I was thinking about motivation because of my lack of it. But that is not necessarily true. It is my source of motivations are out of balance.
I attended the Laurel Retreat this weekend and I am pretty energized right now. I actually feel like I should and can do things. But often after work, I don’t feel energized to do things. So what is the difference?
After work, I am tired. I have a high stress job. But it is also one where several people are looking at what I have done and they have opinions. My boss sees the totality of my work and she reminds me when I have made a mistake that it is just one mistake and reminds me of the things I did well and right. But my work is seen by others. They don’t see the totality of my work but because they have power and influence in my workplace, when they see my mistakes, I feel they overreact. It is de-motivating and exhausting.
In the SCA, I often feel motivated. The people I surround myself with are supportive. They like me, they think what I do is interesting, and I sometimes serve as an inspiration to them. And they are inspirations to me. They generally don’t see my mistakes because I can choose whether to show the mistakes to them.
In RPGs with my non-SCA friends, I feel motivated. We are sharing an experience. (I am often the DM). Sometimes, what I am creating is not as good as it could be but as long as we are having fun and building together, it doesn’t matter. Mistakes happen but sub-par campaign experiences can be built on, ignored, ret-con’ed, and more to make them into good campaign experiences.
Having written this, it seems my problem is there are some people in my work life whose opinions matter to me but their opinions feed my brain weasels. I don’t know that I have a good way of addressing that problem. But if I can get out from under that stress then perhaps, I can find motivation when I get home from work. As it is, I seek enough solace so I can grid my loins for another day.
