Always Tap to Your Sources of Motivation

I was requested by @pinoy.viajero to talk about tips and tricks on how to produce quality content. Instead of talking about quality content last Sunday on our 3rd community meeting, I talked about a lot of stuff that I forgot most of them. But one thing stuck to my mind: Monetary rewards as a source of motivation is not sustainable. Why? Because it's dependent on both token value and the amount of upvotes you get. This leads me to this post.

The title says it all. In order to stick to the level of quality and consistency in your posts, you have to be always connected to your sources of motivation. Take note: SOURCES. Meaning, money as a sole source of motivation why you're here will only take you to a certain extent.

When the token value is high, the blockchain is too busy with a lot of people posting and commenting. When it goes down, slowly people will leave until only a few will remain. The cycle will continue until the next bull run. Why is that? My guess is that some people are only after the value that they can extract from the blockchain instead of thinking long term and assessing what value can they bring to the blockchain.

I can talk about Tragedy of the Commons and how thinking short term and thinking of ways to maximize extraction of value are not sustainable, but that would be a bummer so, I'll just talk about myself and my motivations.

So, why post this?

Well, I have to remind myself of why I am still here. Some of you might have been inspired to continue blogging regardless of payout, but we have to be honest that low payout makes us sad especially if we have worked hard just to create a single post. In this post, I'll share to you what I did to overcome those times of sadness and uncertainty of whether to continue or stop everything entirely.

Background

To be honest, I have been demotivated to post lately. It's not because the payout of my posts have been low. Trust me; I have been through that part. I just don't know why I lacked the motivation when I just talked about some inspiring stuff last Sunday. It's ironic that when I lacked the motivation, I talked about it and even made a post just to break my non-posting streak.

By the way, was my talk really inspiring? I don't know because as I said, I barely remembered anything. They said they were inspired so I guess I still had an ounce of inspiration left in me. Maybe Splinterlands partly to be blamed. I got addicted with playing the game that I have no time left for posting. It's all because of you @pinoy.viajero! HAHA

When we talk about lack of motivation, I had countless of episodes in the past. When bidbots are rampant, I barely posted anything because I didn't have enough strength to continue posting despite the lack of engagement. I stick with my commitment that I would not use bidbots so, I got stuck. I couldn't force myself to post mediocrity either. I could choose to post anything that I could think of, but that would ruin my brand. I had a dilemma back then that I to choose between two different poisons. Good thing I ended up choosing my principles.

All those experiences I had in the past made me figure out some things about myself and how I behave in certain situations. It made me figure out some tricks to make myself stick to my own principles.

Sources of Motivation

I can also talk about intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, but I would just leave them to your own research. I would say though that a good balance of both is good, but intrinsic motivation is way better than the extrinsic one.

Take note that these sources are in the context of consistency of posting, but it can also be applied to any area of your life. Wait. I feel like I'm already talking in circles so, here are some sources of my motivation:

1. My Future Self

Wait, whut!?

Yes! My future self is one of my sources of motivation. Psychology might call this as Motivation of Growth and Achievement. I am accountable to my future self. In terms of blogging, everyone knows that I want to be good at this. I want my future self to be proud of me so I should continue blogging. There's no other way to be good at something, but continue doing it everyday.

I want something that I could be proud of at the end of the day. That's why I stick to my brand and continue honing my skills in my chosen niche. As I have said in the meeting, blogging is an iterative process and you should get better the more you do it. You future self is just a better version of yourself. That's how it should be, at least for me.

2. My Post Rewards

Do I have to explain this further?

I mean, let's not be hypocrite here. We all want to earn something from our posts. This is called as Motivation of Incentive/Reward. As long as there's an incentive to post, this will continue to be part of our motivations to post no matter how we deny it. I'm not claiming to be a saint that I'm not enticed by the rewards. After all, it's money and it means food for my family especially in this trying times. BUT as I have said, it shouldn't be the sole source of your motivation because you will really get exhausted chasing for upvotes.

I thought of how many rewards I missed when I'm not posting, but it should not be big enough that I would sacrifice the quality of my posts. It should be just enough that together with the other motivations, you will be compelled to continue posting.

3. Engagement in My Posts

This one's underrated.

We all want to have a sense of belonging. This is called as Motivation of Social Belonging. In my case, I value comments in my posts as much as the amount of upvotes that's why I always spend time to reply them. Some often underestimated the value of thoughtful comments in their posts. Engagement should be a strong enough motivation to post. After all, we are a social blockchain. No matter how big the upvote is, without thoughtful comments, it's just half as successful as it's intended to be.

If you'll ask some whales, they would say that some posts have value not because of the post itself but because of the discussion under it. People with thoughtful comments should be cherished. They add value to your posts in ways you cannot even imagine. Comments are also a good way to gain friends. I met @hiddenblade here because one of us commented in one of our posts. I'm not sure, but I think it was me who commented in one of her art posts. And the rest is herstory.

4. My Influence

Just a dash of this and you'll be fine.

We all want to have some influence in one way or another. This is called as Motivation of Power in a sense. That's a given, but we should be careful with this. The term "influencer" has a negative connotation with it because some people fall on the allure of its grandeur that eventually led to their demise. You get what I mean?

You have to be careful with this in a way that it shouldn't get into your head. I always remind myself that I'm responsible for my actions and should be accountable to its consequences.

How does this relate to posting consistently? Well, your posts have some influence over the people who read it. You might not be able to measure it, but it's there. That's why you have to carefully choose the kind of post you have because you should influence positively.

5. My Fears

I think this should balance the motivation to influence.

I have a lot of fears and the fear of being irrelevant is one of them. That's why I am motivated to post content that would inspire others. My travel posts should inspire others to visit Cebu and the Philippines. It should showcase the beauty of our country. Did it work? Maybe. I have some comments from international travelers that the Philippines became part of their list of countries to visit because of my posts. This motivated me to continue posting about our country.

The fear that I might influence others negatively keeps me grounded. I should continue to assess myself where I am in terms of inspiring others through my posts. I am far from being an "influencer", but being able to inspire others should be enough.

What do you think of my pep talk? Let me know in the comments below. Please feel free to comment anything, including pointing out inconsistencies in my post. I'll gladly accept them as they might trigger meaningful discussions. I guess that's all for this post. See you in the next one and stay motivated!

_{Note: Images and designs are from Canva.}

Kim Ybañez

_{Welcome to Kim's small corner in Hive. He is a chemical engineer by profession, but a blogger by passion. He is a wanderlust and an adventure seeker. Join his quests as he visits secluded destinations, climbs mountains, tries new and exotic dishes, and explores his country (The Philippines) and the rest of the world even if he's still a poor corporate slave with tons of bills to pay and two siblings to support in college.}

_{If you like my content, don't forget to upvote and leave a comment to show some love. You can also reblog if you want to. Also, don't forget to follow me to be updated with the latest posts.}