I needed to read this. I grew up on dark motivation and physically cringed at the idea of being motivated by happiness and positivity (I was quite an edgy teenager as I'm sure you can guess!)
Now in my late 20's, the pandemic plus all the years of accumulated negative energy seem to have broken the camel's back. I burned out hard over the last two years and I've had trouble picking up the pieces. But the motivational techniques you mentioned ring quite differently now than when I was younger and I think that's the path I'll want to pursue from here on out. Appreciate the thoughts.
Going from being a very motivated worker to burnt out can be psychologically challenging, and people around you often don’t seem to understand that your burn out can last for longer than a few weeks.
Some other books helping me in my journey are Upward Spiral by Alex Korb and Feeling Great by David Burns
I'm quite interested in this exchange, because I've noticed that a lot of very successful people saying they had strong dark motivations early in their career, but are now very glad to have much healthier sources of motivation. The pattern is so consistent I can't think of many high achievers that I know for a fact weren't driven by dark motivations in some early stages of life.
I've developed the theory that explicit preponderance of dark motivations might have knock-on effects in shadow integration that are hard to get elsewhere - any thoughts from those who recognise this pattern?
Now in my late 20's, the pandemic plus all the years of accumulated negative energy seem to have broken the camel's back. I burned out hard over the last two years and I've had trouble picking up the pieces. But the motivational techniques you mentioned ring quite differently now than when I was younger and I think that's the path I'll want to pursue from here on out. Appreciate the thoughts.