By Leo Babauta

This time of the year is beautiful, because it’s a fresh start. We just made it through another year, and now we get to start anew.

But I’ve been talking to a lot of people who want to find a way to motivate themselves — for discipline, productivity, creativity, meaningful work — and there’s one problem they’ve been finding, over and over …

And that’s the tendency to put off important, non-urgent actions. Let’s say you want to write a book … but you have more urgent work to do on a daily basis. Emails, messages, life tasks, fires to put out … there’s always something more urgent calling for your attention. This problem is compounded if you have an important, non-urgent project (like a book) that no one is waiting on.

So how do we find motivation to focus on the meaningful, non-urgent things that always get pushed to the backburner?

Let me tell you about Fearless Mastery — a cohort-based program starting in February that can help you activate that deeper motivation you’re looking for.

Fearless Mastery actually has three cohorts this year, for the first time: Fearless Mastery Productivity, Fearless Mastery Creators, and Fearless Mastery Business. Each is designed to be a powerful experience of coaching, support, community, structure and transformation.

And designed to help you find and activate the thing that lights you up and has you as committed as you can be.

Let’s first take a look at what gets in the way of our deeper motivation, and then look at how we can activate it.

What Gets in the Way of Deeper Motivation

Most people are motivated by things like:

  • Not wanting to miss a deadline or let someone else down (fear of disappointing)

  • Feeling anxiety about being so late with a task or project (same fear)

  • Wanting to improve themselves (fear of inadequacy)

  • Feeling like they should do the task (same fear)

  • Not wanting to look bad (again, same fear)

These are all versions of the same fear, really — the fear of looking bad, disappointing, being inadequate. It motivates most of what we actually get done (when we’re not avoiding and distracting ourselves).

But what about something you’re passionate about? What about something you care deeply about? What about wanting to express your heart, or your art? What about wanting to help others, to serve, to lead, in a way that’s helpful? What about compassion or love? This is what deeper motivation is about.

We shut that down, because it’s harder. And riskier. It’s safer to do what you’re supposed to do, what’s expected. It’s safer to avoid looking bad and disappointing people by meeting deadlines when you can.

It’s riskier to say, “I care deeply about this. It means a lot to me.” It’s vulnerable to say, “I really want to help people here. I think I can serve, and lead.” It’s scary to say, “This is an expression of my deepest self, of my huge heart.”

And so we play it safe, and shut down the possibility in our hearts. When we do open up for a bit, it’s hard and scary, so we revert back to our norm. It’s just easier.

How to Activate That Motivation

To open ourselves up to a dream, a passion, a love … this takes some courage. But people do it. The greatest things are created this way — great change in the world, movements, art, connection, community.

How do we activate this deeper motivation? Some things I’ve found powerful:

  • Be around other people who are risking themselves, and pushing beyond their comfort zones, and being courageous.

  • Get support when you’re feeling afraid, so you can open up again instead of remaining shut down. And so you can learn to bring awareness to the ways you shut down.

  • Run with a wolfpack — a group of people who’ve got your back, who will be there for you as you go through this scary place, so you don’t feel alone.

  • Have commitment and structure that will hold your deepest intentions, when life starts to get in the way and your fear shuts down your passion.

  • Create space to open yourself to inspiration — it’s all around us, but we are too busy to notice most of the time.

If you do these things, it’s hard to not have your deeper motivation become a bigger part of what you do in your life.

How Fearless Mastery Will Help

This is why I created Fearless Mastery — to help people find their deeper motivation and to come from that place more regularly, with practice and support.

Here’s how the three cohorts are set up to help activate that motivation:

  1. Wolfpack: You’ll be with a cohort of others who are putting themselves into this courageous place, committing themselves, stepping out of their comfort zones, just like you. They’ll support you, inspire you, make you feel not so alone.

  2. Coaching support: Depending on the cohort, you’ll get coaching from me alone (FM Business), me and Diana (FM Productivity), or me and Amanda (FM Creators). We’ll coach you in the weekly calls, office hours, and 1-1 coaching calls.

  3. Commitment: You’ll commit yourself to taking actions out of your comfort zone, and not stopping when you feel like shutting down. This commitment is transformative.

  4. Structure: We give you a four-month structure with weekly accountability, weekly calls, monthly practices, and more. This structure will hold you to your intentions and encourage you to open to your deeper motivation rather than going through the motions.

  5. Practice: We’ll encourage you with weekly/monthly practices that will help you create a new way of being and doing beyond your old ways. This new way of being is the deeper motivation that you crave.

  6. Focus sessions: We’ll have focus sessions available every day (sometimes more than one a day) where you can join us and others in Fearless Mastery and do your deeper work, practicing coming from this deeper motivation every day you’re able.

Activating your deeper motivation is never a guarantee. You have to be willing to go against the grain of your tendency to do what you tend to do — to prioritize the urgent or easy over the meaningful and scary — and be willing to choose into that over and over again. But we believe that Fearless Mastery will give you the boost to do that, if you decide that this is important to you. Join us!