Are You a Motivational Porn Addict?
Now that I’ve shocked your system, let's get down to business.
Motivational porn is a serious problem for many self-help connoisseurs.
But what exactly is motivational porn?
Motivational porn is the result of something good becoming perverse -- when consuming great motivational content becomes an end in itself. When the satisfaction is in the content, not the result of implementing the content.
In essence it's fantasizing about what you can do with your life instead of actually doing the actual thing. Just like pornography. Yep I said that.
It feels good to think about who we can become, so much so that we don't actually go become that person. The expectation versus reality is off base.
We become so obsessed with thinking about it that it takes all our mental energy, therefore, we end up too tired to actually do it.
Time to strip yourself (whoaaa it’s getting crazy up in here) of this and as Nike says "Just Do It".
You need to quit being a motivational porn addict and move from just consumption to application.
Being in sales I see a lot of people who have a motivational porn addiction.
They read book after book, all of which are “Amazing books!”, yet have never actually taken any of the advice from them. They continue to run on the hamster wheel of life, trying to get somewhere but in order to do that they must step off the hamster wheel.
Atomic Habits is one of my favorite books because it transformed the way I think about personal growth. Author, James Clear, says to focus on very small habit changes. Make them easy to do in the beginning so you can create the habit.
Of the people who have read this book, most would probably agree it is a phenomenal book. Yet my guess is a large percentage haven’t applied it to their own lives even if they loved it. Meanwhile, they felt great about reading it and thought, this book is so good! Then on to the next piece of content to fire them up.
This is the true essence of motivational porn.
Consuming motivational content itself is not bad. It becomes bad when you get to the point where you feel that the best course of action is another course, another book, another podcast.
In my life, I’ve taken James Clear’s principle from Atomic Habits, focusing on 1-2 small habits. I make those the sole focus of my learning and growth, and put into action small steps that will create a habit.
It wasn’t always like that.
For many years I consumed a lot of personal development. I would read every day, book after book and say; “That was a great book.” I’d place it on the bookshelf, smile and be proud that at least I am reading books to get better. It made me feel good. After a while it became motivational porn. I craved and needed that book or podcast to make me feel accomplished. I wasn’t actually making any changes in my life or applying any of the content I was reading, but I could tell YOU what to do to change your life. Meanwhile my personal growth remained stagnant.
When I made the shift to focus on forming habits, I walked away from the motivational porn addiction and stepped into a personal motivational transformation.
It's easy to get stuck in this motivational porn trap, but it's simple to get unstuck and ditch the bad habit.
Follow James Clear’s advice and start small focusing on 1-2 habit changes and you can begin the journey to ditch your habit of motivational porn and form it into doing the real thing!