If motivation were a fire, your goals would be the kindling and your driving factor would be the fuelwood that keeps it burning. Too often, people let fear be the driver to their success. Too often, the flame dwindles and exhausts itself. Fear is unsustainable as it is unreliable. In this video, Ashton Bishop, our CEO, shares how detrimental fear can be when using it as a source of motivation to succeed.

This is the second video in a five-part series on Sustaining Change, which he presented to ACN’s National Nursing Forum. It reveals how important it is to find a sustainable source of motivation to avoid burning out.

View the first video of the series here: 

Episode 1: Introduction to Sustaining Change: The Initial Driver

Episode 2: You are here.

Episode 3: Sustaining Change: The Fluidity of Success

Episode 4: Sustaining Change: How Purpose Influences Happiness 

Episode 5: Sustaining Change: 5 Steps to a Fulfilled Life  

The text that follows is a transcript of the video:

It all changed when I met this guy, a guy called Dave Trott, an absolute genius, and he says, “Be authentic about your inauthenticities.”

When I heard that, it took a while for it to land. What I got is that where I was coming from was still being driven by fear. I was getting results, but I was forcing my way there. It was taking energy. It was causing friction.

When I look back the expense list and what it did cost me, it cost me a cavalcade of broken relationships in my personal life and in my work life. It meant that each one of those ‘achievements’ that I put in an achievement box actually left me hollow and unfulfilled.

When I looked at my ability to sustain the change I wanted, 23 courses of antibiotics in a single year and landing in a hospital twice with pneumonia tell the story of an immune system that was shot. I was running on adrenaline, and the cost of that force was having a huge toll on me. There needed to be a better way of approaching things where I can get results but sustain the effort required.

Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash