass through these situations or phases in your life to feel motivated.

And these three things are ‘’a dream’’. This is point number one.

Second, ‘’the cost’’. A cost of something.

And the third is ‘’dissatisfaction’’.

Dream. Cost. Dissatisfaction.

What do these items or these words mean?

First, dream. If you do not have a dream, it's very hard to wake up in the morning and feel motivated.

You will not wake up suddenly and say ‘‘I have fire in the belly and I feel that I am motivated to go tomorrow to work’’, while you know that each day at work is the same.

So, a dream is necessary so that you feel motivated.

And it is not only about having a dream, it must be a challenging dream.

And a challenging dream means that you know that you must pass through a transformational process to achieve this big dream.

You need to feel that you are struggling and that you are changing to achieve this thing or dream.

This is what makes you feel this beautiful ecstasy feeling at the end when you achieve this dream.

If it is something easy that you can achieve tomorrow or even predict to achieve easily in one year, or if you know that sooner or later you will achieve it, then it loses its meaning, and it's not a dream anymore.

That is why it must be a challenging dream.

Because sometimes someone can say ‘’my dream is to have a BMW or a Mercedes or even to buy a house.’’ But in some countries, this is easy.

For example, in some countries, if you have just a working contract, and you go to the bank you can get financing to buy any car or any house that you want.

So, in this condition, is this really a dream?

The bar is extremely low, so there is no challenge.

You know that sooner or later when you hit a specific goal-which is signing a work contract with good money-then you will be able to get anything financed by the bank.

And in this condition, this is not a challenging dream.

So, let me ask you when was the last time that you had a dream?

What happened to your childhood dreams or university dreams? And why you cannot dream right now in this phase of your life?

If you don't have a dream, it will be very hard for you to wake up in the morning ignited, or even to wait for the morning to come so that you can start working on achieving your dream again.

So first, you need to have a ‘’challenging’’ dream.

And then when you have this challenging dream, you need to have a strategy or a plan to achieve this dream.

If you do not have a strategy or a plan, you will not wake up in the morning excited to execute because you will feel that you are lost.

How are you going to get motivated if you think, ‘‘I have a dream, but I don't have a strategy or a plan that I can follow to achieve this goal or this big dream.’’

This is the core of having a dream.

So, you must have a dream, and then you must have a strategy or a plan that you believe that if you followed it, there will be a big chance that you reach this dream.

This is the second thing or component of the dream.

And the third thing is, you must believe in yourself, and you must believe that this strategy or plan will work.

Why should you work on a plan, or why should you pursue a dream if you know deep inside you that most probably this plan will not work or that you will never achieve this dream?

If you don't have this feeling deep inside of you, this mindset that ‘‘if I execute this plan, there is a big chance, or at least 50% chance, that I can achieve this dream.’’ or ‘’this dream is possible, It's challenging. But it is possible’’, then you will not have this burning desire, this burning feeling deep inside of you, or what is called ''the fire in the belly''.

So, this is the first item or the first point. Having a dream. And the dream must be a challenging one, and you must have a strategy to achieve it, and third, you must believe that this strategy can make you achieve this dream.

The second point is the cost.

So, what does it mean?

When you know that in this phase of your life, the cost of not doing anything is extremely high, and you cannot tolerate it.

We see this all the time at the university or School, or maybe sometimes even at work. When you have an important assignment with a deadline, or when there is an exam, and you know that you must be ready by the date of this exam.

Let us say, for example, that the exam is on Friday. And you know that you have one week to be ready and to be prepared for this exam. With each day passing by, and you are still not ready or prepared, you start feeling that the cost of not doing anything now can be huge and that you cannot tolerate it.

Because you will think ‘‘If I do not study now and the deadline is coming soon, and if I don't do well on this exam, maybe I will have to take this exam again’’, or ‘’I will stay longer at the University’’ or ‘’it will impact my career’’, or something like this.

If you still have a week, on the first day of this week you can think ‘’okay I can have fun right now, and I'm not so much motivated to do anything anyway, plus that I still have six days.’’

But then after four or five days, you know that you have one or two days.

So right now, the cost of not acting immediately at this moment became extremely high.

You know that there are no other chances. If you do not act right now, you will have a lot of trouble. And this is the core of it. When the cost of not acting in a specific area is exceedingly high.

This is the second motivator.

So, to refresh your memory, the first motivator is the ‘‘dream’’ and the second motivator is that the ''cost of not doing something becomes remarkably high''.

And the third one is ‘‘dissatisfaction’’.

As an example, most of the stories that you hear about in the weight loss industry or the fitness industry are inspired by dissatisfaction. And you hear most of them saying the same things or repeating the same story again and again.

A person, appears on the screen in an interview, sharing a beautiful success story where he reduced 50 kilograms, 70 kilograms, or whatever it is.

And this person says ‘’I reached a phase where I said enough is enough.’’

Dissatisfaction. This is the power of dissatisfaction in action.

You must reach a phase when you say to yourself ‘’enough is enough. A change is needed’’. And then you get motivated to do something.

So, these are the three things together: a ‘‘dream’’ to pursue, or the ‘‘cost’’ of not doing something becomes extremely high, or ‘‘dissatisfaction’’ and willingness to change a specific aspect of your life such as your career, or your relationship, or how you look like, to the extent that you decide immediately to change now because enough is enough.

If you do not have any of these three points or reasons in your life, then you will never feel motivated to do anything. This is the bottom line.

You either have to pursue something, and you have this positive hunger of seeking pleasure in the form of an achieved dream, or you need to avoid pain. And to avoid pain you need to avoid paying a huge cost which is the second point or avoid the feeling of dissatisfaction and the anger of enough is enough.

So, it is up to you right now to think about which one in the meantime is the appropriate one for you in this phase of your life.

But I am encouraging you, from the bottom of my heart, to think about re-igniting the dreams that you had in the past.

You were born in this life to pursue something, and to do something meaningful.

And If you had a dream in the past, and maybe you did not have a lot of luck achieving this dream, search again for another dream.

Set something for yourself and aim for it and move forward in your life.

And I promise you, even if you did not achieve this dream, life will be far more meaningful.