The Power of Inspirational Disatisfaction
Posted in Personal Development on October 3rd, 2007 by JennyIs something missing in your life? Do you just know you were meant for better things, yet find yourself feeling unhappy and unmotivated? If so, consider yourself blessed. Unhappiness and dissatisfaction with our current circumstances is one of the few reliable ways to recognize when we are out of alignment with our true desires and capabilities. A thorough examination of this dissatisfaction can bring the inspiration to be, think or do better.
Dissatisfaction is a general longing for something better and being unsatisfied with your current reality, no matter how good it looks from the outside. Although uncomfortable, noting the source of this dissatisfaction is an easy way in which to identify the gaps between what is and what you want in your life to bring change. This is never clearer than when one feels persistent and piercing dissatisfaction, despite living the “perfect life”. Indeed, dissatisfaction is a powerful tool that helps you to be honest with yourself.
The uncomfortable sensations that accompany dissatisfaction feel terrible. It is common to misinterpret the pain as a statement of your worth or abilities as a person, rather than see its role as messenger. The degree of pain is typically in direct proportion to the size of the problem you are hiding from. In fact, maybe you can find solace in the fact that you are actually in a much better position when your level of dissatisfaction is strong as it calls for more prompt action. It is difficult to find the drive to work to become better when you are mostly satisfied with yourself and your world except in bed late at night.
Thankfully, the pain of longing for better can become strong enough to provide you with a clear and honest source of inspiration. Inspiration does not only come from positive experiences in your life, it can sprout from highly dissatisfying things as well. Inspiration, most simply defined, is anything that that stimulates the mind or emotions to a high level of activity or feeling. To create inspiration from dissatisfaction you must be able to accept the unhappiness is just a symptom, not the problem.
If you do not use your dissatisfaction as motivation to do better you will probably use it to instead make things even worse; you may employ an attitude that says it really does not matter what you do because things are already so miserable and screwed up. Unfortunately this attitude will only create a spiral for more negative things to enter your life. If you find yourself unsatisfied on a regular basis with your life you have a good clue you are doing something wrong. By no means do you have to remain unhappy; you can use dissatisfaction to make your life better. Transform your dissatisfaction into inspiration and watch its power.
October 3rd, 2007 at 10:41 am
I’m going to have to disagree with you on whether or not dissatisfaction “is an easy way in which to identify the gaps between what is and what you want in your life”. Dissatisfaction is a general feeling, and is often hard to trace back to its roots. It IS a sign that your current actions are not aligned with your core wants and needs, but that by no means makes it “easy” to identify which gaps are causing the dissatisfaction, especially since you lie to yourself about what’s causing it in order to avoid the even greater unhappiness involved in accepting responsibility for your own actions and behaviors (or lack thereof).
So dissatisfaction can provide some motivation to change, but negative motivations rarely last. Your best chance of dissatisfaction helping you make real changes is that it prompts you to examine your life to determine what you should change, and having that then prompt you to go after your goals for positive reasons.
The “pull” of positive motivation (pulling yourself closer to what you want) is far more effective than the “push” of negative motivation (pushing what you don’t want away).
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Jason: I’m not so sure about the greater effectiveness of positive motivation. I know that in the case of social interaction, negative social interaction is more consistently linked with negative effects on well-being. While that isn’t directly relevant to motivation, it does show the greater influence of negative emotion.
October 4th, 2007 at 2:44 am
To think about dissatisfaction, and to focus on this subject, may actually do the opposite of what a person seeking satisfaction intends. As a person begins to understand the power of forgivness, this means the person has forgotten what self-acceptance means. To love and appreciate everything about yourself and where you are is to truly understand the power of love.
October 4th, 2007 at 7:19 am
A very relevant post, Jenny! And obviously it sparks some deep thought in your readers.
So here’s my two cents’ worth:
I understand inspirational dissatisfaction as that itch you become aware of. And an itch is something very specific you notice, and can scratch. We’re not talking a general malaise or dissatisfaction with life here. Realizing that you are unhappy in a certain situation can be a blessing, because it grows your self-awareness … and with greater self-awareness comes the ability to craft your life till it makes you happy.
What I find so very valuable in this post is the gift of perspective: dissatisfaction has a definite and good purpose! To see that discomfort in a positive light instead of negative … to me that is immensely empowering!
Love,
Pippa
October 4th, 2007 at 8:57 am
It’s been a while since I’ve been to visit here (must organise bookmarks and make use of RSS!) - and what a relevant post to come back to! I feel incredibly blessed to live the life I do, but there’s certainly a feeling of knowing that there’s more - that I can do more.
Inspiration is yet to strike at this point, but I am aware at least of what this restlessness signals, and I’m on the lookout for things that really ‘light my fire’! In the meantime, gratitude for all that I do have is more than enough to keep me going.
October 4th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Positive motivation is more effective because it lasts farther from the original stimuli. Negative motivation fades extremely rapidly as the original stimuli recedes. In other words, if you lose weight because your doctor told you you are going to have serious problems if you don’t, then your motivation fails as soon as you get to the point where you aren’t in that danger zone. If you lose weight because you like the feeling of being lighter, fitter, and healthier, then that motivation can continue even once you are in relatively good shape.
I know that wasn’t the best of examples, but hopefully I conveyed my point.
October 8th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
It’s never really mattered to me whether motivation came from inspiration or dissatisfaction. Although I can agree that change is longer lasting when coming from a place of motivation I think it is a mistake to downplay the importance of *any* motivation. Dissatisfaction can and often is the trigger to life-altering change.