What motivates you? Something motivates everyone. If this wasn’t the case, everyone would be growing lumps in their belly watching reruns of Gilmore Girls. What gets you off the couch? That is what I call motivation. This will probably sound really sad, but I am talking about the motivation slice of my life, so take that into account. If I didn’t have other distractions in my life, such as college, work, or friends calling to hang out, I probably wouldn’t mind sitting and watching Gilmore Girls all day. Well not Gilmore Girls, I would probably start on 24 or House. But the point is, why do anything to complicate my life? This is what we call “a lack of motivation”.

But now, I find that I am not constantly turning the television on for entertainment. (Maybe because I can’t understand Japanese that well quite yet.) And I am not reaching for the internet to check the latest news on the blogs and social networks. (Maybe because I don’t have internet in my room and instead have to take my laptop out to the common area to get internet. Lazy me.) What do I do with all of my free time? The first few months, it was hanging out with friends. But on the two month anniversary of my arrival in Japan, I realized that I still had zero confidence in striking up a conversation with a Japanese person and my vocabulary really needed some work. I realized that waiting for the trophy to come to me would mean never getting the trophy. Actually, the real cause was the realization that survival in Japan meant getting serious about studying. Awesome, a problem, and one with an easy solution. Studying.

My solution: Reject friends who value fun over studying. After school, I blockade myself in my room studying grammar and vocabulary. (Studying is a great excuse to stay home from social situations.) After maybe two weeks of some hardcore studying, I am already starting to feel the studying paying off. After studying a ton of grammar, although I can’t use it fluently, I feel like I can better express myself when talking and better understand others when they are talking. If I had not taken an initiative to learn more on my own, learning only what they teach in class every week, then I would probably still be back at the starting line in the great race to fluency. Your study method may be different, but I know that mine is learning by the book, and by cross-referencing what they tell me with every other book I can get my hands on. Research, baby, it makes you learn.

So, in summary, sometimes the best motivator is realizing that waiting for what you want to come to you will leave you in the back of the pack in the Great Race (I’m competitive, everything is a race to me). This internal motivation is the best motivation, this feeling of inferior-ness and need to survive is a real driving force. (Curiousity also helps a lot.)

Now you tell me, what do you think is a great motivator? What motivates you? Is the best motivation really the kind that is life-threatening? What are your theories? Money? Women? Drop those thoughts off in the comments.